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Abstract

Academic research hinges on the role of epistemic peers in order to evaluate newly presented claims and evidence. As social work research is often focused on social problems and systems of oppressions, scholars from the margins most impacted are even better poised to conduct and evaluate said research. Throughout the past few decades, social work scholars have adjusted the ways we teach about and conduct research in order to be increasingly critical of the status quo and more culturally attuned. However, many of the adjustments that are recommended (e.g., community advisory boards) assume that the researcher is an outsider to the community being researched. Trans-focused research is an area where this impact is especially glaring, as an influx of out-trans researchers are able to join the field. This article provides an overview of the concepts of epistemic peers and standpoint theory before describing community-engaged research processes in order to illuminate how these practices (re)produce harm and/or are built on assumptions that the researchers themselves are not trans/nonbinary. In order for trans scholarship to continue to grow and produce the most culturally attuned results, social work academia must foster and prioritize trans epistemic peerhood.

Epistemic peers are individuals who are equally as good as one another at evaluating a certain claim or set of evidence (Gutting, 1982). Piñeiro (2021) places the concept of epistemic peerhood in conversation with standpoint theory, arguing that there are instances where marginalized individuals are uniquely attuned to the social context surrounding some claim or evidence. Thus, in order to accurately assess evidence, claims, and policies affecting marginalized individuals, it is necessary to treat individuals from those specific margins as epistemic superiors to those who do not share the same “peer” status. Placing a trans lens on this theoretical framework, this paper will argue that 1) many current “best practices” and methodologies used in social work research must be reconsidered from an epistemic peer standpoint centered on trans scholar-activists and 2) claims related to trans individuals and communities in social work scholarship can be more accurately ascertained by the use of knowledge developed from the specific status locales at which trans individuals live.

Beginning with exploring epistemic peers as a philosophical framework and orientation to the ways trans researchers conduct their work and trans research is produced, this paper will draw on two projects as illustrative case studies. As to my own positionality, I approach this work from the perspective of someone who is white and German-American and often mistaken as cisgender and non-disabled. As a critical social worker and community organizer for the past 20 years, my goal is not to do research for the sake of curiosity; rather, I aim to produce work that provides grassroots organizations with usable data and research findings that contribute to multiple systems-level changes that better the lives of multiply marginalized individuals and communities, with a specific focus on trans communities.

Foundations of Epistemic Peers as Philosophy and Practice

Epistemic Peers

Epistemic peerhood as a way to discern which individuals are equally as good as one another at evaluating a certain claim or set of evidence, and under what conditions, continues to be much discussed (Gutting, 1982). Although earlier uses of the term focused on individuals being equal in terms of their “epistemic virtues” (e.g., intellectual rigor, inquisitiveness) (Gelfert, 2011; Gutting, 1982), additional qualifiers are now part of dominant contemporary discussions. Perspectives differ on what conditions must be met in order for two individuals to be considered epistemic peers, two mostly-agreed-upon criteria exist: 1) the individuals must be equally familiar with or have equal access to the evidence under consideration, and 2) the individuals are equal in intelligence, freedom from bias, and similar epistemic virtues (Christensen, 2009; Kelly, 2005). Although epistemic peers should exhibit comparable levels of reflexivity, epistemic peerhood is not a binary—it comes in degrees (Gelfert, 2011). That is, when a peer review of a graduate student's paper is conducted by a tenured professor on a topic they both specialize in, the professor may well be an epistemic superior (Cruz & Smedt, 2013). Although such peers will not always come to the exact same conclusion based on the same evidence, it is still important that they agree on what counts as evidence, what is important to “get right” and be aware of their limitations (Wald, 2010).

In the fields such as philosophy, sociology, and social work, there are many issues that even experts do not agree upon. Disagreement does not inherently negate one's standing as an epistemic peer to another; it is unavoidable that epistemic peers, when presented with the same evidence, may not always reach the same conclusion. In the face of such disagreement, an individual may react somewhere along the spectrum of conciliation (becoming less confident in one's stance) to steadfastness (maintaining one's confidence) (Christensen, 2009). Disagreement between peers can lead to a generative deeper scrutinization of the evidence and arguments (Kelly, 2005).

There are many kinds, or orders, of knowledge and, therefore, many kinds of knowledge on which individuals may be epistemic peers (Freeman & Stewart, 2018; Martin, 1957). Alongside other mental health provision fields, social work generally recognizes the importance of the role that knowledge from “lived experience” plays in education and practice (Bell et al., 2006; Beresford & Boxall, 2012; Duffy et al., 2013; Happell et al., 2015; Irvine et al., 2015). This firsthand experience of receiving social services can provide students and practitioners with “unique insights that facilitate professional compassion, expand understanding, challenge negative and stigmatizing attitudes, and facilitate skill development” (Dorozenko et al., 2016). Applying this to the context of academic research, this paper will focus specifically on the kinds of knowledge discussed in standpoint theory.

Integrating Standpoint Theory with the Concept of Epistemic Peerhood

Standpoint theory argues that members of marginalized communities can offer unique insight and understanding into the lived experiences of their group members or social identities (Harding, 2008; Hill Collins, 1986). Specifically, feminist standpoint theory argues that knowledge is socially situated and those at the margins are epistemically privileged when it comes to analyzing and understanding historically structured issues of privilege and power (Feminist Standpoint Theory, n.d.). These positions are not static; rather, one's sociopolitical standpoint shifts depending on one's contextual relation to the status and power of others, including among their own identity peer group. This standpoint can function as an analytic tool for deeper analysis of not only one's own culture but also of the oppressor classes and the entire social structure. Individuals in positions of social privilege are more likely to develop “epistemic vices,” resulting in gaps of knowledge and understanding regarding the experiences of those not in the same position of privilege (Medina, 2013, pp. 28–39). Conversely, members of oppressed groups may develop epistemic virtues, thereby able to “contribute to a greater social awareness overall” (Medina, 2013, pp. 40–44). Knowledge from epistemic peers at the margins, then, is integral to the goals of social work praxis that aims to address and prevent oppression on all levels.

Conducting Social Work Research in Community Partnership

Professional values and ethics guide not only social work practitioners but also social work research and researchers. The American Academy of Social Work & Social Welfare calls the profession to action by focusing our research, policy, and practice on the Grand Challenges for Social Work (2022). Specifically, achieving equal opportunity and justice calls on social work researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to “address social stigma by conducting research and raising awareness of contributions to inequity, facilitating information, education, and social marketing campaigns that seek to reduce and change the false narratives that exist about stigmatized populations” (Grand Challenges for Social Work, 2022). Social work's Grand Challenge to Close the Health Gap points to social work's role in “develop[ing] a socially-oriented model of healthcare that breaks down and removes the root causes of health inequity and promotes upstream interventions and primary care prevention that will eradicate the gap that exists for marginalized populations” (Close the Health Gap, 2021). Another Grand Challenge, to achieve equal opportunity and justice, directs social workers to work to “change the false narratives that exist about stigmatized populations” and dismantle inequalities (Grand Challenges for Social Work, 2018). The National Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics stresses both social justice and practice competence, as well as the expectation that social work researchers “report evaluation and research findings accurately” (NASW, 2021).

Social work scholars have attempted to lessen the harm of research by conducting research in more culturally sensitive, respectful, and relevant ways. This has gone beyond obtaining Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval to including positionality statements in manuscripts, integrating social justice values into research curriculum, and adding social justice components to existing methodologies (Matsuzaka et al., 2021; Mendoza et al., 2021; Vincent, 2012). In order to align our research practices with our professional ethics, social work researchers also often partner with community members/organizations in order to ensure we are indeed collecting data and reporting findings that are relevant and of interest to communities first, and not primarily to benefit the interests, agendas, or ambitions of researchers themselves. Engaging community members to not only participate in but also lead, collaborate, define, and write reports about research with their own communities is a key example of community-engaged research. This can be achieved not only through research project Community Advisory Boards (CABs) through which research teams are accountable to or in close partnership with their community sites but also by implementing the suggestions of CABs or organization members (Alegria et al., 2017).

Action research, with roots in academia dating back to the 1940s, seeks systemic or policy change through simultaneously conducting relevant, community-driven research with action-based outcomes that implement key study results (Neill, 1998). Community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) is one of the most significant and oft-employed methodologies reflecting the commitment of dedicated community-based researchers to engaged, relevant, collaborations in the research endeavor, and a multitude of indigenous approaches (e.g., recognizing community as a unit of identity, facilitating collaboration throughout the research process, utilizing an iterative process, addressing health from an ecological perspective) to seeking out knowledge (Israel et al., 2005; Laveaux & Christopher, 2009; Alegria et al., 2017). Although CBPAR has many strengths as a research methodology, there are sometimes ethical concerns about balancing community values/needs with those of academic researchers that implicate power dynamics and differentials between community stakeholders and researchers/research projects (Kwan & Walsh, 2018). Community input garnered via CBPAR (or CABs) may also be ignored or deprioritized, due to the priorities of funders or academia. However, community–researcher partnerships are particularly important in the social work field, as they reflect our ethics of equity and social justice.

Research from and for the Trans Community

Although these efforts to conduct more culturally attuned and ethical research within trans communities have had positive impacts resulting in more authentic and nuanced research findings, research including a trans focus still needs attention. Some researchers aim to culturally attune their research by including questions regarding gender modality (e.g., whether someone is trans, nonbinary, cisgender), by using the acronym “LGBTQ,” or by mentioning trans issues, but may fail to include trans-specific results and discussion (Ashley, 2022; Teti et al., 2021; Wanta & Unger, 2017). This may be due to low sample size overall, a failure to oversample trans participants in larger studies, lack of understanding of how to conduct analysis with more than two genders, or because the questions regarding gender were constructed in a manner that restricted analysis. Others may collect both gender and sex assigned at birth (SAAB), then default to using SAAB in their analysis (and collapsing nonbinary participants into their SAAB) (LGBT Demographic Data Interactive, 2019). With larger surveys that are to be analyzed over time by multiple researchers, all researchers conducting secondary analysis are confined to using outdated or poorly collected gender data (Smith & Koehoorn, 2016).

When seeking out methods to integrate community feedback, researchers may often be advised to use CABs. However, often providing the foundation for methodologies including CABs is the assumption that the researcher is not a member of the community they are researching. Although these methods can provide useful insights, they become complicated or troubled when the researcher is, themselves, an embedded member of the trans community (Shelton et al., 2011). As these considerations are often lacking in current education and resources, researchers who are embedded in the communities they are studying are not adequately prepared for these methods.

Knowing What Questions to Ask

To provide a fuller and more accurate view of trans experiences, social work must move beyond churning the water of recycled research questions regarding medical transition procedures, gender dysphoria, psychological disorders, and “high risk” sexual behavior (Kronk & Dexheimer, 2021; Moradi et al., 2016; Suess Schwend, 2020). As a field, the impact of the lack of research questions regarding successes and community strengths has resulted in a skewed perspective of trans lives—trans individuals are represented in the literature as clients, as patients, and as corpses…not role models or everyday people. This is underpinned, as well, by utilizing a “subjectless critique” (Butler, 1994) that positions trans identities as fodder for larger work regarding the social construction of gender and other identities. Especially for research being conducted adhering to post-positivist methodologies, this faulty foundation of trans research has shaped the field (Kronk & Dexheimer, 2021; Riggs et al., 2019).

Even when accurate language is used to examine these common areas of focus (e.g., mental health, discrimination, medical transition), the formulation of problematic and pathologizing research questions have had a large impact on the direction of the field of study. Although the strong focus on medical transition is not inherently problematic, the manner in which this work has been conducted has reinforced essentialist understandings of gender by providing transnormative narratives of transitioning from one gender (i.e., man) to another (i.e., woman) (Lombardi, 2018; Riggs et al., 2019; Schilt & Lagos, 2017). Paired with a focus on discrimination and mental illness (e.g., depression, anxiety), the research questions at the forefront of trans work have reinforced a problematic narrative of what it means to be trans.

A Shifting Landscape of Trans Scholarship

Broadly, intracommunity knowledge and informal research within trans communities have functioned as a means to fill gaps in service provision, provider knowledge, and ethical care (Harner, 2021). The impact of incorporating this peer knowledge into social work practice is beginning to be explored in social work research (Kia et al., 2022). In an academic context, resource, knowledge, and support sharing take place through both informal and formal mentorship (AlShebli et al., 2020; Holloway et al., 2019; Lorenzetti et al., 2019). Although anecdotal information shared within communities may or may not be completely factual or medically accurate, it must also be noted that curriculum and previous research around trans experiences may be driven by inaccuracies or pathology (Nicolazzo, 2021).

Over the past decade, the landscape of trans scholarship has changed drastically. More and more trans individuals are able to gain access to academia as graduate students and researchers. The 2015 U.S. Trans Survey found that 21% of respondents aged 25+ reported having attained a graduate or professional degree, compared to 12% of the general population aged 25+ (James et al., 2016). Of these, 504 (1.8% of the total sample) had earned a doctoral degree and 514 had earned a professional degree (e.g., MD, JD) (1.9% of the total sample)—which is on par with how many adults in the U.S. obtain such degrees (Wilson, 2017). However, social work education and practicum settings are still oftentimes full of experiences of microaggressions, discrimination, and harassment for trans students (Craig et al., 2015; Holloway et al., 2022; McCarty-Caplan & Shaw, 2022). Although we are gaining access to these spaces as students, it is still rare that we are able to find representation among faculty (Budge et al., 2020; Goldberg et al., 2019,2021).

Although contributions toward understanding the identities and experiences of trans individuals in the field of trans theory are laudable, the field continues to grapple with the implications of prioritizing the Global North and Anglo-European perspectives (Haritaworn & Snorton, 2014; Roen, 2001). Trans theorists borrow extensively from Black feminism, specifically to continue the work of deconstructing gender/sex and sexuality (Ellison et al., 2017). Conversely, Indigenous and Latine¹ people and histories are often completely absent from the formulation of new queer and trans theories (Driskill, 2010; Rizki, 2019). As many trans people, particularly from the Global South, continue to face immense barriers to entering higher education, this exclusion of Indigenous and Latin voices has been slow to change (Andrade, 2012; Berkins, 2005, 2015; Martínez & Vidal-Ortiz, 2018). Just as the use of problematic language or a deficit-focused perspective has resulted in a skewed base of trans social welfare research, so has the glaring lack of Black, Indigenous, and other researchers of color.

The long-needed influx of (community-embedded) trans researchers has meant that prior research interventions that hinged on the former dichotomy between researcher and subject don’t quite make sense anymore. Additionally, trans researchers may be asked to prioritize their roles as researchers (and therefore having a need to publish and conduct research that is “fundable”) over their role as community members. Anecdotally, the input of cis scholars regarding trans research and competency is oftentimes prioritized over that of trans individuals. In order for accurate, authentic results regarding trans issues to be able to be reported, trans social work researchers need true epistemic peers. How, then, do the issues of epistemic peerhood and standpoint raised by Piñeiro extend specifically to the context of trans-led trans research?

Case Studies

Two brief case examples will be used to illustrate the role and impact of epistemic peerhood throughout the research process. The first paper was a research study of trans quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic and the second, an analysis about constituting and working with a majority trans research team.

Case 1—Impact on Study Recruitment

In many studies about trans communities, the broader LGBTQ community, or the general population, researchers note challenges in recruiting a trans (sub)sample in their projects (Guillory et al., 2018; Iribarren et al., 2018; Miles-Johnson, 2016; Miner et al., 2012). As a counter-example, I will use one of my studies exploring trans quality of life during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to discuss the benefits of being a trans researcher doing trans-based research with the trans community. The verbiage in the study recruitment flier clearly stated that the research project was recruiting trans participants for a trans-issued study, led by a trans researcher. In addition to $60 in paid ads on Facebook, the recruitment materials were shared in multiple trans-only social media groups (i.e., on Facebook, Instagram) and email listservs. These were groups that I had been a member of for months or even years before launching the survey.

Having the insider knowledge necessary to design a survey recruitment flier was an intentional approach and was based on my own knowledge of my community. The screening tool and demographic questions at the beginning of the survey were also based on my lived experience as a trans person in my local trans community. Although the linguistic and other language patterns any community uses to reflect personal and collective identities are constantly shifting, my own embeddedness in my community was reflected from the point of random engagement introducing the study opportunity through the entire project until completion.

The survey, which took most participants between 20 and 40 min to complete, included items about social support, access to resources, community involvement, quality of life, the impact of the pandemic, and preferences around COVID vaccines (which were not yet publicly available). As the study was part of my dissertation research and funding was limited (i.e., a raffle for several $25 gift cards for respondents came out of my personal pocket), my goal was to recruit around 150 participants. Twenty-four hours after the survey was opened online, 140 surveys had been completed. The second day brought in an additional 104 responses. At the time of the survey closing, one month later, I had collected 449 responses. Although multiple imputation was used to handle missing data, of these 449 responses, 345 completed the survey in full (i.e., while they may have skipped some questions, they clicked the “submit” button at the end).

In the following qualitative study, when asked about what motivated them to participate, many respondents spoke directly to the influence of knowing the study was led by a trans person and that, unless they requested otherwise, the interviewer would be also a trans person. The majority of BIPOC participants were interviewed by a Latin research assistant (as opposed to the white trans person leading the study) who is bilingual in English/Spanish. Some participants compared how likely they would be to participate in a study led by cis researchers as compared to a trans-led study: “A lot of [trans research] is done by cis people and a lot of it has done poorly;” “If this had been done by a cis person, I probably would not have participated.”). Others spoke to the study feeling “safe” or having more trust that what they shared would be interpreted correctly; that is, from a trans perspective, based on having a trans researcher in the lead.

Case 2—Impact on Data Collection and Analysis

Although some may easily accept that having trans researchers lead trans research will impact the recruitment process, perhaps less clear are the myriad impacts the makeup of the research team can have on rapport building and data collection with participants, as well as the analytical process, including interpretive findings and reports. When conducting research about/with cultures and communities at the social margins, epistemic peers from that community may contribute in subtle and significant ways to the nuance and complexity of any research project. For example, during the interview process of my study, our research team understood terms such as “clocking,” “dog ears,” and “neurogender,” and that many trans participants may have strong reactions to phrases/concepts such as “preferred pronouns” or “passing.” That level of knowledge and shared experience allowed for interviewers to be more closely attuned to the experience of participants who shared identities with the researchers and research project, while also reducing the time spent explaining community terminology in the data collection process.

This insider epistemological standing also impacted the analysis process in my study. Consider the following quote from a trans participant in one of my recent studies: “I’m always having strange experiences and am always wondering whether I should, um, even mention my gender or just receive healthcare and get out.” This quotation came at the beginning of the interview transcript, in response to the first question asked by the interviewer (“To get us started, what has been your experience receiving healthcare?”) When conducting the interview, I immediately picked up on the use of the word “strange,” wondering if the participant would later share traumatic experiences around addressing gender-related information or experiences with health providers, which they did. My co-investigator on this study was a cisgender white woman with significant experience conducting research in healthcare spaces, including with marginalized populations (though not specifically with trans populations prior to this study). When meeting to discuss the analysis, we discovered that neither she nor our current research assistant (another cisgender person), had paid any particular attention to this word choice by the participant.

After hiring two trans research assistants, the specific insights and attunement offered during the analytical process continued to emerge. In this configuration of the research team, we would discuss how often marginalized individuals, including trans people, downplay our traumatic experiences either because they have become our “normal” or for other reasons. In fact, “weird, etc.” became an in vivo code we used during inductive coding, as other participants also used this descriptor. One participant actually spoke directly to a concern that not all researchers can aptly interpret what trans respondents share, saying, “I feel like I read so much research where it's like, ‘I think a trans person said that, but I don't think that's what they meant.’” An important note is that diversity among trans team members—with regard to race, gender identity, gender expression, ability, and social class background—are also valuable because it allows for fuller, more attuned epistemological insights throughout the research process. In addition to the recommendations, below, there is an opportunity for future work to further explore the role and impact of these diverse insights among team members who share one axis of marginalization (i.e., being trans).

Epistemic Implications

Academia is not built for most trans people. We are taught that “being smart” or “being professional” must look a certain way—a way that aligns with cisnormativity, ablenormativity, and white supremacy (Brown, 2014; Okun, 2021; Shelton & Dodd, 2020). Trans students and scholars are impacted throughout our time in academia by a lack of representation, being taught cisnormative research design methods (e.g., having a binary gender variable, positioning being trans as a “risk factor”), transphobic local and federal policies, and, for those of us who are multiply marginalized, by systems such as white supremacy and/or ableism, as well. In addition to peer support and finding supportive mentors, we must also ensure that our work continues to be aligned with our personal and community values.

In order to reduce research approaches, studies, and investigators that are harmful or irrelevant to our communities, systemic/structural changes are needed in addition to individual researchers modifying the ways they conduct research. We may also consider the potential career implications of being and doing trans work, particularly as a trans person and/or with a critical lens. Until trans scholars are able to conduct trans-focused work without facing discrimination within the academy as a result, other changes to research methodology are insufficient. Trans researchers must be able to conduct their research—trans-focused or not—without facing additional psychological harm or negative career implications. Trans researchers must also mirror the broader trans community—inequities are more likely to be reproduced when the majority of trans researchers are white, non-disabled, and unaffected by transmisogyny. This is in line with Longino's (2020) argument that:

[T]he greater the number of different points of view included in a given community, the more likely it is that its scientific practice will…result in descriptions and explanations of natural processes that are more reliable in the sense of less characterized by idiosyncratic subjective preferences of community members than would otherwise be the case. (p. 80)

Epistemic peerhood and the unique standpoint offered by trans researchers who do trans-focused work impact many parts of the research process. By increasing the degree to which trans scholars conducting trans scholarship have epistemic peerhood on research teams, during study oversight processes (i.e., IRB, peer review), as well as in academia in general (i.e., community and mentorship), the quality of our scholarship can be increased. Not all trans individuals will be epistemic peers on any given topic. Future scholarship is needed to explore what topics of focus, and under what conditions, trans-epistemic peerhood can offer additional insights. However, when the two conditions necessary to evaluate claims and evidence regarding trans social work scholarship (i.e., being equally familiar with the evidence and being equal in intelligence, bias, and epistemic virtues) are met and the scholars come from trans standpoints, such scholars can offer especially attuned insights.

Recommendations

Although the individual steps to facilitate conditions for trans epistemic peerhood are fairly clear, the overall pathway remains murky. For years, scholars have been calling for more inclusive approaches to feminist social work research (Gringeri et al., 2010; Kroehle, et al., 2020). Because of the linkages between colonization and trans exclusion/erasure, social work programs must incorporate Indigenousstudies and perspectives and dismantle components of program culture that bolster whitesupremacy (Clarke, 2022; Driskill, 2010; Rizki, 2019). Black and Indigenous scholars, and otherscholars of color, who are also trans must be supported; social work programs must combat anti-trans sentiments alongside all other systems of oppression (King-Jordan & Gil, 2021; Shelton & Dodd, 2020). In this vein, social work practitioners, educators, and scholars have called for the Code of Ethics to become more actionable, with pathways to accountability should the code be broken. Researchers must offer clear, specific action steps based on our results and social workorganizations and clinicians must ensure their practices are informed by up-to-date evidence. Lifting up trans researchers means we also get asked to review harmful articles, though our input may be outweighed by cis counterparts who are less attuned to the potential pathologization or harm present in the article being reviewed. As such, journal editors must be aware of this dynamic. Researchers must offer clear, specific action steps based on our results and social work organizations and clinicians must ensure their practices are informed by up-to-date evidence. Although these suggestions seem simple enough, it is unclear (1) how to entice academia to make these shifts and (2) what the political landscape will be in the coming years that might create additional setbacks or barriers (e.g., the censoring/limiting of trans-focused research during the 1980s and Trump era).

Although working toward larger systemic shifts, individual researchers can continue being reflexive and maintain a power analysis throughout the duration of their work. Opportunities for future scholarship, regarding cis and trans researchers, include exploring the following: Are the methods/results that researchers find surprising also surprising to the community, or are they anecdotally well-known? If the latter, what additional insights can be gleaned? When, why, and how do researchers prioritize certain parts of themselves and their needs over those of the community? This tension between personal needs, community values, and current academic norms reflects a need for the current academic context to shift in order to lessen barriers to trans-epistemic peerhood.

Trans epistemic peerhood is also needed in order to honor values and practices within trans communities throughout the research process. If we accept that trans, nonbinary, and other gender-diverse individuals are often better poised to evaluate trans-specific evidence and claims and that some criticisms and conversations must be held only between members of the community, then we must be committed to facilitating and prioritizing trans-led research and oversight. This includes growing facilitation skills and cultivating trans caucuses. Specifically, trans historian Page says, “I do not shit-talk other trans people in public. If I truly have a problem that must be addressed, I speak to them directly” (Page, 2020). Malatino connects this practice to solidarity and community organizing—saying that, given the “rising tide of anti-trans organizing” (2020, p. 68), we cannot afford to be “locked in self-aggrandizing battle with one another.” Leveraging trans faculty’s scope of knowledge and reflections on oppressionacross the workplace, in regards to “accommodation and acceptance and trans identities,” socialwork can specifically work to prioritize teaching/learning skills to facilitate hard conversationsbetween colleagues (Jones, 2020).

Facilitating trans epistemic peerhood in social work research can allow for this more culturally attuned research to better inform social and health care provision. As related ethical guidelines for conducting research, the NASW Code of Ethics addresses the need to work with diverse populations of all genders, while the Hippocratic Oath speaks to medicine's duty to treat and engage with patients to the best of one's training, skills, and knowledge by doing no harm (Miles, 2004; NASW, 2021). Freeman and Stewart argue that some patients (e.g., pregnant people) should be viewed as epistemic peers with their healthcare providers such that their knowledge, alongside the knowledge of their provider, is considered during their care (Freeman, 2015; Freeman & Stewart, 2018). Bettcher (2009, pp. 112–113) points out how individuals unfamiliar with trans culture lack the situated knowledge and, therefore, the ability to accurately assess and interpret the attitude and self-identification of trans people. Similarly, this paper has argued that the unique epistemological standpoint occupied by trans researchers conducting trans-focused work should be (1) considered alongside the knowledge of non-researcher community members and (2) prioritized within academia such that additional, more nuanced insights can be generated throughout the research process.

As this paper is, to date, the first scholarly work regarding the specific issue of transepistemic peerhood in social work research, there is much need for further exploration and deliberation. The role of disagreement among epistemic peers is a dominant thread in the discussion of epistemic peers generally, but must also be contemplated in the context of trans-led trans scholarship. Reviewing parallel conversations in disability and Indigenous studies may also be able to offer insight regarding “insider” research and the role of epistemological peerhood when paired with standpoint theory. Lastly, and importantly, the conditions under which trans scholars can be epistemic peers, as well as the conditions under which cis scholars are able to offer culturally grounded insights to trans communities, must also be considered.

Conclusion

To stay aligned with our professional ethics, social work research must welcome the influx of trans-led research by creating conditions that facilitate epistemic peerhood. This means prioritizing trans-led research on trans issues, lowering barriers for trans scholars to provide input and oversight (e.g., inclusion on research teams, sitting on Institutional Review Boards), and ensuring articles related to trans issues have trans peer reviewers (with the most egregiously offensive articles receiving desk rejections). Cisgender researchers conducting trans-focused work should work in tandem with trans researchers who provide relevant expertise. In addition to individual-level adjustments on the part of researchers and editors, these shifts also require adjustments from organizations (e.g., NASW, CSWE), journal publishers, and universities. Researchers conducting large-scale surveys should consider utilizing sampling methods that result in trans individuals being well represented in their sample (i.e., oversampling) (Vaughan, 2017). Exploring and fostering trans epistemic peerhood can result in more closely culturally attuned scholarship, fewer harms to trans researchers and community members alike, and ultimately in more rigorous and meaningful social work scholarship overall.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Vern Harner

Notes

Author Biography

Vern Harner is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work and Criminal Justice at the University of Washington in Tacoma. As a community-embedded activist, organizer, and scholar, their work aims to amplify ongoing efforts within trans and multiply marginalized communities. Employing both quantitative and qualitative methods, Dr. Harner's current work focuses on intracommunity support, engagement with social and health services, and quality of life of trans communities. They are also an associate member of the Harborview Injury & Prevention Research Center and Communications Coordinator for the LGBTQ Caucus of Faculty & Students in Social Work.

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Epistemic Peerhood in Trans Social Work Research

Abstract

Foundations of Epistemic Peers as Philosophy and Practice

Epistemic Peers

Integrating Standpoint Theory with the Concept of Epistemic Peerhood

Conducting Social Work Research in Community Partnership

Research from and for the Trans Community

Knowing What Questions to Ask

A Shifting Landscape of Trans Scholarship

Case Studies

Case 1—Impact on Study Recruitment

Case 2—Impact on Data Collection and Analysis

Epistemic Implications

Recommendations

Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author Biography

References