Dr. Tracie Q. Gilbert

Dr. Tracie Q. Gilbert captured by Marvin Elam of 4EverElam Photography in May 2021

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Tracie Gilbert is a developmental sex educator who pursues sexual healing for Black people and racial justice in sex ed spaces. Dr. Gilbert currently serves as an Assistant Professor at Widener University, with 25 years of experience in education. Experiences with misguided sex educators fuel her desire to do things differently on behalf of Black children adolescents today..

Dr. Gilbert is a womanist, advocate for reproductive justice, environmental justice, and an abolitionist. These movements influence her consciousness and praxis, which is evident in her work.

Her first book, Black and Sexy: A Framework of Racialized Sexuality, was published in 2021. It covers a grounded theoretical framework she created entitled Black Sexuality Epistemology, which explores the lived experience of sexuality as experienced by African American people.

Early Life and Activism:

Dr. Gilbert was born October 9, 1979, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her parents, Linda Jackson, and George Gilbert were sweethearts. However, they were unable to marry due to George’s sudden passing before Dr. Gilbert was born. After moving to Austin, Texas with her mother for about five years at the age of two, she moved back to Milwaukee in 1987. Here, Dr. Gilbert stayed there with her mother and grandmother for the rest of her childhood.

Dr. Gilbert was fairly sheltered as a child. Her younger brother Calvin was not born until 1993. Much of her emotional interest in sex came from listening to R&B of the 1980s & '90s. As an adolescent, Dr. Gilbert had an organic intellectual fascination with sex that led to her doing things like interviewing the boys on her bus in middle school about their sexual histories.

Pleasure and sex-positivity were inherent aspects of Dr. Gilbert’s childhood along with religious erotophobia and respectability politics. While Dr. Gilbert was taught many of the same messages others were about not being a "fast-tailed girl" and avoiding “soul ties”, she was also very clear that sex was a good and pleasurable thing that was okay for her to enjoy when she became “grown.”

Education:

Tracie Gilbert graduated from Riverside University High School in Milwaukee, WI in 1996.

She received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Spanish from Tennessee State University in 2000. In 2002, Gilbert received her Master’s of Arts in International Affairs for Communications and Development Studies from Ohio University. This degree was followed by a Master’s of Science Education in Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development from The University of Pennsylvania in 2009. At Widener University, Gilbert completed her Masters of Education in Human Sexuality Studies in 2012 .

Dr. Gilbert received her Doctorate of Philosophy Degree from the Center for Human Sexuality Studies at Widener University in 2018. Through her dissertation, Dr. Gilbert explored the lived experiences of sexuality in the Black community where she developed the Black Sexual Epistemology model– a complex, cultural framework designed for examining sexual development. .

Later Career:

In addition to her role as an Assistant Professor at Widener University, Dr. Gilbert has served as the Minority Faculty Fellow at Murray State University in 2014 where she taught Psychology, and Gender and Diversity Studies. Throughout her career, she has also taught at other institutions where she partnered with at least 10 different organizations. These partnerships include but are not limited to Planned Parenthood, Fact Forward, Christiana Healthcare Systems, Evoluer House, The Innovative Learning Institute, and the Center for Sex Education.

Throughout her career, her work has been influenced by Kimberlé Crenshaw, Patricia Hill Collins, Audre Lorde, and E. Patrick Johnson, to name a few. Academically, Dr. Gilbert draws on the influence of African American Pop Culture in her Pleasure Activism. Her knowledge of pleasure comes from listening to artists like Luther Vandross, Jeffrey Osborne, Prince, Whitney Houston, and their progeny.

Writing:

Black and Sexy:

Dr. Gilbert has many publications, her first book is Black and Sexy: A Framework of Racialized Sexuality. This book was published by Routledge in 2021. Black and Sexy include a discussion on the theories of anti-blackness from João Costa Vargas, Nicholas Brady, George Yancy, ethnosexuality from Joanne Nagel, Performative Blackness from E. Patrick Johnson, and African-Centered Epistemology from Naim Akbar. Dr. Gilbert uses the Black Sexual Epistemology model, a comphrenhisive sexological model as a framework from which to understand these theories and relate them to current-day experiences. Concepts from that framework that she created and explored in the book include The Sexiness Engineering Model, The Eight Channels of Sexiness, Racial Maligning, and The Erotic Self. Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic” and E. Patrick Johnson’s Performative Blackness Theory helped to inform her Black Sexual Epistemology Framework, specifically the conceptualizations of the Erotic Self and the Eight Channels of Sexiness.

In terms of her future writing projects, Dr. Gilbert would like to publish more of the original data from that study referenced in Black and Sexy: A Framework of Racialized Sexuality that was not included in the first volume–specifically the data related to a construct that Dr. Gilbert has presently labeled Black Sexual Utopia or the ideal setting through which Afro-descended people experience their ultimate sexual freedom.

Dr. Gilbert is also interested in expanding her research to include more trans voices, as while she had several in her initial study she does not believe there were nearly enough voices– particularly those of transfeminine experience. Finally, Dr. Gilbert would like to take a deeper dive into the experience of sexual shame. Some stories, in particular, sparked additional questions for me that she was again unable to dig deeper into during the initial study.

Podcasts:

Dr. Gilbert hosts a weekly podcast entitled “The Sex Ed of Blackfolk” which centers on the subjects of race and sexuality. As a sexuality educator, Dr. Gilbert utilizes each episode as an opportunity to help Black people achieve sexual wellness, and facilitate racial justice in sex education settings. The podcast frequently features guest speakers, including sex educators, counselors, and therapists. “The Sex Ed of Blackfolk” is available for online streaming through platforms such as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and Audible.

The Sex Ed of Blackfolk podcast was created to provide a place for sex educators of color to be highlighted while talking about sexual topics and how they show up in our communities. Gilbert has been able to keep in that vein pretty well; however, eventually, she would like to do more intracultural conversation facilitation, as most of what she does now has ended up being for (what she believes) predominantly non-Black audiences.

Dr. Gilbert has also been featured on the following Podcasts (this list is not exhaustive):

“The Suga” September 2020: How to Have the Talk with your Kids with Dr. Tracie Gilbert; “Random Conversations with Elizabeth” June 2021: Race and Sexuality with Dr. Tracie Gilbert; “Diversity Dish” Ep. 36: Tapping into Sexuality in Life Affirming Ways– Dr. Tracie Gilbert; “Pro Hoe” June 2020: Whiteness Ain’t Rightness; “Sisters of Sexuality: Five Shades of Play” April 2021: Dr. Tracie Q. Gilbert Unpacks the Mental, Historical and Cultural Barriers About Sex in the Black Communities; “Queer by Birth, Proud by Choice” Ep. 1: Dr. Tracie Q. Gilbert

Awards:

Dr. Gilbert received the Distinguished Dissertation Award at Widener University in 2019 and the Schiller Prize from the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) in 2019

Bibliography:

Audio:

Article Contributions:

Gilbert, T. Q. (2022). Black and Sexy: A Framework of Racialized Sexuality. New York, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. Clark, T., Gilbert, T., & Rayne, K. (Eds.) (2019) Orientation: Teaching about identity, attraction, and behavior. Morristown, NJ: Center for Sex Education. Clark, T., Gilbert, T., & Rayne, K. (Eds.) (2018) 25 great lessons about sexual orientation. Morristown, NJ: Center for Sex Education McKee, R., Galarza, J., & Gilbert, T. (Eds.) (2016) Taking sides: Clashing views in human sexuality. New York: McGraw Hill Publishers

References

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