About Canton Winer
I am sociology Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Irvine. My primary areas of research are gender, (a)sexuality, masculinity, femininity, and inclusion/exclusion. I am particularly interested in the intersection of gender and sexuality, and my work has appeared in Sociological Inquiry, Sexualities, Journal of Homosexuality, Men and Masculinities, and Sociology Compass. My dissertation focuses on the intersection of gender and sexuality among asexual individuals (those who experience low/no sexual attraction). A manuscript that emerged my dissertation, “‘My Gender Is Like an Empty Lot’: Gender Detachment and Ungendering Among Asexual Individuals,” received honorable mention for the 2022 ASA Sexualities Section’s Best Graduate Student Paper Award.
Born and raised in South Florida, I moved to New York City to begin as an undergraduate at Fordham University. After receiving my B.A., I moved to Shanghai, China for two years before moving to California to pursue a Ph.D. in sociology. I received my M.A. in Sociology from UC Irvine in 2019.
My research spans the substantive fields of gender, sexuality, race, inequality, and the family. Methodologically, I primarily apply exploratory approaches that draw upon grounded theory and inductive logics. I mainly use qualitative approaches, including interviews, focus groups, discourse analysis of secondary data, and the still-emerging methodology of digital ethnography.
My dissertation situates asexual individuals (those who experience low/no sexual attraction) as presenting a strategic case sample for examining the relationship between gender and sexuality. This is both because a great deal of the performance of gender is rooted in sexuality (and vice versa) and because the demographics of asexuality themselves present a puzzle, with research suggesting that only 10.9 percent of asexual individuals identify as man/male, 63 percent as woman/female, and 26 percent as “none of the above.” A paper developed from my dissertation, “Embrace, Rejection, and Gender Detachment: Framings of Femininity in Online Asexual Spaces,” won the 2021 Robin M. Williams, Jr., Student Paper Competition Award. Another paper emerging from my dissertation, “’This Isn’t My Place to Talk About It:’ Interwovenality and the Invisible Power of Whiteness Among Asexual Individuals,” won the 2022 UCI School of Social Sciences’ Justice and Equity Research Paper Award.
Prior to beginning my Ph.D., I worked as a freelance writer and journalist. My writing has been featured in USA Today, Huffington Post, NPR, Medium, and Groundswell, among other publications.
Teaching
I am also very passionate about teaching. In 2020, I taught Sociology of Gender, my first course as instructor of record, at Fullerton College. The following year, I also taught an Introduction to Sociology course as instructor of record at UC Irvine and an additional Introduction to Sociology course at Fullerton College. In 2022, I taught Introduction to Sociology again at UC IRvine. Additionally, in 2020 I was asked to create and teach a course in Teaching Assistant Diversity Training for UC Irvine’s School of Social Sciences.
In addition to this teaching experience, I have sought out numerous opportunities to continue developing my pedagogical skills. In 2019, I earned a certificate in Course Design from UC Irvine’s Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation. In 2020, I took a workshop in Anti-Racist Grading and Assessment at Fullerton College, completed the Zot Ability Ally Training through the UC Irvine Disability Services Center, and received a certificate in Diversity Education from UC Irvine’s Office of Faculty Development & Diversity. This year, I completed a workshop on Effective Responses to Student Writing from UC Irvine’s Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation and a training in Conflict De-escalation Training from Hollaback! and Asian American Advancing Justice. Also this year, I received a certificate in Teaching Excellence from UC Irvine’s Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation. I feel well-prepared to teach courses of varying levels in my areas of interest, including: gender, sexuality, race, inequality, intersectionality, feminist and queer theory, culture, and qualitative methodology.
Service
In addition to teaching and research, I am very involved in service both to the profession and within UCI. Since 2021, I have served as co-chair of the Asexuality Interest Group at the National Women’s Studies Association. In March 2022, I became a fellow at the Institute for the Study of Male Supremacy. I have also served as President of UCI’s Queer Graduate Caucus since 2018 and volunteered for two years as an LGBTQ Mentor through UCI’s Counseling Center. I have also served for two years on the executive board for the Associated Graduate Student (AGS) government, as well as one year as AGS’s LGBTQ+ Engagement Chair. Since 2020, I have served as Co-Chair of the Sociology Graduate Student Association at UCI and Chair of the Gender Reading Group. From 2018-2021, I served as a Graduate Representative and the School of Social Sciences’s Committee on Graduate Student Diversity, Inclusion, and Development. Additionally, I am a founding member of the Ace/Aro Scholars Support Network. And I have been a reviewer for Feminist Theory, Sexualities, Men and Masculinities, and Psychology & Sexuality, as well as a book prospectus reviewer for Routledge.
My service has been recognized for several awards, including both the 2020 School of Social Sciences’s Diversity & Equitable Inclusion Graduate Student Award and the 2020 Outstanding Service Award. I also received an Inclusive Excellence Ambassador Fellowship and the Bruce Wade Scholarship in 2020 and the LGBTQ+ Studies Fellowship in 2021 in recognition of my contributions to inclusive excellence in my teaching, research, and service.