Experts to discuss gender stereotypes at Marquette’s new speaker series

A new annual speaker series on gender and sexuality, sponsored by Marquette University’s Department of Psychology, will host a discussion on raising children free of gender stereotypes, Raising Gender-Nonconforming Children in a Gender Stereotyped World: Science and Parenting.

Dr. Diane Ehrensaft, associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California-San Francisco, and Dr. Christia Spears Brown, professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, will address how children navigate the gender continuum in a culture where many people see gender as a category, and how parents and practitioners can help gender nonconforming children develop in authentic and healthy ways.

The discussion takes place on Friday, March 31, from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., in the Alumni Memorial Union, Room 227, at Marquette University in Milwaukee.

Spears Brown’s research examines how children’s and adolescents’ academic, psychological and social lives are shaped by the social groups they belong to. She is the author of Parenting Beyond Pink and Blue: How to Raise Your Kids Free of Gender Stereotypes.

Ehrensaft, a developmental and clinical psychologist, is the director of mental health and founding member of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center, a partnership between UC-San Francisco and community agencies that provides services and advocacy to gender nonconforming/transgender children and youth and their families.

Marquette University’s Department of Psychology requests that people interested in attending contact Patricia Johnson at to RSVP.

For more information, visit marquette.edu/psyc.