stef shuster

Associate Professor of Sociology of Medicine and Gender Michigan State University

  • East Lansing MI

stef shuster's research explores how evidence is a social artifact that is constituted through social, cultural, and historical contexts.

Contact

Michigan State University

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Biography

stef m. shuster is an associate professor in Lyman Briggs College and the Department of Sociology. Their current research and teaching areas—in the social aspects of medicine, science, and gender—are united by an overarching interest in how evidence is a social artifact that is constituted through social, cultural, and historical contexts. Across their projects, shuster asks: who constructs evidence, how does evidence confer authority to individuals and groups, and how is it mobilized by social actors? shuster currently serves on the editorial boards for Social Science & Medicine, Social Currents, and Contemporary Sociology.

Industry Expertise

Education/Learning

Areas of Expertise

Inequality
Gender
Gender Affirmative Care
Medical Sociology
Social Movements

Accomplishments

Teacher-Scholar Award, Michigan State University

2022

Inspiration Award - Professional Achievement, Center for Gender in Global Context, Michigan State University

2022

Donald W. Light Award for the Applied or Public Practice of Medical Sociology, American Sociological Association Section on Medical Sociology

2021

Education

The University of Iowa

Ph.D.

Sociology

2014

The University of Iowa

M.A.

Sociology

2009

Indiana University

B.A.

Sociology

2004

Affiliations

  • Social Science & Medicine : Editorial Board
  • Social Currents : Editorial Board
  • Contemporary Sociology : Editorial Board

News

What Makes Trans Joy Such a Powerful Antidote to Transphobia

The Daily Beast  online

2022-08-09

“Joy is a crucial element of people’s everyday lives that has been understudied by sociologists,” write researchers Stef Shuster of Michigan State University and Laurel Westbrook of Grand Valley State University. Last week they published a study on trans joy titled, Reducing the Joy Deficit in Sociology. Despite all the reasons to lose hope, 40 trans people told the researchers they found joy in being transgender.

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Michigan State assistant professor helps doctors find joy working with transgender, nonbinary people

FOX 47 News  online

2022-06-23

A Michigan State University assistant professor’s research study is helping medical providers find joy in caring for transgender and nonbinary people.

“A lot of my research recently has been interviewing medical providers who work with transgender people and thinking about the uncertainty that they experience and the challenges they face,” said stef shuster.

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Opinion | Who Should Be Allowed to Transition?

The New York Times  online

2022-03-04

Medical gatekeeping evolved not to protect the patient, but to protect the doctor, as Dr. stef shuster, an assistant professor of sociology at Michigan State University, argues in the new book “Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender.” In the 1960s, the German-born endocrinologist Harry Benjamin became the foremost doctor in the United States helping people transition, but the work was so controversial that it threatened his reputation.

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Event Appearances

“Reducing the Joy Deficit in Sociology: A Study of Transgender Joy"

2022 | Annual Meeting of the ASA  Los Angeles, CA

“Situational Gender"

2022 | Annual Meeting of the ASA  Los Angeles, CA

“The Interplay of Emotion, Conspiracy Theories, and Discriminatory Language amongst Bernie Sanders Supporters During the 2020 Democratic Primaries"

2022 | Symposium on Uncommon yet Consequential Online Harms  Online

Research Grants

"Making Introductory Biology Classes More Gender Inclusive"

Scholarship of Undergraduate Teaching & Learning, LBC & MSU Graduate School

2021-2022

“Trans Medicine: The Emergence and Practice of Treating Gender"

Humanities and Arts Research Program (HARP) Production Grant, Michigan State University

2021-2022

“Social, Economic, and Health Consequences of COVD-19 Among Sexual and Gender Minorities of Color"

College of Social Science Covid-19 Grant, Michigan State University

2020-2021

Journal Articles

Troubling Trends in Health Misinformation Related to Gender‐Affirming Care

Hastings Center Report

2024

Amidst the misinformation climate about trans people and their health care that dominates policy and social discourse, autonomy‐based rationales for gender‐affirming care for trans and nonbinary youth are being called into question. In this commentary, which responds to “What Is the Aim of Pediatric ‘Gender‐Affirming’ Care?,” by Moti Gorin, we contextualize the virulent ideas circulating in misinformation campaigns that have become weaponized for unprecedented legal interference into standard health care. We conclude that the current legal justifications for upending gender‐affirming care gloss over how this health care field meets conventional evidentiary standards and aligns protocols with most other fields of medicine.

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The assertion of reproductive and social control in mid‐twentieth‐century US transgender medicine

Gender & History

2024

Drawing on archival materials from the Kinsey Institute, including letters of correspondence between medical professionals and transgender people during the 1950s–1970s, this article demonstrates how scientific and medical communities selectively employed old and new eugenics in their work with trans patients seeking hormonal and/or surgical interventions. Old eugenics helped providers control trans people's reproduction and family formations. New eugenics helped providers maintain social control over trans people's lives and solidify an ‘ideal’ patient who demonstrated their ‘value’ by upholding social fitness standards.

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How the Clinic Made Gender: The Medical History of a Transformative Idea

Contemporary Sociology

2023

In How the Clinic Made Gender: The Medical History of a Transformative Idea, Sandra Eder uses the case of the Pediatric Endocrinology Clinic at Johns Hopkins University in the mid-twentieth century to examine the confluence of events that led to the development of ‘‘gender.’’Readers will gain an appreciation for the inconsistencies in scientific thought, evidentiary basis, and tools used to persuade medical professionals about the ‘‘proper’’way to medically manage individuals diagnosed with congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH). Eder’s work uses a rich archive of primary documents including patient case reports and meeting notes from researchers and medical professionals who worked at Johns Hopkins University, as well as published scientific articles, to craft this genealogy of gender across disciplinary theories and movements in scientific knowledge and discovery.

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