St Francis College warmly invites you to our Pride Research Seminar on Thursday 18 September at 2:00 PM. This special event showcases the inspiring work of scholars and students engaged in LGBTQIA+ research, creating space for inclusive dialogue and academic exploration.
đź“š Scroll down to discover the exciting presentations and meet the brilliant minds behind them.
👉 Join us in celebrating diversity, scholarship, and community—everyone is welcome!
Presentations
Hear from local scholars and students exploring LGBTQIA+ themes in theology and spirituality, including:
Emma Leitch (Australian Catholic University)
Religious Sexual Orientation Change Efforts (SOCE): A failed 40-year experiment
Sexual orientation change efforts (SOCE) have been known as “conversion therapy” or “reparative therapy,” or in the religious sphere, “ex-gay ministry.” The American Psychiatric Association refer to them as SOCE as there is neither an empirical basis for the treatments nor evidence of success to validate calling them a “therapy”. Evidence of the harm caused by SOCE, however, is ample. This paper traces the medical, psychiatric and scientific background to religious SOCE, showing how, the Church and para-church organisations took the baton on SOCE precisely when medicine and psychiatry stopped medical change efforts. The Ex-gay ministry was based upon theories from scientific studies that were deeply flawed and already refuted and was perpetuated by hope of change rather than actual change. Discussion of the rise and demise of the ex-gay movement is followed by a collation of research into the detrimental effects of ex-gay ministry and mixed orientation marriage. This research shows that the Church’s major strategy for addressing same sex sexuality from the 1970s to the mid 2010s has failed.
AJ Gouws (University of Divinity)
Mommy and Me(chthild): thinking through the dissolution of the self through mysticism and masochism
Queer & kink theory might seem odd bedfellows with the medieval mystical theology of Mechthild of Magdeburg, and yet the affective and erotic qualities of her book, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, make it a particularly rich source of queer, psychoanalytic and kinky readings. The figure of the mother emerges as an important theme for Mechthild, and this paper will thus attend to the maternal -- particularly as the mother relates to the idea of a self/other ethical relation, power and agency, and suffering.
Chris Phillips (University of Divinity)
Reframing bodily integrity in theology: thinking hormonally with Haraway’s cyborg.
Christian theological approaches to bodily integrity underlie a significant proportion of discrimination faced by intersex, trans, and gender diverse people. These approaches see some bodies as requiring intervention to be considered whole, and other bodies for which wanted intervention is perceived as impermissible mutilation.
Borrowing the figure of the cyborg from feminist scholar Donna Haraway’s A Manifesto for Cyborgs, we can critique existing harmful approaches to bodily integrity as prioritising the aetiological or teleological and de-emphasising the problems of here and now. Following this, this presentation speculatively fabulates a theological anthropology grounded in the present, building on disability theologian Brian Brock’s reading of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12 as a tool to think the human body through the lens of hormones and the endocrine system.
Caitlin Olsen (Morling College)
Exploring LGBTQIA+ Experiences in Brisbane Protestant Evangelicalism.
This presentation, distilled from the presenter’s masters thesis research, will approach the question of secure LGBTQIA+ inclusion within Christian community in Queensland from local historical, theological, and social-scientific perspectives.
The research, which explored Queensland LGBTQIA+ Christians' personal experiences through an anonymous survey, identified several key stressors that hold LGBTQIA+ Christian existence within Queensland evangelical churches in a precarious tension; these stressors were underpinned by the social environment’s dependence on a binarily-valenced hierarchy of gender and sexuality, cultivated within a pietistic, sectarian, and political historical landscape. Despite this, some LGBTQIA+ Christian identity integration remains possible within biblically traditionalist Queensland evangelicalism, through developing a culture of trauma-informed practice, secure relationship to church leadership, and a degree of ambiguity tolerance. Theologically reflecting on the data rendered the participants’ resistance to evangelical norms a prophetic critique against cis-heteropatriarchal dynamics and their resultant injustices, correcting ecclesiological practice towards a holistic shalomic telos.
About the Presenters
Emma Leitch
Emma Leitch has recently completed her PhD in Theology at ACU, studying the themes of suffering and glory in 2 Corinthians. She has been independently researching and writing a book on faith and diversity in sexuality and gender identity called "Why Welcome is Not Enough: Addressing the 'Welcoming but not affirming' position of Christian churches toward LGBTQIA+ people". She is a mother of three adult children, one of whom identifies as bisexual, and an active member of Free Mum Hugs Australia, attending pride events to extend love and support to LGBTQIA+ people, as many do not have supportive adults in their lives.
Chris Phillips
Chris is a graduate student at the University of Divinity living on Wurundjeri country in Naarm/Melbourne. Chris has a background in medicine, public health and queer studies. They are interested in interdisciplinary approaches to theology, and the impacts of theology on humans both inside and outside the Church. Chris also works part-time as a general practitioner with a special interest in queer and trans healthcare.
Caitlin Olsen
Caitlin Olsen is a practical theologian, speaker, and professional writer/editor. Caitlin holds a Bachelor of Arts (English Literature and Writing) and a Masters of Theological Studies, completing a thesis that explored the experiences of queer and trans* Christians in a Brisbane Protestant Evangelical church. Caitlin tutors in academic skills at Morling College, and previously worked as a school chaplain with SU Australia and lectured and developed courses in Academic Communication and Christian Studies at Christian Heritage College.
This seminar is an opportunity to engage with diverse theological and cultural perspectives, and to support research that affirms and uplifts LGBTQIA+ voices within academic and faith communities.
Join us in celebrating inclusive scholarship and fostering meaningful conversations. All are welcome!
For questions, contact Peter Kline at pkline@ministryeducation.org.au.