Dr Felix McNulty
Senior Research Associate, Lecturer in Adolescent Health Inequalities, Honorary ResearcherResearch Overview
My ESRC-funded doctoral research explored relationships with weight and shape with a sample of trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming adults. My analysis focused on embodiment and negotiations of the body in terms of the ways it is experienced as well as externally defined/assigned. My research interests are queer and contemporary phenomenologies, critical weight and Fat Studies, trans and gender diverse health and health inequalities, and LGBTQ+ youth mental health.
Supervised By
Dr Debra Ferreday and Dr Elizabeth McDermott
Thesis Outline
Over the last two decades, literature in the form of case studies and, in more recent years, survey and matched control studies of varying scales has emerged exploring the experience of disordered or potentially harmful eating practices among people of transgender experience. While aspects of this work are useful, the approaches taken are framed very much within psychiatric and clinical definitions and understandings of both disordered eating and transgender identity, with consequences that in some cases are detrimental to the scope and outcomes.
Moving away from the approaches that characterise this body of work, the research I propose draws upon work on the body and embodiment to explore relationships with food and eating in their profoundly embodied aspects in order to explore the role that food performs for people of transgender experience, particularly in terms of the navigation of the powerful social, cultural and medical discourses about trans bodies that continue to circulate with tremendous influence.
Research Grants
I am currently in receipt of an Economic and Social Research Council +3 PhD studentship.
Qualifications
BA (Joint Hons) Drama and English Literature (First Class, University of Manchester)
MA Gender and Women’s Studies (Distinction, Lancaster University)
BeingWell Event
Other
Webinar: Queer Futures 2 - Introducing What Works? to improve LGBTQ+ young people's mental health
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Webinar: Improving mental health support for young LGBTQ+ people: Findings from Queer Futures 2 research
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
LGBT Health Conference 2022
Participation in workshop, seminar, course
Trans-Forming Medicine
Participation in conference -Mixed Audience