From the Guest Editor for the December 2014 Issue of Sexuality and Disability: The Emerging Intersection of Sexuality and Disability in the Profession of Social Work

Abstract

Welcome to this special theme issue on The Intersection of Sexuality and Disability: Implications for the Social Work Profession! I am proud, excited, and grateful to introduce scholars, practitioners, and intellectuals to emerging ideas, conceptions, research, and directions centered on a typically marginalized and overlooked topic in social work— sexuality and disability. Let me begin by providing the context to which this special theme issue originated, what you will encounter in intellectual and practical knowledge from the articles herein, and the potential roadmap of this area of inquiry. I am a councilor on the Council on Disability and Persons with Disabilities (CDPD) of the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE). I have been part of CDPD for the past 2 years and during that time have recommended topics to address in presentations, trainings, and curriculum within the social work profession. One such topic that I felt strongly about is how social workers are taught and trained in the area of intersectionality research, with a focus on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ) individuals with disabilities. Intersectionality is a concept that I encountered as part of doctoral research, but never once heard in graduate classes in social work, nor in the field. As social workers, who attend schools accredited by the CSWE, it is mandatory that we attend the traditional diversity survey course in which learning is focused on identities, but they are conceptualized and understood as separate rather than as intersecting. This situation creates a place where and how social workers begin to make sense of the lived experiences of people’s identity categories, while accounting for power, privilege, and oppression at the institutional level. The CSWE [1] has emphasized in its Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) that accredited schools are required to teach students about the dimensions, variability, and intersectionality of identities and the application of social justice. However, when one looks for research in this area, a gap