Sex in the South

IMAGE: The Blue Ridge Mountains in Georgia taken by Sean Foster for Unsplash.

You’re invited to take part in a research study about your experiences as a LGBTQ+ Black, Indigenous, and/or person of color who lives in the American South, particularly about how you navigate sexual health risk communication using digital and networked technologies.

If this is you, and you’re interested in sharing your story, check out this quick survey! 👇

Mission & Objectives

When it comes to sexual health in the South, what usually comes to mind are higher rates of teen pregnancy, STI rates, and low literacy levels, and interventions with the South in mind usually take a deficit approach, categorizing people living in the South as uneducated about their own health and lives or overly engaging in risky behaviors contrary to what is healthy and safe.

However, Sex in the South takes a non-deficit approach to showcasing how LGBTQI+ people of color navigate around sexual health information and make sense of it for themselves and others with the old adage that community members often will take care of themselves and each other when everyone else abandons them, keeping with the legacy of activist working during and since the AIDS crisis.

With all that in mind, the mission of Sex in the South is simple: allow LGBTQI+ people of color living in the South to speak about their sexual health experiences and to position those stories as valid knowledge that should be taken seriously by medical experts.

Sex in the South has the following objectives:

This study collects oral histories of LGBTQ+ Black, Indigenous, and People of Color who live in the American South, and it focuses on how people navigate sexual health risk communication using digital and networked technologies. It’s objectives are to:

  1. platform LGBTQI people of color and their sexual health stories so they can share their stories as a form of health equity activism; 

  2. showcase the ways LGBTQI people of color navigate their sexual health beyond traditional health literacy approaches, which means just reading and writing around medical information; and 

  3. use digital technologies and social media to bring these stories to the public.