The Wiley Handbook of Gender Equity in Higher Education

27Transfeminist Methodology: Examining Cissexism in Higher Education and Student Affairs Research

T.J. Jourian

In my not‐so‐distant previous life, I was a student affairs practitioner, a role I thought I would hold for a good long time. Most recently, I worked at two different institutions, Vanderbilt University and the University of Chicago, serving students with minoritized identities of sexuality and gender (MIoSG), or LGBTQ students, in their respective offices. This was the type of work that had driven me to the field, work that gave me the opportunity to advocate with minoritized students for liberatory and just campus environments, and I had ambitions to advance within the administration to expand my role to encompass campus‐wide – and ideally beyond – efforts.

However, I found these efforts hampered by systemic, institutional, and sociocultural barriers, including specifically within the field of higher education and student affairs (HESA). Of course, many of these barriers were anticipated. I could hardly expect to go into diversity work without an awareness of individual and intersectional systems of oppression, and how these systems are built into and maintained by colleges and universities. During my time at Vanderbilt, two key barriers became particularly pronounced. One was that many of my colleagues at the university and throughout the field had not been adequately exposed to social justice and diversity‐related concepts and topics in their respective HESA preparatory ...