Designing Technology to Support Safety for Transgender Women & Non-Binary People of Color

This work provides a preliminary understanding of how transgender women and non-binary people of color experience violence and manage safety, and what opportunities exist for HCI to support the safety needs of this community. We conducted nine interviews to understand how participants practice safety and what role technology played, if any, in these experiences. Interviewees expressed physical and psychological safety concerns, and managed safety by informing friends of their location using digital technologies, making compromises, and avoiding law enforcement. We designed U-Signal, a wearable technology and accompanying smartphone application prototype to increase physical safety and decrease safety concerns, reduce violence, and help build community.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154051/1/StarksDesigningTechnology.pdfDescription of StarksDesigningTechnology.pdf : Main articl

Designing Trans Technology: Defining Challenges and Envisioning Community-Centered Solutions

Transgender and non-binary people face substantial challenges in the world, ranging from social inequities and discrimination to lack of access to resources. Though technology cannot fully solve these problems, technological solutions may help to address some of the challenges trans people and communities face. We conducted a series of participatory design sessions (total N = 21 participants) to understand trans people’s most pressing challenges and to involve this population in the design process. We detail four types of technologies trans people envision: technologies for changing bodies, technologies for changing appearances / gender expressions, technologies for safety, and technologies for finding resources. We found that centering trans people in the design process enabled inclusive technology design that primarily focused on sharing community resources and prioritized connection between community members.Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG)Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/153781/1/designing_trans_technologies_paper___camera_ready v2.pdfDescription of designing_trans_technologies_paper___camera_ready v2.pdf : Main articl

Trans Time: Safety, Privacy, and Content Warnings on a Transgender-Specific Social Media Site

Trans people often use social media to connect with others, find and share resources, and post transition-related content. However, because most social media platforms are not built with trans people in mind and because online networks include people who may not accept one’s trans identity, sharing trans content can be difficult. We studied Trans Time, a social media site developed particularly for trans people to document transition and build community. We interviewed early Trans Time users (n = 6) and conducted focus groups with potential users (n = 21) to understand how a trans-specific site uniquely supports its users. We found that Trans Time has the potential to be a safe space, encourages privacy, and effectively enables its users to selectively view content using content warnings. Together, safety, privacy, and content warnings create an online space where trans people can simultaneously build community, find support, and express both the mundanity and excitement of trans life. Yet in each of these areas, we also learned ways that the site can improve. We provide implications for how social media sites may better support trans users, as well as insular communities of people from other marginalized groups.Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG)Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/162569/1/HaimsonTransTime.pdfDescription of HaimsonTransTime.pdf : Main articleSEL

Woman-Centered Design through Humanity, Activism, and Inclusion

Women account for over half of the global population, however, continue to be subject to systematic and systemic disadvantage, particularly in terms of access to health and education. At every intersection, where systemic inequality accounts for greater loss of life or limitations on full and healthy living, women are more greatly impacted by those inequalities. The design of technologies is no different, the very definition of technology is historically cast in terms of male activities, and advancements in the field are critical to improve women's quality of life. This article views HCI, a relatively new field, as well positioned to act critically in the ways that technology serve, refigure, and redefine women's bodies. Indeed, the female body remains a contested topic, a restriction to the development of women's health. On one hand, the field of women's health has attended to the medicalization of the body and therefore is to be understood through medical language and knowledge. On the other hand, the framing of issues associated with women's health and people's experiences of and within such system(s) remain problematic for many. This is visible today in, e.g., socio-cultural practices in disparate geographies or medical devices within a clinic or the home. Moreover, the biological body is part of a great unmentionable, i.e., the perils of essentialism. We contend that it is necessary, pragmatically and ethically, for HCI to turn its attention toward a woman-centered design approach. While previous research has argued for the dangers of gender-demarcated design work, we advance that designing for and with women should not be regarded as ghettoizing, but instead as critical to improving women's experiences in bodily transactions, choices, rights, and access to and in health and care. In this article, we consider how and why designing with and for woman matters. We use our design-led research as a way to speak to and illustrate alternatives to designing for and with women within HCI.QC 20200930</p