Our Male Sexual Harms Conference | UoM

10.04.26 | Blog

On Wednesday 8^th April, We Are Survivors held its inaugural Male Sexual Harms Conference in collaboration with the University of Manchester. It was well attended by practitioners, researchers, and policy staff alike, with a packed itinerary of experts raring to share their findings

We heard from six speakers in total, four of which being ‘academic allies’ of ours, and two with burgeoning projects we helped give a platform to.

Professor David Gadd and PhD student Jess Glyn took the opportunity to update us on their long-term research collaboration with our Out-Spoken team in ‘Making Change Meaningful for Prisoner Survivors of Sexual Assault’, speaking about their interviews of our lads in prison as well as harnessing our own service data. This encouraged practitioners in the room to reflect on how both prison and community health services could do better at addressing and supporting men who disclose sexual abuse and trauma.

A member of our Board of Trustees, Dr Joanna Jamel, gave us a history of policy interventions in ‘Male Rape Victimisation: Policing, Diversity, and Policy’, from the end-to-end rape review to the latest edition of the Violence Against Women and Girls Strategy. We celebrate progress in the representation of men and boys in policy but we nonetheless find that little has been done to rightfully tackle ‘rape myths’, and how they affect decision makers and the general public. This kind of research aligns with our policy and influencing strategy.

Onto our lightning speakers, PhD student Disha Handique turned to the international stage in ‘From Empire to Equality? Masculinity and the Legal Construction of Rape in India and the UK’, showing her progress in a comparative study between English and Indian law regarding sexual harms. Then, our very own Trauma-Informed Therapist, SJ Paynter, eloquently reflected on art psychotherapy as a route for work with survivor PCOSOs, in ‘The Symbolic Voice: Art Therapy with Survivor-PCOSO Clients’ with many attendees receptive to the goal of our We Are Listening service. We’re looking forward to keeping everyone updated on the progress of these two projects.

Many of the days’ discussions were tied together by the final talk, delivered by Dr Siobhan Weare, concerning mock jury trials in ‘Trial By Gender? (Mock) jury decision making in cases of male sexual victimisation’. We returned to the problems of rape myths in the legal context. For example, the talk led attendees to consider juries tendency to believe in a ‘hierarchy of evidence’, that forensic evidence carries more weight than testimony or a witness statement. Keep an eye out for the findings of Dr Weare’s research which are soon to be published!

The event was hosted by our Policy and Information Officer, Rory Brooke, and filmed by our Digital Communications Co-Ordinator Theo Aarons (the recordings will be up on our Research page soon!). Our Deputy CEO, Chris Speed, opened the event and provided operational assistance alongside Rachael Baker, Head of Fundraising and Communications.

We look forward to many more Male Sexual Harms Research conferences in the coming years. We’re excited by the progress of existing and new avenues of research that we can explore together. As we deliver our Ambition 2030 strategy, we will increase awareness and understanding of our cause towards our vision of a society where no male survivor is left behind.