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Makena Klaning

GWST-100-002

37307899

2570 Words

Topic Manageability Statement and Research Question

Disability and sexuality are both topics that are viewed to be highly controversial by

society; often preventing healthy and educational discussion of the issues surrounding these

important topics. Sexual education is already generally evaded in public education, though there

is a widespread movement for a more comprehensive educational platform for education, there

tends to be a focus on able-bodied individuals in primarily heterosexual relations. Although,

most everyone will eventually face the reality of how sexuality is integral to being human, few

will experience the complications related to understanding and expressing one’s sexuality when

also challenged with living as a person with disability. Whether the disability is of mental or

physical in nature, being intimate poses a challenge that is not often explored. Lack of sexual

education is a tremendous obstacle in developing positive, informed, and inclusive perspectives

among our population. Further, there appears to be a significant gap in sexual education both for,

and about persons with disabilities. This poses a challenge to individuals who have disability in

the notion that they are essentially alone in their disability with no one to inform them about

opportunities, aid or other forms of necessary education. This has naturally caused a great deal of

bias and stigma around the sexuality and sexual reality of persons with disability, which is

harmful to not only the community of disabled people but also our entire population. This poses

the question, what implications does the lack of sexual education for and about persons with
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disability have on their personal development and the ignorance of able-bodied individuals

towards this issue in society?

Research Log

The very first thing I did before starting this assignment was try to gain a perspective on

how to approach these topics in a fair and respectful way. I felt as though I should learn all of the

appropriate language and terminology to discuss these topics that will avoid me coming across as

insensitive, disrespectful, or uneducated. Once I felt as though I had a solid grasp on that, I used

‘Everyday Women’s and Gender Studies: Introductory Concepts’ textbook, as the required

reading for the course. There when exploring the table of contents I found ‘The Body, Disability,

and Sexuality’ reading by Thomas J. Gerschick that entails a plethora of information about the

community of persons with disability. This gave me a knowledge base to dive deeper on my

own. Following reading the textbook, I started my research on education around the community

and what recourses there are for persons with disabilities as well as for able-bodied persons.

After, I took advantage of the University of British Columbia Library and found an array of

information on how sexual education for persons with disabilities is extensively looked over in

our modern sexual education system. With this, that there can be so many negative repercussions

from depriving such a large portion of the population of their right to sexual health and sexuality

education. Many of the journals reflect on the lack of available knowledge for persons with

disabilities as well as able-bodied/minded individuals. With this how looked over this topic is

due to it being an uncomfortable subject for people to talk about due to the taboo of sex and

sexuality in general, but then also including disability. When I was looking for these articles I

used short key words like ‘disability, sexuality, identification’ to narrow my search. I looked
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mostly for journals focused on the education system, where it was lacking and the effects this

had on all different people. Using the UBC library is always a reliable way to find quality

information from an array of different sources in one space. I had the privilege of exploring so

many different opinions and seeing many different perspectives, all of which reaffirmed my

notion that sexuality in the disabled community is such an important topic that gets so

overlooked. I chose to exclusively use the internet for my research because it is so driven to the

point, I know exactly where I need to look and how to look for it. Overall, I feel as if using the

UBC online library made my research better because of how much knowledge I had so easily.

For external UBC websites I mostly looked for avenues of aid for people with disabilities and the

efforts that people have made to combat the issue of under-education for this community. Seeing

what resources are available really opened my eyes and made me feel confident that there should

be a larger discussion on this, as to make more people aware of the avenues that are available. I

learned that although they are limited, resources do exist, even in the city of Kelowna that are

working towards combatting this issue, such as Sensual Solutions. They were not completely

useful to a paper of this length, however they gave me a hopeful feeling that people are making

efforts and trying to change the conversation surrounding sexual education though to be more

inclusive and encompass a larger portion of the population.

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Annotated Bibliography

Source 1.

Gil-Llario, M. D., et al. “The Experience of Sexuality in Adults with Intellectual

Disability.” Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, vol. 62, no. 1, 2017, pp. 72–80. Wiley

Online Library, doi:10.1111/jir.12455.

In this Journal written by Gil Llario, et al., the topic of persons with intellectual disability

(ID) and their sexual needs are the predominant idea and how they have very similar sexual

needs to those of able-mind and able-body. Coupled with this, a negative stigma surrounding

people who are ID based on comes from irrational beliefs and attitudes of towards the sexuality

of persons with mental disability due to lack of education. As stated by Llario et al., sexuality is

a multidimensional component of humanity consisting of emotions, behaviours, attitudes,

intimacy, eroticism, pleasure and relationships with others. People with ID struggle with one or

many of these dimensions, thus making sexuality a challenge when un-educated. People who

have ID deserve the human right to sexual freedom just as much as the able-minded persons,
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thus making education an essential, and imperative piece to inclusion for all of society. The

majority of society has incorrect beliefs due to lack of knowledge and unsupported stigma, that

people who have ID are asexual beings that are unable to make the proper sexual decisions due

to the fact that they need support, protection or supervision. To combat this issue of ignorance, a

standard of education should be put in place to teach everyone about the needs of people with ID.

this will consequently reduce the negative impacts that ignorance and lack of education hold on

the community of persons with disability. Inclusivity is a vital part of feeling successful in

society and assisting these individuals in their inherent ability to naturally be sexual beings.

I feel as if this information is useful to my research question because it contains

knowledge about the lack of education that able-bodied and able-minded individuals have

towards the sexuality of persons with disability (72). Thus, leading to a negative connotation

towards the idea of people with disabilities being sexual, although it is a basic human right. This

journal focuses on people with intellectual disability (72), which I feel is a specific area of

disability and sexuality that needs more attention.

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Source 2.

Hirschmann, N.J.J, “Queer/Fear: Disability, Sexuality and The Other” Journal of Medical

Humanities, vol. 34, 2013, pp. 139-147. University of British Columbia Online Library,

https://link-springer-com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/article/10.1007%2Fs10912-013-9208-x#citeas

In this journal Nancy Hirschmann brings fourth the idea of persons with disability, as

well as identifying as a Queer individual have an intersection. Through this, there is a

predominantly hostile nature surrounding the two areas, making it difficult to educate on them

together. Exploring how the LGBTQ community constantly faces discrimination due to the

ambiguity of being unknown to individuals who identify as heterosexual or are unsure of what

being a queer individual means. Hirschmann forces a reality check to those who view

discrimination as being a past issue; thought not realizing that many people still have the
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perspective that homosexuality is viewed as a disability. Those that do not fit in to the traditional

concept of normal, being that of individuals identify as straight and cis-gender, are considered to

have something wrong with them. Now identified as two completely different categorizations of

self, disability and sexual preference have a prevalent place with a substantial portion of people.

Struggling with identifying one’s self by a title, such as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual,

transgender/transsexual, queer (or questioning) and intersex, poses a larger issue on having to

choose one thing to be a defining trait. Persons with disability also struggle with traditional

naming and identification practices as to go by terminologies that can be misconstrued as

detrimental to self-image, titles like crippled, handicapped and then disabled can often times be

taken as offensive or potentially empowering based on preference.

This journal offers up a unique perspective on the junction of sexuality/identity and

persons with disabilities who may have more comparable struggles than one would think.

Identification is a large space of issue for a lot of people (140), being referred to in the proper

pro-nouns (gender identification) and sexuality can be the difference between feeling included,

comfortable with one’s self and accepted for who they are or feeling ashamed, anxious,

confrontational and belittled among other detrimental emotions. This is applicable to my topic in

the form of persons with disabilities sexual education because of the parallel between sexual

identification and disabled persons identification and proper use of language as though to make

them feel included, cherished, and not discriminated against. Educating society on the

importance of proper language is imperative to the inclusion of persons with disabilities and a

comfortability with their sexuality.

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Source 3.

Holland-Hall, Cynthia. "Sexuality and Disability in Adolescents." The Pediatric Clinics of North

America, vol. 64, no. 2, 2016, pp. 435-449, doi:10.1016/j.pcl.2016.11.011.

The journal of ‘Sexuality and Disability in Adolescents’ by Cynthia Holland-Hall,

considers the concept of how healthy sexual development is imperative for adolescents, as able-

bodied and persons with disabilities. Following, how the topic of sexuality is often ignored for

persons with disability though they have rates of sexual activity comparable to that of their peers.
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Coupled with that, children require education for persons with disabilities because it is vastly

under-explored, under-discussed and quite frankly avoided in most avenues of sexual health

communication. Persons with disabilities, along with being glossed over for education efforts,

also need more assistance when it comes to sexuality strategies and struggles because of the

physical or mental challenged that they face. With sexuality being a multidimensional playing-

field, there are many discrepancies between sexuality of persons with disabilities and able-

bodied/minded individuals, including many aspects from physiology, gender expression,

puberty, relationships, intimacy, feelings, desires and many more topics. With approximately

10% of the youth in the United States being recognized as having a physical, developmental or

sensory disability, a large portion of the population is being overlooked for their right to be fully

included in sexual education.

I believe that this journal is at the core of my research question, showing how even from

a young age, education in the category of sexual education for persons with disabilities lacks

heavily (435). Excluding them from society in such a vital way of being a human, everyone has a

right to know about their bodies. From a young age all people should be educated on sexuality

across the board, this produces a feeling of loneliness thus making persons with disabilities left

to figure it out on their own. Accompanied by the lack of education is a lack of awareness,

having long lasting affects not only on persons with disabilities but all of society.

Source 4.

Mall, Sumaya, and Leslie Swartz. “Sexuality, disability and human rights: strengthening

healthcare for disabled people.” SAMJ South African Medical Journal, vol. 102, no. 10. 2012, p.
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36+. Health Reference Center Academic,

http://link.galegroup.com.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/apps/doc/A304943082/HRCA?

u=ubcolumbia&sid=HRCA&zid=7ddfaec9. Accessed 1 Nov. 2018

Source 5.

Loeser, C., Pini, B., & Crowley, V. (2018). Disability and sexuality: Desires and pleasures.

Sexualities, 21(3), 255–270. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460716688682

Source 6.

Murray, Peter. "Chronic Youth: Disability, Sexuality, and U. S. Media Cultures of

Source 7.

Kramers-Olen, A. (2016). Sexuality, intellectual disability, and human rights legislation. South

African Journal of Psychology, 46(4), 504–516. https://doi.org/10.1177/0081246316678154

Source 8.

Addlakha, Renu, et al. “Disability and Sexuality: Claiming Sexual and Reproductive
Rights.” Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 25, no. 50, 2017, pp. 4–9. JSTOR, JSTOR,
www.jstor.org/stable/26495927.

Source 9.

Lenon, S., & Peers, D. (2017). ‘Wrongful’ inheritance: Race, disability and sexuality in
cramblett v. midwest sperm bank.  Feminist Legal Studies, 25(2), 141-163.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/10.1007/s10691-017-9347-y

Source 10
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Rogers, Chrissie. “Intellectual Disability and Sexuality: On the Agenda?” Sexualities, vol. 19,
no. 5–6, Sept. 2016, pp. 617–622, doi:10.1177/1363460715620563.

Research Reflection

Through my research on the topic of persons with disability in conjunction with sexuality in

relation to education and the fallout of failure to educate, I have learned that there are insufficient
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efforts to teach the population about this topic. With such a large group of people living with

disability there is a large need to have stronger education efforts to assist them. When looking for

articles, journals or any works that have an opposing view I did not come up with anything that

refuted the notion that people should be un-educated. From what I have gathered there is no one

contesting the right to be educated about persons with disabilities (or journals about this), so

much as a lack of awareness that educations needs to occur and a lack of effort to aid this

situation. The community of disabled people is a community that deserves the right to education

just as much as that of able-bodied individuals, rights should not be denied because they are not

the majority. With only a select group of people working towards a solution to this knowledge

gap, there needs to be a more prevalent movement to fight for the right to sexuality education for

persons with disability. there is already a lack of sexual education for the general population

solely out of, lack of funding and discomfort with the idea of talking about sexual health. Strides

should be taken to aid educational efforts for sexual health in general. As for difficulties, I found

that there was more information available than I had expect. Seeing that a larger group than

previously thought has looked into this issue and been fighting for equality, really reaffirmed to

me that this was a proper topic for me to dive deeper into. Next time I would like to explore

different side of sexuality of persons with disability, topics along the lines of strategies to combat

issues that persons with disabilities face, resources to aid them, and potentially to hear firsthand

from someone who personally struggles with the lack of education. I really enjoyed learning

about this topic and I feel as if I have a more broad perspective of the situation. At the beginning

of this process I did not know much about sexuality of persons with disabilities, proper ways to

refer to them or efforts being made. This topic is incredibility valuable to a plethora of people

and should be brought further into the light as to encourage a push for educational rights.
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