December is Diverse Sexualities Month and we are making a fundraising push to make a good year a great year.  December is DSREI’s birthday, we are one year old.  We have worked hard and have many plans for next year.

If you go to the website, on the DSREI Donor Page you will see everyone who donated to us this first year.   This page will be kept for posterity, but a new page will start in 2019. Everyone who donates in December will be listed on the page for 2018 and 2019.  If you donate $2500.00 or more in 2018 you will be a “Founding Partner” and will be acknowledged every year.

If you want to see how much you donated already (donations are cumulative), please go to the Donation History Page page, and follow the instructions.  If having problems, let us know and we will help.

DSREI is working with Kink Guidelines group to create guidelines for helping professionals working with clients with Diverse Sexualities.  DSREI is also supporting the American Psychological Association’s The Society for the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity (Division 44) Consensual Non-Monogamy Task Force.  We look forward to working with these and similar groups to fulfill our mission.

The DSREI Forum is up and running. check us out .

Charles Moser and Mary Moss (both DSREI Board Members) are working with CARAS’ Institution Review Board (IRB).  IRBs are part of the process to do research and protect research subjects.  In the past IRBs associated with universities or other groups have been particularly hard on projects involving Diverse Sexualities strangling research.  We join with CARAS to help researchers create better research and protect the rights of the research subjects.

We are negotiating with the International Academy of Sex Research to give an award for the best student abstract pertaining to Diverse Sexualities at their annual conference in Mexico City.  More information about this award in our next newsletter.

This newsletter will keep you up to date on the latest happenings at DSREI.  We originally thought we would be using a new newsletter template, but we are quickly learning that everything takes longer than expected, which is why the September newsletter is in October.  We are also open to suggestions for a catchy name for our newsletter, any ideas?

Also at the APA meeting was Russell Stambaugh and Susan Wright (a member of the DSREI Advisory Board) from NCSF, who bestowed the 2018 Race Bannon Advocacy Award on Race Bannon (who is also on the DSREICommunity Advisory Board) in front of Harvey Milk’s old photography studio.

16 May 2018

Dear Folks,

This is a preliminary Newsletter; the Official First Newsletter hopefully will be published in June and quarterly thereafter.  As you can imagine, launching an organization and website like this is a big task, with lots of issues.

We are already being called out, because the quotes on the website were from “4 white cishet men.”  Actually Kinsey was bisexual and Hirschfeld was gay (possibly trans).  I am not sure about the others, but at least my critics should get their facts straight (pun intended).  DSREI is about excellence in research and education, not identity politics.  Nevertheless, we are striving to add more People of Color and a variety of diverse sexuality practitioners to our committees, because we want all perspectives. The quotes used will change from time to time, so expect other identity groups to be represented.

Possibly the most complicated task for me is fundraising for DSREI.  We are giving money and awards to researchers and educators, so why should the public or even other researchers and educators want to make a donation?  Of course, without donations what we can do is quite limited.  We realize we are competing with many other deserving charities, but we feel we fill a special niche.

The rules for 501(c)(3) charities require that a significant amount of money raised will come from small donations, so no donation is too small.  Check out our donation page to see how you can honor people or events, or get Amazon to donate without it costing you anything.

We are interested in what you would like to see from DSREI and how we can garner more support.  We have ordered lapel pins with our triangle logo.  We hope people will wear them with pride.  When people ask what it is, it is a perfect opportunity to discuss diverse sexualities.  We are thinking of other ideas, “Make America Diverse Again” baseball caps, DSREI belt buckles, mugs, etc.  We welcome your ideas.  These items will be associated with donations, but it is also a method to getting our name out there.

A number of people have asked how they can help.  Possibly the easiest way is to talk about diverse sexualities with friends, colleagues, family, and patients.  If you have any special talent (advertising, public relations, investing, fundraising, social media, etc.) we need you.  If you want to edit or write the newsletter, I will be eternally grateful.  We need people to catalog new research on diverse sexualities to create a database.  We need people to be on the lookout for innovative and excellent educational programs, to which we can refer people.  We are open to any other ideas you might have.

Take care,

Charles Moser, PhD, MD
President
DSREI