About

Founded in 2017, the Silberman Center for Sexuality and Gender (SCSG) is the only scholarly center in the United States focusing on sexuality and gender that is housed within a school of social work. Its home institution, the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College, is the oldest and largest public school of social work in metropolitan New York. Reflecting the mission of Hunter College and the City University of New York, the Silberman School is uniquely committed to social work educational excellence in the public interest. Building upon this basis, SCSG engages and develops a variety of research projects, learning events and trainings, classes, and other opportunities to enhance socially just understandings and exploration of gender and sexuality.

Typically, social workers – like most people in the United States – have grown up with the cultural norm that talking about sex is taboo (Crooks & Baur, 2017). Major institutions including family, school, and religion often reinforce sexuality as off-limits for conversation. For social workers, this problem is typically reinforced further during social work education, when topics of sexuality are raised only rarely within the curriculum (Bywater & Jones, 2007; McCave, Shepard, Winter, 2014). Consider the fact that none of the top twenty-five American schools of social work require a course in human sexuality (Wineburg, 2015), with almost one quarter (24%) not offering any human sexuality courses. This “conspiracy of silence” (Gochros, 1972, p. 97) leaves a critically important gap in assessment and treatment.

Building on the notion that sexuality is central to an individual’s overall wellbeing, classes, events, and activities at the Silberman Center for Sexuality and Gender will help students and practitioners become comfortable discussing sexuality and gender; developing ideas about how to create a sex-positive, gender inclusive, and sensitive environment for any and all clients; and learning how to create change that leads to a more inclusive and informed society from the individual to the public policy levels. The courses, events, training, and research that the Center offers will become a beacon of information, helping students as well as established practitioners not only at the Silberman School but also within the wider field of sexuality and gender studies in social work.