Born into a family of mixed ancestry in Sarawak, Malaysia, the formative years of Joseph N. Goh (he/they/any) were marked by weekend picnics in the country with the family, midnight masses, adventure and horror novels and movies, and sophisti-pop singles. After a brief foray in teaching, he embarked on a full-time ecclesiastical career in 1993 that spanned almost two decades. In the process, he found himself schooled in philosophy, theology, and practical ministerial service among the native Bidayûh and Iban people in rural and semi-rural areas.

In 2010, Goh earned two graduate or master’s degrees (ThM and STL; summa cum laude) from the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University in California, USA. His dissertation focused on the intersection of sacramentology, liturgical practices and native ways of life. The life lessons learned during this period were both cathartic and transformative. Upon Goh’s return to Malaysia in that same year, he ventured into non-governmental work as an HIV Counselling and Testing Manager at the community-based organisation, PT Foundation, Kuala Lumpur.

In 2012, he made the decision to embark on full-time doctoral (PhD) studies. Goh’s research, which deployed queer theory to analyse the lived experiences of Malaysian gay and bisexual men, culminated in a thesis entitled Piercing transcendence: A queer theorising and theologising of non-heteronormative Malaysian men. He was awarded a doctoral degree in 2015. In 2016, Goh joined the School of Arts and Social Sciences as a Lecturer in Gender Studies. In 2018, he also earned a Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (GCHE). In 2019, Goh was promoted to the position of Senior Lecturer in Gender Studies.

Goh has written three single-authored academic books and edited three scholarly anthologies. His second single-authored book Becoming a Malaysian trans man: Gender, society, body and faith (Palgrave Macmillan 2020), was the first dedicated academic volume on Malaysian transgender men. It won the ‘Ground-Breaking Subject Matter Accolade’ in the IBP 2021 Accolades in the Social Sciences category of the ICAS Book Prize 2021 competition. In 2024, he won the Journal of Gender Studies’ Sheila Cunnison Prize, which celebrates scholarship on gender and the Global South, for his article ‘Everyday precarity, oblique hostility and gendered liveability among Malaysian transgender men’.

Goh is interested in gender, sexuality and sexual health and human rights. As a theological activist, he enjoys researching and writing on issues of religion and theology, particularly in their intersections with LGBTIQ subjectivities. Goh is a member of the international Emerging Queer Asian Pacific Islander Religion Scholars (EQARS) group, and sits on the editorial board of two online journals, Religión e Indicencia Pública and Conexión Queer: Revista Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Teologías Queer. He is also a member of the editorial boards of the Queer and Trans Intersection book series (University of Wales Press), the QTR: A Journal of Queer and Transgender Studies in Religion (Duke University Press), and the Queer Asia book series (Hong Kong University Press).

Goh continues to be involved with various non-governmental, civil society and progressive church-related organisations in and beyond Malaysia on LGBTIQA+ matters. He has also served as an examiner of various doctoral, master’s and Honours theses and dissertations.

Goh is interested in diverse topics on gender and sexuality, particularly those which pertain to actual human lived experiences. Such topics include a wide range of feminist and queer studies, and their potential for augmenting human rights. While his main geopolitical focus is on Malaysia, he is also exploring gender and sexuality issues in other countries. Goh’s current research interests include queer and transgender spaces, queer ecclesiologies, and the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable and marginalised communities.

Goh continues to apply the elements of best educational practices in teaching and learning. He strives to incorporate more online technological approaches in the contents and assessment tasks of his units, and consistently uses student feedback to improve on his pedagogy. Goh wrote a new home-grown unit entitled Performing Asian, African and Black Masculinities (AMU3574) which was operationalised for the first time in Semester 2, 2019, and was well received by students. He also teaches another unit entitled Introduction to Sexuality Studies (AMU1309), which continues to garner interest from students from all over the campus.