Abstract Book of the 6th International Conference on Gender Studies and Sexuality
Year: 2025
[PDF]
From Dysphoria to Desire: Designing Sex Ed Tools That Affirm Trans Bodies
Forum Modi
ABSTRACT:
Transgender individuals face unique challenges compared to their cisgender peers in accessing sex education resources. A multidisciplinary literature review across fields such as health, sexuality studies, medicine, and human-computer interaction (HCI) reveals a significant disparity in sex education for trans individuals sharing that most sex education curricula in U.S. schools are designed with a cisgender and heterosexual framework, often neglecting the diverse experiences of trans individuals. As a result, many trans youths must turn to online resources, trans peers, and/or romantic partners for sex education. However, relying on unverified online content and potentially misinformed peers presents risks, highlighting the need for more reliable trans-inclusive sex education tools. Prior literature has investigated the use of technology to support trans individuals in a study of over 100 trans technology creators, but none were specifically related to sex education, showing the lack of development for such a tool. Literature across several fields found that trans individuals desire tools that frame education around other trans individual’s narratives to navigate their changing bodies, hormones, dysphoria, desire, consent, and relationships, while also educating them on fertility, STIs, contraception, medical gender-affirming care, and non-medical gender-affirming strategies. This work will synthesize multidisciplinary recommendations for trans sex education and present design recommendations for creating trans sex education technology.
Keywords: gender, design, technology, human-computer interaction, literature review