INFORMED CONSENT DOCUMENT

Project Title:       Here and Gone: Competing Discourses in the Communication of Families with a Transgender Member

Principal Investigator:          Kristen Norwood

Research Team Contact: Kristen Norwood
Email: kristen-norwood@uiowa.edu
Phone: 903-277-8476

This consent form describes the research study to help you decide if you want to participate. This form provides important information about what you will be asked to do during the study, about the risks and benefits of the study, and about your rights as a research subject.

• If you have any questions about or do not understand something in this form, you should ask the research team for more information.
• You should discuss your participation with anyone you choose such as family or friends.
• Do not agree to participate in this study unless the research team has answered your questions and you decide that you want to be part of this study.

This is a research study.  I am inviting you to participate in this research study because you are at least 18 years of age and have a relative who is transgender or transsexual.

The purpose of this research study is to learn about the experiences of families who have a transgender member. More specifically, the study is about learning how you as a family member understand, feel about, communicate about, and make sense of having a transgendered relative.

Approximately 50 people will take part in this study in conjunction with the University of Iowa. Some will be located in Iowa and others will be located across the country.  

If you agree to take part in this study, your involvement will last for essentially one day. You will be asked to participate in an interview which will last anywhere from 1 to 2 hours. Before the interview, you will be asked to fill out a questionnaire about your demographics.

For this study, you will be asked to participate in an in-depth interview about your experiences as a family member of a trans-identified person. First, you will decide whether you prefer to be interviewed face to face or by phone. If you decide to be interviewed by phone, fill out a short demographic questionnaire and via email or regular mail. After I receive the completed form, we will schedule an interview time. I will call you at the scheduled time at the telephone number you provide and will ask you a series of questions about your experiences. I will record our conversation with a digital audio-recording device. During the interview, you are free to choose not to answer any question and you are free to stop the interview at any point.

If you choose to conduct the interview face to face, you will also be free to choose the location of the interview. I can come to your home if you prefer or we can meet in my office or in a conference room at the University of Iowa campus. If you choose for the interview to be face to face, you will be asked to sign the consent document and fill out the demographics questionnaire before we begin the interview. Then, I will start the audio-recording device and begin the series of questions. You are free to refuse to answer any questions and you can stop the interview at any point.

The interview questions will revolve around your experiences with your transgendered relative. You will be asked to tell the story of your experience starting from when you found out about your relative’s transgender identity. You will be asked to discuss the transgender relative in terms of the steps he or she has taken toward sex/gender identity transition. Also, you will be asked to discuss your feelings, struggles, and thoughts regarding your transgender relative.

Audio/Video Recording or Photographs

One aspect of this study involves making audio-recordings of our interview discussion. The recording will be made so that I can transcribe or type what was said so that I can analyze our conversation for important themes we discuss about family, gender, and identity. I am the only person who will have access to the recording. As I transcribe the conversation, I will replace any names you might mention with fake names to ensure your privacy and anonymity. Also, you are free to refer to family members using fake names during the interview for this reason. Once the interview is transcribed, the audio recording will be destroyed. The interview transcript will be saved electronically on my personal computer, to which I am the only one with access.   

If you are uncomfortable with being recorded during the interview, you can opt not to be recorded and choose to have me just take written notes during our conversation. In this case, I will transfer written notes to typed notes and store them on my personal computer, then I will destroy the written notes.

You may experience one or more of the risks indicated below from being in this study. In addition to these, there may be other unknown risks, or risks that we did not anticipate, associated with being in this study.

There are no known physical risks involved in participating in the study. However there may be some risks concerning your privacy and emotional state. During the interview, you will be asked to discuss what could be a traumatic experience which may cause you to experience negative emotions. Further, you might experience discomfort while talking about these issues or worry about your privacy while answering questions.

Every precaution will be taken to minimize these risks. First, you are free to choose not to answer any questions that make you uncomfortable or that cause you to experience negative emotions. Second, you can stop the interview at any time with no consequence. Third, you are free to use pseudonyms or fake names when referencing your family members. Once the interview is over, I will take extreme care in protecting your confidentiality. When I transcribe the interview conversation for data records, I will not attach your name to the record in any way. The interview will instead be given a numeric code and after the audio recording is destroyed there will be no way to link the data with your information.

I don’t know if you will benefit from being in this study. You might benefit from discussing your experience with someone, but I cannot guarantee that will happen.

However, I hope that, in the future, other people might benefit from this study. I plan to write articles based on the interviews and hopefully, the larger population can learn from your experiences, and maybe relate to them in some way. Experiences of the transgendered population and their families are usually marginalized in larger culture. Hopefully this study will be one step in providing a better understanding of these experiences.

WILL IT COST ME ANYTHING TO BE IN THIS STUDY?

You will not have any costs for being in this research study. 

You will not be paid for being in this research study.

As a token of my appreciation for your participation in the study, you will be given a gift card to a local store, coffee shop, or book store.

WHO IS FUNDING THIS STUDY?

Funding for the gift cards is provided by the Social Science Fund from the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Iowa.

WHAT ABOUT CONFIDENTIALITY?

• federal government regulatory agencies,
• auditing departments of the University of Iowa, and
• the University of Iowa Institutional Review Board (a committee that reviews and approves research studies) 

To help protect your confidentiality, I will not store any of your records with your identifying information. Your demographic questionnaire will have a numeric code instead of your name and the informed consent sheet (this sheet) with your signature will not be filed with your demographic questionnaire or your interview transcript. Further, your interview transcript will contain no identifying information and pseudonyms will be used to refer to you and your family members. When I write a report or article about this study or share the study data set with others, I will do so in such a way that you cannot be directly identified.

IS BEING IN THIS STUDY VOLUNTARY?

Taking part in this research study is completely voluntary.  You may choose not to take part at all.  If you decide to be in this study, you may stop participating at any time.  If you decide not to be in this study, or if you stop participating at any time, you won’t be penalized or lose any benefits for which you otherwise qualify. 

What if I Decide to Drop Out of the Study?

If you decide to drop out of the study there will be no consequences. You can decide to drop out at any time before or during your interview. If you decide to drop out, please inform me that you no longer wish to participate. If we are conducting the interview and you wish you drop out or stop the interview for any reason, please say so and I will end the interview.

I encourage you to ask questions.  If you have any questions about the research study itself, please contact Kristen Norwood. My email address is kristen-norwood@uiowa.edu and my phone number is 903-277-8476. You can also contact my faculty supervisor, Steve Duck. His email address is steve-duck@uiowa.edu and his phone number is 319-3383931. If you experience a research-related injury, please contact Kristen, Steve, or the Human Subjects Office. Information below.

If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about  your rights as a research subject or about research related injury, please contact the Human Subjects Office, 340 College of Medicine Administration Building, The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, 52242, (319) 335-6564, or e-mail irb@uiowa.edu.  General information about being a research subject can be found by clicking “Info for Public” on the Human Subjects Office web site, http://research.uiowa.edu/hso. To offer input about your experiences as a research subject or to speak to someone other than the research staff, call the Human Subjects Office at the number above.