User:MishMich/Tamsin Wilton

Tamsin Elizabeth Wilton. (born 1952, died 30th April 2006) English academic, a lesbian activist, theorist, social researcher, writer and cartoonist, she was Professor of Human Sexuality in the School of Social Science at the University of the West of England. Wilton was a member of the Editorial Board of the journal 'Sexualities' and helped establish the UK LGBT Health Summit. In 2007 the LGBT Health Summit created the 'Tamsin Wilton Award' for LGBT Health in honour of her research and written contributions in the field. Wilton focused on gay and lesbian health issues, authored ten published books in 14 years well as chapters, papers, pamphlets, reports and articles in the LGBT press. She gave papers around the world, and as her reputation grew and she became an international consultant to the AIDS Education Research Trust in Southern Africa. She was made the UK's first Professor of Human Sexuality while at the University of West of England, and died from an aneurism on 30 April 2006 not long after moving back to her native Cornwall.

Early career and entry into academia
Tamsin took her first degree in English and Fine Art at Exeter University in 1973, and trained as a school teacher. Initially she taught in a state school for five years, then managed a bookshop, then worked at the Arnolfini arts centre and a Service Nine voluntary agency, both in Bristol. from there she became involved in HIV voluntary work with the Aled Richards Trust Women and AIDS group. She also contributed cartoons to magazines, publishers and television companies. Her marriage ended in 1988, and she had to look after her young son Tom alone. In 1990 she began studying for a masters degree in Gender and Social Policy and began research on the social aspects of HIV/AIDS with Peter Aggleton's team at Bristol Polytechnic (renamed University of the West of England) from where she published the first paper in her fifteen year career as a lesbian feminist academic. She was appointed as the Director of the HIV/AIDS Social Research Unit at located within the faculty of Nursing Health and Applied Social Sciences, and later the faculty of Social Sciences.

Sexuality in life and work
In the late 1980s she came out as a lesbian, which gave her a strong sense of identity and politics as well as informing her intellectual work, although she never felt completely accepted by lesbians who had come out earlier in life because of her personal history of heterosexuality. She wrote in 1993, ‘the positionality of “lesbian” offers a potent site from which to investigate the social, cultural and political interlocution of gender and sexuality’. She saw herself as having a distinctly lesbian perspective on the issues she researched in a way that challenged the assumptions of colleagues and gay men, particularly in relation to gendered behaviour. She noted in the lesbian edition of Sexualities (3[2], May, 2000), Tamsin noted the marginalization of lesbian issues within sexuality studies and the journal. This conflictual approach was contra-punctuated by a warms in her personal relationships, which embodied a strong sense of solidarity with co-workers on sexuality, especially with gay men. She was keen to rework the debates on the relationship between gender and sexuality, and sought to integrate them as a focus for interdisciplinary study that included health policy, film theory, sociology of sexuality, as well as feminist and queer theory. Tamsin's writing was aimed at both academic and lay audiences. Her published material reflected theoretical work on sexuality aimed at academics, a book designed for practitioner training, an introductory text for policy makers, discussion about the self fashioning required by women who transition from heterosexuality to lesbianism, books for lay members of the communities involved in her research, and an edited volume on lesbians and film.

Professorial and posthumous recognition
In 2005 she was elevated to Professor of Human Sexuality at the Sociology School at UWE in recognition of her achievements, which itself was remarkable given she had only begun to embark on an academic career fifteen years earlier. Tamsin Wilton was instrumental in developing the first National LGBT Health Summit at Cardiff in 2006. In 2007 the LGBT Health Summit established a LGBT Health Community Award in her name. There was some objection to this from within the transgender community, as she had twice written material which appeared to cast transsexuals in a bad light. The objections were noted and discussed, and the award continued to be established in her name.

Author

 * Wilton, T; Antibody Politics: AIDS and Society; New Clarion Press (1992)
 * Wilton, T; Lesbian Studies: Setting an Agenda; Routledge (1995)
 * Wilton, T; Immortal Invisible: Lesbians and the Moving Image; Routledge (1995)
 * Wilton, T; Finger Licking Good: The Ins and Outs of Lesbian Sex; Cassell Academic (1996).
 * Wilton, T; EnGendering AIDS: Deconstructing Sex, Text and Epidemic; Sage Publications (1997)
 * Wilton, T; Good for You: A Handbook on Lesbian Health and Wellbeing; Cassell (1999).
 * Wilton, T; Sexuality in Health; Open University Press (2000).
 * Wilton, T; Unexpected Pleasures: Leaving Heterosexuality for the Lesbian Life; Diva (2002).
 * Wilton, T; Sexual (Dis)Orientation: Gender, Sex, Desire and Self-Fashioning; Palgrave MacMillan (2004).
 * Wilton, T; Sex and Sexuality: A Multidisciplinary Introduction; Routledge (2006)

Co-author

 * Wilton, T. Warwick, I. Whitty, G; When it Matters....: Developing HIV and AIDS Education and Young Homeless People; Health Education Authority (1994)
 * Wilton, T. Doyal, L. Naidoo, J; AIDS: Setting A Feminist Agenda; Taylor & Francis (1994)
 * Wilton, T. Keeble, S. Doyal, L; The effectiveness of peer education in health promotion: theory and practice; University of the West of England, Faculty of Health and Community Studies (1995)
 * Wilton, T. Katz, J. Corrine, T; Intimacies; Last Gasp (2002)

Chapters, Papers, Reviews and Responses

 * Wilton, T. Aggleton, P; Heterosexuality and the Limits to HIV/AIDS Education (in AIDS--responses, interventions and care; Aggleton, P. Hart, G. Davies, P; Taylor & Francis, 1991)
 * Wilton, T; Representation: Issues for Lesbians and Heterosexual Women (in Working Out: new directions for women's studies; Hinds, H. Phoenix, A. Stacey, J; Routledge, 1992)
 * Wilton, T; Sisterhood in the Service of Patriarchy: Heterosexual Women's Friendships and Male Power; Feminism & Psychology, Vol. 2, No. 3, pages 506-509 (1992)
 * Wilton, T; Queer Subjects: Lesbians, heterosexual women and the academy (in Making Connections: Women's Studies, Women's Movements, Women's Lives; Kennedy, M. Lubelska, C. Walsh, V; Taylor & Francis, 1993)
 * Wilton, T; Madness and feminism: Bristol Crisis Service for Women (in Feminist activism in the 1990s; Griffin G; Taylor & Francis, 1995)
 * Wilton, T; Towards an understanding of the cultural roots of homophobia in order to provide a better midwifery service for lesbian clients; Midwifery, Vol 15 issue 3; Harcourt Publishers (1999)
 * Wilton, T. Farquhar, C; Assume the Lesbian Position; Sexualities, May 2000; vol. 3: pp. 131 - 132.
 * Wilton, T; Out/Performing Our Selves: Sex, Gender and Cartesian Dualism; Sexualities, May 2000; vol. 3: pp. 237 - 254.
 * Wilton, T. Kaufmann, T; Lesbian mothers' experiences of maternity care in the UK; Midwifery, Vol 17 issue 3; Harcourt Publishers (2001)
 * Hird, M; Out/Performing Our Selves: Invitation for Dialogue; Sexualities, Aug 2002; vol. 5: pp. 337 - 356.
 * Wilton, T; `You Think This Song is About You': Reply to Hird; Sexualities, Aug 2002; vol. 5: pp. 357 - 361.
 * Wilton, T; Mortal Secrets: Truth and Lies in the Age of AIDS; (review) BMJ. 2004 May 1; 328(7447): 1080.
 * Wilton, T; Subject to Control: Lesbians and the State (in Welfare and the state: critical concepts in political science; Deakin, N. Jones Finer, C. Matthews, B; Taylor & Francis, 2004)
 * Weeks, J; Obituary: Tamsin Elizabeth Wilton (1952–2006); Sexualities, Jul 2006; vol. 9: pp. 381 - 383.

Illustrator

 * Aggleton, P. Rivers, K. Warwick, I. Wilton, T. (illustrator); AIDS: Working with Young People; AVERT (1993)
 * Hague, G. Malos, E. Wilton, T. (illustrator); Domestic Violence: Action for Change; New Clarion Press (1993)