May’s episode of Gender Jawn features a conversation with two of this year’s graduating GSWS majors, Serena Baldick Martinez and Talia Fiester, who recently shared their thought-provoking research at the Class of 2023 Honors Thesis Presentations & Celebration, under the direction of GSWS Associate Director Gwendolyn Beetham. Talia Fiester is a graduating Gender Studies major with an academic focus on feminist media and cultural studies as well as heterosexuality theory. Anchoring her extracurricular life at Penn is her work with Penn Violence Prevention, an organization with which she has been affiliated since her freshman year. In her role as both a student worker and a Penn Anti-Violence Educator, she has facilitated workshops on consent education and bystander intervention for thousands of students at Penn. Talia’s honors thesis is titled “Neoliberal Love and the Pathology of Gen Z’s Singledom” Serena Martinez is a Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies Major with minors in both English and Creative Writing. Although they have participated in various gender related clubs across campus, they are most proud of their role in founding PennGenEq — the university’s first and only pre-orientation program offered to first-years of marginalized genders. Additionally, they helped construct and teach GSWS2100/Gender-Based Violence at Penn. Their honors thesis is titled “Reclaimed Nonbinary Harry Potter Fanfiction: Imagining Identity by Reading and Writing a Magical World.”  GSWS Honors Thesis:  https://gsws.sas.upenn.edu/program/undergraduate/honors Asa Seresin, On Heteropessimism https://thenewinquiry.com/on-heteropessimism/ Aja Romano, Is JK Rowling Transphobic? https://www.vox.com/culture/23622610/jk-rowling-transphobic-statements-timeline-history-controversy Episode produced by Lane Timothy Speidel: ihopeilikethis.com Original music by David Chavannes: www.dchavannes.com For more information about the Center for Research in Feminist, Queer, and Transgender Studies visit www.gsws.sas.upenn.edu