Professor of Social Work and SIG Co-Director Victoria Frye uses her interdisciplinary background and extensive research experience to study intimate partner violence, HIV, stigma and discrimination, and intersectional factors affecting and connecting all of those topics. Her work has helped her forge connections in the queer community, especially in the community of gay/same-gender-loving Black men. For Pride Month, she spoke about celebrating with them, fighting stigma, and what she's looking forward to in her work.
A lot of your work engages with the stigma and discrimination faced by the queer community and especially the queer Black community. What motivated you to focus on these particular topics?
In infectious diseases prevention science, we follow the data and currently the epidemic in the US in concentrated among gay, bisexual and same gender-loving men, and transgender women, particularly people of color. HIV follows the same patterns of disease concentration as many others, reflecting the vulnerability to infection among people who are disadvantaged by intersecting systems of privilege and oppression, such as our system of patriarchal racial capitalism. What motivates me is adding to the empirical evidence that these systems of oppression produce negative health outcomes and then using this knowledge to design interventions to disrupt that system. Our interventions attempt to interrupt the dynamic social interactions that maintain these systems, which is what interpersonal expressions of stigma and discrimination are. Other prevention scientists work on policies, for example state-level anti-trans/gay or HIV criminalization laws, that interact with the more micro-level expressions of oppression.
Can you talk about the unique challenges and rewards of working with the queer and queer Black community?
I work mainly with gay Black men and I do not identify as a gay/same gender-loving Black man, so demonstrating that I am a trustworthy ally to this community is a constant project. I have a controversial position on trust, which is that we can trust in nothing other than this: people will be human. Thus, as I am human, I am also imperfect and have to scan and evaluate how my socialization to the sexism, homophobia/transphobia/heteronormativity, and racism (and other -isms that characterize our world) influences my behaviors, my science, and my heart/mind/soul. So that is both a challenge and a reward. The queer Black community is a beautiful and diverse and joyful space that I am lucky to have experienced even though I am not a member of that community. I am honored to be included when I am and just relish the creativity, brilliance, connection, joy, and beauty that they center and celebrate. What I see in these communities is the recognition that real power is found in connection and the more connection, the more love, the more joy that you can tap into, the more powerful you and your communities and your causes become. That has been the greatest gift of working with these communities for me as a researcher and a person.
What does Pride month mean to you as an individual and/or a researcher?
Pride is a glorious time when we celebrate queer communities and the radical notion that simply being queer, no matter how out or not you may be, is liberatory. There are so many identities that have been suppressed in our world, sexuality-based, gender-based, nationality-based. When it is transgressive just to name who you are or who you love, you know you are being oppressed. As a researcher, it is a great time to recruit and to connect with the communities. But personally it is much more and just a time to celebrate, have fun, and center everything queer!
How do you go about developing a new anti-HIV/anti-stigma intervention? Do your personal background or relationships or connections inform that at all?
Developing interventions is optimally achieved by blending personal or lived experience/knowledge and academic experience/knowledge. I think this is especially true when it comes to how we respond to and recreate the social interactions that sustain systems of privilege and oppression. So of course I have experienced stigma and discrimination and know how that feels, but I have also enacted it and know what that process entails. The science can help gain a clearer sense of the various pathways and complexities of the micro-systems that sustain stigma and discrimination, but the experiences give you the insights that allow you design intervention components and modules that truly resonate with people. The social psychology science around these social interactions is advanced and rich, so we have a wealth of research results to inform what we design. But if you do not know what deep shame feels like, it may be hard to support others as they process their own feelings of shame as a first step toward the self- and other-compassion needed to change stigmatizing behaviors.
Looking back at your body of work, which research did you enjoy doing the most? What about it spoke to you so much?
Definitely the community-level anti-intersectional stigma and discrimination work. We were on the streets talking to people and helping them tap into the love they have for the people in their lives. We spoke about the process of letting that overwhelm the messages they have received about hating certain behaviors and rejecting their own loved ones because certain sexual and other behaviors have been labeled as "bad" or "immoral." Helping people tap into their feelings of love and self-/other-compassion was a beautiful thing.
What’s your favorite part of your work?
Recruiting at events like Brooklyn Pride!
As you look forward to the next things you’ll be studying, what are you most excited to dig into? What makes you most hopeful for the future?
I think that prevention science needs to be more holistic and focus on sets of outcomes that include positive ones, alongside the infections and adverse health outcomes that we typically study. So, I am hoping to shift some of my research to sexual pleasure-focused outcomes, as well as ways to destigmatize sex work while recognizing the harms that often accompany such work. I think we have come a long way in setting ourselves and each other free, using science, pop culture, policies, and system change. So that gives me hope: things have gotten better!