My Expertise
Social aspects of: queer and trans health; sexual and reproductive health; diverse genders, sexualities, relationships, and families; LGBTQIA+ inclusive health, education, and research systems
Fields of Research (FoR)
Sociology of health, Sociology of family and relationships, Sexualities, Transgender studiesBiography
Professor Christy E. Newman (they/them) is an LGBTQIA+ health sociologist at the Centre for Social Research in Health, and Deputy Dean Research in UNSW Arts, Design and Architecture.
Over the last 20 years, Christy has contributed expertise on qualitative social research, critical health sociology, and gender and sexuality diversity to multidisciplinary projects on the social aspects of sexual and reproductive health. More recently, this...view more
Professor Christy E. Newman (they/them) is an LGBTQIA+ health sociologist at the Centre for Social Research in Health, and Deputy Dean Research in UNSW Arts, Design and Architecture.
Over the last 20 years, Christy has contributed expertise on qualitative social research, critical health sociology, and gender and sexuality diversity to multidisciplinary projects on the social aspects of sexual and reproductive health. More recently, this scope has expanded through new collaborations investigating the care and support needs of populations whose experiences challenge a range of normative assumptions about health, identity, embodiment, and relationships, including in the context of digital health, mental health, adolescent health, dementia care, violence prevention, and cancer prevention.
Christy is committed to supporting community-partnered and peer-led approaches, and to amplifying the voices of populations historically neglected or collapsed into broader population categories, particularly trans and gender diverse people, bi+ and other multi-gender attracted people, and people with innate variations of sex characteristics (intersex). This research has been funded by >$18 million in grants from the Australian Research Council (Discovery and Linkage grants), National Health and Medical Research Council (MRFF, Project and Partnership grants), public sector and for-purpose health agencies.
Christy is regularly consulted on inclusive health, education and research practices as a social researcher, a queer/bi+ and non-binary person and parent, and as a co-lead of CoPQTI: the UNSW Community of Practice for inclusive research with Queer and Trans people, and people with Innate variations of sex characteristics (Intersex). They also post research updates on Instagram as @thisprofesh and Bluesky as @thisnewman.bsky.social
Selected past projects and publications include:
- Routledge Handbook of Sexuality, Gender, Health and Rights
- Social Perspectives on Trans Health
- Reimagining menopause: mobilising radical imaginaries across social, creative and clinical domains
- Gender diversity and social change: transgressions, translations, transformations
- my health, our family: documenting stories of family life in the context of HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C (ARC DP160100134)
- Trans inclusive cervical cancer screening
- What we do well: strengths based research about Aboriginal young people's sexual wellbeing (ARC LP170100190)
- Dynamic Gender Project
- Queer families: valuing stories of diversity, adversity and belonging
- Trust in digital health among communities affected by BBVs and STIs in Australia
- Sustaining sexual and reproductive health through COVID-19 pandemic restrictions
- Queer generations: belonging and citizenship among gender and sexual minority youth (ARC DP150101292)
- StraightMSM study: heterosexually-identified men who have sex with men
- Managing HIV in general practice settings (NHMRC 1021790)
My Awards
- 2020 Research Supervisor Award, UNSW Arc Postgraduate Council
- 2017 Mid-Career Interdisciplinary Achiever Award, Australasian Sexual Health Alliance
- 2010 Paul Bourke Award for Early Career Research, Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia
- 1998 University Medal in Arts, Murdoch University
My Research Supervision
Currently supervising
- Clue Coman: Social imaginaries of queer justice
- Shannon Harvey: Disrupted bodies: Interrogating the gender binary in family violence policy and practice
- Bella Bushby: Assessing the sexual health and HIV needs of Bi+ people in Australia
- Ava del Tufo: The multifaceted health impacts of living in a rural community for transgender and gender diverse people
- Tierney Marey: Embodied equity: Equity labour in higher education
Doctoral graduates
- Dr Heather McCormack (2024): Optimising the MBS 715 Adult Health Check to improve sexual health testing in routine care for Aboriginal people in NSW
- Dr Catriona Ooi (2024): Services for men who have sex with men in western Sydney
- Dr Lisa Wojciechowski (2023) Young + Positive: Young people living with HIV in Australia
- Dr Anthony KJ Smith (2022) PrEP in Practice: a sociological study of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis prescribing
- Dr Giselle Newton (2022) Everyday belongings: Exploring Australian donor-conceived adults' social, linguistic and digital practices across private and public domains
- Dr Elena Cama (2022) Navigating safety and sexual harms in the context of dating and hookup platform use among adult Australians
- Dr Elan Lazuardi (2019) Navigating the social dynamics of HIV care: A qualitative study in urban Indonesia in the era of scaled-up testing and treatment
- Dr Jialing (Angela) Cui (2019) Understanding the empowerment of people with severe mental illness in the community through the eyes of social work practitioners in Sydney and Hong Kong
- Dr Jessica Botfield (2019) Engaging young people from migrant and refugee backgrounds with sexual and reproductive health care
- Dr Jamee Newland (2015) Safety in the silence: A qualitative social network analysis of hepatitis C risk and prevention in three networks of Australians who inject drugs
- Dr Denton Callander (2013) Just a Preference: Exploring concepts of race among gay men looking for sex or dates online
- Dr Dean Murphy (2013) ‘A child of one’s own’: enacting kinship among gay men pursuing parenthood through surrogacy
- Dr Rebecca Gray (2013) The dynamics of shame: navigating professional complexities when counselling in alcohol and other drug settings
My Engagement
- Editorial Board, Culture, Health & Sexuality
- Editorial Board, Health Sociology Review
- Associate, Australian Human Rights Institute
- Member, NSW Health LGBTIQ+ Health Strategy Implementation Committee
- Member, TASA: The Australian Sociological Association
- Member, AusPATH: Australian Professional Association for Trans Health