In the first post of our series from the Queer Methodologies in Medical Humanities PhD School, researcher Katie Munday explores the radical potential of joy as a generative process in research spaces.
Enjoyment, laughter, and connection aren’t always what people expect from research. Some may even hold such work in contention. Is it “too radical” to enjoy yourself during your PhD? To laugh in research spaces and love what you do? In my own work, I’ve laughed alongside disabled people in cancer research sessions. I’ve enjoyed the company of trans+ people sharing their difficulties in accessing healthcare, I’ve shared my own stories and felt the better for it. No matter what we talk about, I always feel at home in queer and crip spaces; thankfully these spaces often include post-graduate researchers.
It is a pleasure and a privilege to have the time and resources to explore parts of myself and my community. My PhD: Exploring Health and Social Care Inequities for Transgender and Gender Diverse Autistic Adults Living in the UK, serves as a great excuse for me to surround myself with queer Autistic community. I get to hold space for community members to share, create and challenge research, to centre joy, compassion and love. I feel great joy when I am with researchers and community members who like to unravel problems to understand all their intricacies, those who understand that liberation for one must be based in the liberation of all. I get great satisfaction from picking apart societal expectations and knowledge that are often considered inscrutable facts, and I love being around others who also want to explore knowledge on the outskirts, the obscure, the enigmatic.
Leaning In
At the recent Queer Methodologies in Medical Humanities PhD School, we introduced ourselves with the usual information: our institution, country of origin, year of study, and research topic. We were seated at a small round table with a pristine white tablecloth, listening to others as they shared their work: drama techniques with youth in India, understanding interphobia experiences in medicine, and a collaborative ethnography of coma experiences. The last person at our table looked a bit nervous to answer the last question. “My research is about rough sex,” she told us quietly. In contrast to what might be considered a typical “professional” response, everyone around the table immediately leaned in. “Please, tell us more…” we asked and “Are you looking for participants?”. This researcher shared how others often regard her with contempt and suspicion when she describes her work. But here, surrounded by queer researchers, their work was understood as interesting, useful. Out of the ordinary, in all the right ways. She visibly lightened, her shoulders relaxed, and a round of laughter went round the table. There was someone else in the room who had published on bareback porn, for goodness’ sake!
This kind of enthusiasm and joy doesn’t appear to be the norm within academic research. When I told friends, family, and colleagues that I had been accepted into a PhD programme, their reactions were mixed. Those who had not studied before congratulated me on the achievement. But those with post-graduate academic experience immediately shared their own study woes; I received warnings about the workload and emotional toll, even cautioning that I might fall out of love with my research along the way. Between the tales of fatigue from other PhD students and the excruciating application process, it’s a wonder I even embarked on my studies. The thing that kept me going (keeps me going) is being able to do research with members of my community, which centres their needs and interests. Work that hopefully can make things better for members of my community, even if that change is small, takes time and effort. I want to use the privilege I have to enact change; trans Autistic people deserve appropriate, effective and, dare I say, joyful health and social care.
Fantasy vs Reality: The Witchcraft of Interdisciplinary Practice
I think that too many films had caused me to dream up what university would look like. The students would hang out at the library, talking theory and reading books, and we would all magically have spare time to theorise, create and build together. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a space like that within my university. It’s easy to feel disconnected on campus, surrounded by post-graduate researchers who study completely different things from me. These differences can span how we see the world, believe knowledge is created, and approach ethical issues. Others want to explore the intricacies of their communities but can’t help questioning whether this work should take place in the academy at all. The issue of academic reform or abolition is received differently between individuals and departments, and it can be hard to find a steady footing.
When searching for my PhD supervisor, I spoke to several sociology lecturers, one of whom provided intense warnings about my proposed shift from sociology to psychology. They left me with the impression that my ethos would be entirely out of place in a psychology department. I was cautioned that the two disciplines could not be mixed; attempting to do so would be akin to witchcraft. Even so, I have yet to burst into flames upon crossing the threshold, and my understanding of accessibility continues to be grounded in sociological principles.
Psychology as a discipline has historically blamed disengagement and inaccessibility on the individual, overlooking the systemic, socio-political dynamics that cause these issues. Defining transgender and autistic embodiments in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (APA, 2013) makes both a medical problem, a “co-morbidity”. This not only homogenises and flattens transgender and Autistic experiences but also ignores the systemic violence that affects both communities, especially at their intersections.
Doing a lit review of trans Autistic research has been re-traumatising. To sit within the academy that often scrutinises, phenomenalises, and pathologises transgender Autistic experiences is painful. Medicalism does not align with trans liberation or the neurodiversity movement (Botha et al., 2024). It doesn’t reflect how I feel and live as a trans Autistic person and it does not align with how I research health and social care inequities faced by transgender and/or Autistic adults (Bruce et al., 2023; Munday et al 2025; Tansley et al 2024). It can be exhausting to reconcile the parts of myself that believe in academic reform and those that seek abolition. I have written on shifting research paradigms within trans Autistic research before (Munday, 2024), and it continues to be something that I reflect on whilst working within, through and outside of the academy.
Finding My People, Finding My Joy
Constantly outing myself as trans and autistic through my research, I quickly identify my kind of people. Although this can be quite challenging, it also allows me to connect with like-minded individuals who perceive knowledge creation and dissemination as a form of liberation. Finding these other radical researchers and bonding over our shared love for our subjects, the power of the hyper focus, and the idea that our work will effect change, it makes these spaces powerful. These researchers make me feel powerful.
I have been lucky to find these spaces and researchers in many places, including a recent Trans+ Conference run by Beyond Reflections. Despite talks on transphobia, mental health and inaccessibility faced by trans community members, we were also able to connect, have fun and be creative. Creating tarot cards together and responding to the Trans Aware Cancer Care flag was the embodiment of community. At this conference we were able to be with each other in a way that makes sense to our queer bodyminds; it was beautiful, joyful and deeply moving. I’m not sure I would feel that in too many research spaces.
Joy is a generative process, not just of academic and community knowledge but of connection to ourselves and others, and it doesn’t always come easy in academia. The bliss of working alongside each other, with each other and for each other subverts the traditional process of research within the academy. That connection and love is the reason why I can go through textbooks explaining the so-called deficiency of my autisticness and the deviancy of my transness. I sit very happily, confidently and proudly at the intersections of being trans and Autistic, researcher and activist, psychologist and sociologist. Researching in the medical humanities feels like coming home.
About the author
Katie Munday is an ESRC-funded PhD student Exploring Trans and Gender Diverse Autistic Adults’ Experiences of Health and Social Care Inequity. Their research, and life, focuses on love, connection and anarchy. They write regularly on their blog, Autistic and Living the Dream. Katie is queer, Disabled and very tired.
About the 2025 Medical Humanities PhD School
This post is part of a collection of contributions from attendees of the Queer Methodologies in Medical Humanities PhD School which took place in Durham in March 2025. The PhD school was funded by Wellcome, as part of the Discovery Research Platform for Medical Humanities at Durham University, and the Centre for Medical Humanities and Bioethics (CMHB) at Linköping University.
All articles in this collection can be found on this page: 2025 Queer Methodologies in Medical Humanities PhD School.
References
American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Desk Reference to the Diagnostic Criteria from DSM-5 (R). Arlington, TX: American Psychiatric Association Publishing.
Botha, Monique, Chapman, Robert, Giwa Onaiwu, Morénike, Kapp, Steven K, Stannard Ashley, Abs, and Walker, Nick. 2024. “The neurodiversity concept was developed collectively: An overdue correction on the origins of neurodiversity theory”. Autism, 28(6), 1591-1594. https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613241237871
Bruce, Harley, Munday, Katie, and Kapp, S.K. 2023. “Exploring the Experiences of Autistic Transgender and Non-Binary Adults in Seeking Gender Identity Healthcare”. Autism and Adulthood, 5 (2), 191-203. http://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2023.0003
Munday, Katie, Papadopoulos, Chris, Adkin, Tanya & Gray-Hammond, David. 2025. “Improving substance use services for autistic adults: Insights and recommendations from autistic adults”. Autism in Adulthood, 00 (00), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2024.021
Munday, Katie. 2024. “Shifting Research Paradigms in Gender Diverse Autistic Research”. In H.Bertilsdotter-Rosqvist, A.Day and M.Krazinski’s (eds) Living Under a Double Rainbow: Exploring Autistic genders, sexualities, and relationality (pp – 46-58). Routledge.
Tansley, Roseanna, Corbin-Clarke, Stevie., Munday, Katie, Durrant, Amanda and Hughes, Melanie (2024). “’What I would like to say’ findings: Cancer care for everyone”. Journal of Community Nursing, 38 (1), 46-50. https://www.jcn.co.uk/journals/issue/02-2024/article/what-i-would-like-to-say-findings-cancer-care-for-everyone
