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Feminist & Gender Studies is proud to announce that this past December, Rosie Nelson (Feminist & Gender Studies and History '14) earned their PhD in Sociology from the University of Bristol, where they also completed their part-time MRes in Security, Conflict and Justice and co-founded the Critically Queer Working Group with Rosa Targett in 2017.

Rosie's interests include sexuality, sexual practices, gender, desire, transgender experiences, feminism, queer theory, stigma management, and feelings of community/isolation. They have also worked in quantitative health research, focusing on patient experiences at the Marie Curie Pallative Care Research Centre at Cardiff University, and on a qualitative research project for the Careers Service at the University of Bristol, examining student perspectives on employability skills.

Rosie's dissertation entitled "Sexual Renegades: Bisexual and Plurisexual Experiences of Sexual Identity, Gender Identity, and Romantic Relationships" asks, "How do nonmonosexuals experience, interpret, and understand gender in their everyday lives?" To answer this question, they conducted a qualitative study consisting of interviews and photo diaries with nonmonosexual participants of all genders.

In "Questioning Identities/Shifting Identities: The Impact of Researching Sex and Gender on a Researcher's LGBT+ Identity," published in Qualitative Research this past April, Rosie explores the role of reflexivity, emotion work, and insider/outsider researcher status in one queer researcher's experiences of conducting fieldwork.

In "Here and Queer (?): Monosexism and the Bisexual Body," published in the second volume of Talking Bodies: Bodily Languages, Selfhood and Transgression (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), edited by Ashton A. Bodie, Amy Bonsall, and Jonathan Hay, Rosie contends that the reliance on visual cues to determine sexual identity is problematic and that we must turn to discursive measures for bisexual representation.

Last, but not least, in "'What do bisexuals look like? I don't know!' Visibility, Gender, and Safety among Plurisexuals," published in the Journal of Sociology this past June, Rosie explores how plurisexuals represent themselves in a culture that does not see their identities as viable, often through the use of gender norms.

Congratulations, Rosie! We are so proud to know you!