Destigmatizing sex – let’s talk about it. Claire’s journey to sexual health promotion

Claire Lin (any/all pronouns) is a Taiwanese immigrant settler who is passionate about destigmatizing sexuality, addressing systemic injustice, and empowering people to exercise their sexual agency and rights. These interests were inspired by the poor sex education they received as a youth.

“I never seriously thought of pursuing my passions as my career until I was completing my undergraduate degree at the University of British Columbia (UBC)”.

Claire’s original undergraduate degree was in Behavioural Neuroscience with a minor in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice (GRSJ). However, in 2023, Claire worked at the UBC Health Equity, Promotion, and Education office as the Sexual Health Team Lead, where they mentored a team of peer volunteers in pleasure-centered, harm-reductive sexual health promotion activities. Through this opportunity, they learned about public health and health promotion and were encouraged by a mentor to pursue a Master of Public Health degree to continue pursuing sexual health promotion professionally.

“I ended up getting accepted to the MPH SBHS program at Dalla Lana and pursued a Collaborative Specialization in Women’s Health to retain my focus on sexual health”. During Claire’s first year at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health (DLSPH), they learned about public health systems and systems-based public health. Claire was particularly interested in exploring and applying these concepts to sexual health, but could not find any elective courses focused on systems-based approaches to sexual health.

After some digging, Claire decided to take an alternative route by enrolling in a directed reading course, which is an independent research class that students can take to explore their areas of interest. This is where they met Dr. Anita C. Benoit, who is co-supervising the course alongside Dr. Amy McPherson.

Claire’s directed reading course draws from many disciplines – including public health, medical anthropology, and systems theory – to conceptualize and examine the Canadian sexual health system. Claire’s work will focus on how the Canadian sexual health system was created and contributes to colonization and capitalism, and identify the possibilities of what critical, anti-oppressive, and liberatory sexual health promotion work in Canada may look like.

Claire is enthusiastic about bringing a sex positive, harm-reductive, and pleasure-centred approach to the work that they do and centring the perspectives of those most marginalized by systems of oppression. By learning, volunteering, and working in several positions in sexual health promotion, Claire appreciates how these experiences have offered them a “broader and more holistic perspective on the issue”.

With deep experience in sexual health promotion, Claire hopes to continue working in the field after their studies. “As something of a sexual health generalist, I hope to address many different sexuality and sexual health issues in my career, from reproductive health to STBBI prevention to kink education”.

We welcome Claire as a research trainee with Dr. Benoit and wish them the best throughout their academic and professional journey!