Counterproductive Effects of Parental Consent in Research Involving LGBTTIQ Youth: International Research Ethics and a Study of a Transgender and Two-Spirit Community in Canada

ABSTRACT

This article offers an evidence-based argument for exempting the majority of LGBTTIQ youth from parental consent requirements in research studies. The argument is grounded in international research ethics principles and social science research studies of risks to the well-being of LGBTTIQ youth. A schema derived from consent concepts used in ethics frameworks in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States is presented for categorizing LGBTTIQ youth into three groups, each with different consent requirements: minors with parents or guardians who support their identity, emancipated minors, and mature minors. It is argued that regulatory frameworks should incorporate context-sensitive criteria for exemptions from parental consent requirements in order to avoid excluding LGBTTIQ young people from the benefits of research and to promote the advancement of knowledge about the issues affecting them.

KEYWORDS:

• Australia
• Canada
• ethics review
• parental consent
• risk
• mature minor
• queer youth
• research methodology
• transgender
• Two-Spirit
• United Kingdom
• United States

Catherine Taylor is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Winnipeg in Canada. Her work has been published by the University of Toronto Press and Haworth Press and in major peer-reviewed journals including Ethnologies, the Journal of Intercultural Studies, the Journal of Gay and Lesbian Social Services, and the Journal of Lesbian Studies ([email protected])

This study was funded by the Crime Prevention Branch, Public Safety, and Emergency Preparedness Canada. The project team included Jake Barnes, Rune Breckon, Kelly Houle, Rachel Morgan, Michelle Paquette, Jennifer Davis (Project Coordinator), and Mike Payne and Catherine Taylor (Principal Investigators). The author wishes to thank the team members Profs. Jerry Ameis, David Fitzpatrick, and Laura Sokal (all of the University of Winnipeg); and Profs. Karen Grant and Janice Ristock (University of Manitoba) for their contributions to the development of the ethics application described here. I also thank the anonymous reviewers for the careful, insightful, and provocative comments that helped greatly in the revision of this article.

Notes

1. It should be noted in this regard that homosexuality and homosexual sex are no longer illegal in the countries governed by the ethics frameworks reviewed in this article. In many other jurisdictions, homosexuality is still illegal and research on the topic is institutionally more difficult. Further, in jurisdictions where adult same-sex sexual activity has been decriminalized, there is sometimes a higher age of consent for same-sex sexual activity than for heterosexual, or a narrower legal age difference for same-sex sexual partners where only one of the partners is a minor.

2. We used the term “transgender and Two Spirit” because Winnipeg has a large aboriginal population (larger than any other city in North America), and we were especially concerned in our study to reach aboriginal members of the trans-community.

3. Lev (2004) provides a detailed rationale for including transgender youth in this category.

1. “Sex” has already been legally entrenched in the Charter as including “sexual orientation” (Hurley, 2005), and transgender legal activists are hopeful that transgender identity, too, will eventually be read into “sex” since transgender and transsexual people can clearly demonstrate the required history of discrimination against their identity group (Findlay, 1999).