In this presentation, Jean Halley explores the meaning of the love between girls and horses. A self-professed horse girl, Halley contends that this relationship and its cultural signifiers influence the manner in which young girls, particularly queer girls and girls with disability, define their identity in terms of gender.
Further, Halley is interested in the ways that horses heal, and in particular, heal from the trauma born of gender-based violence. Studies show that nonhuman animals can help humans heal in ways that other humans might not be able to do. Horses in particular offer humans innumerable health benefits and assist in therapy to help humans heal from a wide range of conditions, including developmental, physical, and psychiatric disabilities. Research indicates that contact and communication with horses helps calm anxious humans, focuses and connects humans limited in their abilities to engage socially (Burgon, Gammage, & Hebden, 2018), and develops the physical capacities of humans with physical limitations (Halley, 2019). Indeed, horses may be described as healers (Birke & Brand, 2009; Halley, 2019). In their future research, Halley plans to investigate the role of horses in healing from trauma.
