Meredith G. F. Worthen

Meredith G. F. Worthen is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma and an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and the Center for Social Justice. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin (2009) and has been at OU since 2009, achieving Full Professor status in 2019. Her work focuses on stigma, prejudice, LGBTQ rights, and sexual violence, with a particular emphasis on intersectionality and norm-centered stigma theory.

Dr. Worthen is a co-founder of the Division on Queer Criminology within the American Society of Criminology and leads initiatives like The Welcoming Project, supporting LGBTQ students, and #MeTooMeredith, advocating for sexual assault survivors. Her scholarly contributions include seminal works such as *Sexual Deviance and Society* (2021), which integrates criminology, gender studies, and deviance theory to analyze societal constructions of sexual norms and deviance.

Her research explores LGBTQ stigma, gender expression (e.g., femme, butch, twink identities), and the impact of adverse childhood experiences on marginalized groups. She has been recognized for her academic contributions, including ranking #1 in Human Sexuality by ScholarGPS (2024) and being featured in *The Norman Transcript* for her early Full Professor promotion.

Dr. Worthen’s activism includes the LGBTQ Ally Program at OU and collaborations with survivor advocacy groups. Her work bridges academia and activism, emphasizing social justice and empirical rigor in understanding systemic prejudice and violence.