Rowan Haus, PhD

Rowan Haus, Phd Portrait
Social Sciences and Humanities 288
Bio

Education

  • Ph.D. University of California - Davis, Sociology (2023)
  • M.A. University of California - Davis, Sociology (2018)
  • B.A. University of Georgia, Sociology (2016)

About

In June 2023, I earned my PhD in Sociology with a Designated Emphasis in Feminist Theory and Research from the University of California, Davis. My areas of specialization are gender, sexuality, and the family. I am dedicated to diversifying academic representations of LGBTQ+ families by incorporating bisexual, transgender, and asexual identities into research on queer parenthood. My dissertation research highlights the experiences of bisexual parents as they navigate discussing sexuality with their children. My research has received funding from the American Institute of Bisexuality and the University of California, Davis. I am the creator of one of the largest and most comprehensive existing surveys of bisexual individuals, with more than 6500 completed responses. Access to the survey and its data can be found on my website (http://www.rowanhaus.net).

My pronouns are they/them/theirs.

Dissertation - "The Bisexual Parent Advantage: How Bisexual Parents Overcome Stigma and Excel at Parenting"

Scholars know little about how bisexual parents think about and experience their sexual identities, particularly as they interact with their children. My dissertation asks how bisexuals approach sexuality-related conversations with their children while navigating bisexual stigmatization. I use a mixed-method, two-step research approach to explore the complexities of bisexual parents' experiences. In the first stage of this research, I created a survey on Qualtrics and distributed it using paid Facebook advertising. This survey is one of the largest and most comprehensive existing surveys on bisexual and pansexual individuals, with more than 6500 completed responses. My preliminary survey findings about the various reasons bisexual parents choose to disclose or not disclose their bisexuality are explored in more detail in my Sexualities article, "Making Visible the Invisible: Bisexual Parents Ponder Coming Out to Their Children." In the second stage of this research, I conducted 101 lengthy semi-structured interviews with bisexual, gay, and lesbian parents from diverse backgrounds. My dissertation chapters cover topics related to bisexual parents' identity disclosure, advantages associated with bisexual parents, and the gendered differences of bisexual parent-child communication.

Additional Projects - "Diversifying the Rainbow Family: Incorporating Bisexual, Transgender, and Asexual Identities into Representations of Queer Parenthood."

My future research agenda involves two projects, both of which intend to diversify representations of LGBTQ+ families in academic research. First, I intend to use my rich dissertation dataset to analyze the relationship between transgender and LGB identities among parents. Twenty-two of my interviewees identify as transgender. Among participants who identify as transgender and lesbian, gay, or bisexual, the transgender identity seems to take precedence in parents’ lives. Although some research on LGB parents includes transgender individuals, this work rarely interrogates how parents’ transgender identities impact the way they understand their queer parenting status more broadly. For this project, I will analyze my data on transgender LGB parents to broaden conversations about queer parenthood which tend to focus on either sexuality or gender, rather than attending to the intersection of these identities.

Additionally, I intend to use preliminary findings from my dissertation to establish a new line of inquiry into parents’ feelings toward their children’s asexuality. A preliminary analysis of my dissertation data highlights parents' complicated feelings toward children’s asexuality. Even bisexual parents, who talk openly about their exclusion from straight and gay communities, express a desire for their children not to identify as asexual. Parents explain that they want their children to experience the joys of attraction, and say they feel saddened by their children’s asexuality. I plan to interview more LGB parents of asexual teenagers and adult children to gain a greater understanding of how they understand their child’s asexuality in relation to their family’s larger queer identity.

Research Focus

Sexuality, Gender, Family and Kinship, Intersectionality, Identity, Feminist Research and Methodology, Qualitative and Quantitative Methodologies

Publications

Haus, Rowan. 2021. “Making Visible the Invisible: Bisexual Parents Ponder Coming Out to Their Children.” Sexualities 24(3): 341-369. doi: 10.1177/1363460720939046.

Teaching

Lecturer

SOC 131: Sociology of Family (Summer 2023; Fall 2023)

SOC 132: Sociology of Gender (Fall 2021)

SOC 2: Self and Society (Summer 2020; Fall 2023)

SOC 153: Sociology of Childhood (Summer 2020)

 

Teaching Assistant

SOC 1: Introduction to Sociology (Fall 2016, Winter 2017, Spring 2017)

SOC 3: Social Problems (Fall 2017)

SOC 131: Sociology of the Family (Winter 2018)

SOC 145B: Gender and Rural Development (Spring 2018)

SOC 25: Popular Culture (Fall 2018)

SOC 151: The Criminal Justice System (Winter 2019)

SOC 162: Culture, Society, and Health (Fall 2020)

SOC 132: Sociology of Gender (Winter 2021, Spring 2021)

SOC 133: Sexual Stratification (Spring 2023)

 

Reader

SOC46A: Introduction to Social Research (Summer 2017)

SOC 135: Social Relationships (Summer 2017, Summer 2018)

SOC 2: Self and Society (Summer 2017)

SOC 130: Race Relations (Summer 2018)

 

Awards

2022 Sociology Graduate Program Fellowship, UC Davis ($12,976)

2022 Outstanding Graduate Student Teaching Award Nominee, UC Davis

2021 – 2022 Provost's Dissertation Year Fellowship in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences, UC Davis ($47,800)

2020 – 2021 Professors for the Future, UC Davis Graduate Studies Fellowship ($3000)

2020 Women's Resources and Research Center Graduate Summer Research Grant, UC Davis ($1000)

2020 Leon Mayhew Prize for Best Qualifying Paper, UC Davis ($500)

2020 UC Davis Sociology Graduate Program Fellowship ($12,880)

2019 UC Davis Sociology Graduate Program Travel Grant ($100)

2018 American Institute of Bisexuality, Research Grant ($50,000)

2018 Institute for Social Sciences Research Award ($500)

 

Documents

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