Eastern Michigan University alumna Carmen Logie was a guest speaker who offered her analysis about the stigmas associated with HIV. The presentation, called “Intersectionality, discrimination and stigma: On Women living with HIV in Ontario, Canada,” was held on Friday afternoon at the Everett L. Marshall building.
Logie was chosen as EMU’s College of Health and Human Service Outstanding MSW Alumna.
Logie graduated from the University of Toronto in 1997 with a bachelor of arts, high distinction, in sociology. She graduated from EMU with a master of social work, health and mental health specialization in 2003 and since received her Ph.D. in the Faculty of Social Work. She also has a Canadian Institutes of Health and Research post-doctoral fellow, in the primacy area of HIV/AIDS population health/health services studies.
Logie currently serves as an assistant professor of Health and Equity Specialization at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work at the University of Toronto.She is also an adjunct scientist for the Women and HIV Research Program at the Women’s College Research Institute at the same university.
Logie has written in over 27 scholarly reviews, three book contributions, has over 18 grants, 21 articles with 12 presently in the works and has presented at 84 invited presentations.
EMU social work professor and MSW director Tana Bridge introduced Logie, praising her for her hard work and dedication in the social work field, especially when she was a student at EMU and would help with research.
Logie’s research focuses are health equity, access to care and health results. She has active programs of research in association with internally-displaced women and youth, LGBTQ populations, and people living with HIV in Canada, India, Thailand, Jamaica, Swaziland and Lesotho.
Logie began by telling the audience that she felt honored at receiving the MSW award. She also said that she loves teaching and the exploration of her research field.
In regards to the professors who helped her at EMU, Logie said, “I just felt like I was being supported to explore what I was interested in. It really took me far.”
Most of Logie’s research focuses on HIV. When she 19, she volunteered at a hospital where most of the HIV patients were gay men, and they were dying alone. These people had been stigmatized by their families and friends simply because of their diagnosis.
“Volunteers were the only ones they talked to,” Logie said. “Even in their last days”
Logie told of story of a patient who just wanted to feel typical. She said he told her that at night he would take out his IV, put on his track clothes and go to the nearest coffee shop and just “pretend” like he was a normal person.
“It just hit me then, you know?” Logie said. “All of the stigmas around an illness – that is today the main reason why we still have so many problems with HIV prevention.”
Logie also said that a big part of her job is talking to various groups and individuals about HIV and HIV hindrance. It was also a process of bringing people together through stigma-reducing interventions.
The slide-presentation that Logie shared offered insight into just some of her research. The stigma involved with people living with HIV can have many effects, including felt-normative, which is an awareness of negative societal attitudes, internalized negative beliefs and some overt acts of discrimination.
The objectives related to Logie’s research include the understanding of multi-dimensional mechanisms of stigma and discrimination, and to understand the resilience on living with HIV in Ontario. Her work as taken her globally, but most recently she has focused on the women in this region.
One slide noted that Logie’s theoretical approach was that critical feminism highlights the intersecting and structural nature of oppressions. This also includes the “intersectionality” of social identity and mutuality. Logie’s research took her through 15 focus groups and five cities: Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, Sudbury and Thunder Bay.
The presentation also took the audience through the complexities of racism, homophobia and transphobia, stress and violence. All of it came down to the lack of prevention and health care, even today’s society. Logie’s research also applied to the resilience mechanism.
On the slide about resilience-coping, an anonymous South Asian woman was quoted as saying, “Just being strong. You just have to think positive.”
On the same slide, an anonymous transgender woman was quoted on resistance: “Stick together to fight the stigmas surrounding HIV individuals and fight for change.”
Lynn Nybell, an EMU sociology professor, said that Logie has had an amazing career.
“It’s really nice for alumni to come back to do presentations,” she said.
EMU student and social work major, Amber Glasgow said that she took the day off of work to attend the event.
“It was great,” Glasgow said about the presentation. “She’s a brilliant advocate. We need more advocates like that.”
