Arts and Humanities Commons^™

A Conversation With Anonymous (3)

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who attended in the early 2000s and came out during her senior year. She provided insights on her experiences as a queer woman on the Holy Cross campus and shared how her life has changed since leaving "the Holy Cross bubble."

Interview keywords: alum, ally, Catholic shame, college, identity, Iraq War, Jesuit, microaggressions, multicultural, oppression, post-college, social justice, queer/dyke

A Conversation With Joe Sasso

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 1975. He discusses his experience of Holy Cross during the 70's and the lack of awareness the student body had for any type of gay identity. Additionally, he describes his experience coming out at age 45. In the interview, he reflects on how it would be or would not be different if he had been out on campus at this time and his recommendations on how Holy Cross can continue to support LGBTQ students.

Interview keywords: adulthood, alum, Catholic Church, college, cycling, family, friendship, gay …

A Conversation With Alisha Thompson

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 2014. Highlights of this interview include the interviewee's reflections of campus life as a closeted and out GLBTQ student as well as the sources of support she turned to throughout her four years.

Interview keywords: closet, college, coming out, family, Jesuit, professional life, study abroad, support

A Conversation With Anonymous (1)

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in the late 1980s. Conversation topics range from the cultural climate at HC to coming out to family and career.

Interview keywords: adoption, career, children, coming out, college, dating, first generation, friendships, identity, labeling, love, parenthood, partners, relationships, sexuality, social class, social norms

A Conversation With Carmine Salvucci

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 1984. Along with sharing his reflections on his experiences at Holy Cross, Carmine offers personal reflection on family life, acceptance, and the relationship between LGBTQ identity, Jesuit ideals, and the Catholic Church.

Interview keywords: athletics, Catholicism, college culture, coming out, counseling, donations, families, first-generation students, gay men, identity, Jesuit, LGBTQ, masculinity, normalization, reflection, student life.

A Conversation With Tim Mooney

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 1992. Highlights of this conversation include Tim's reflections on the Holy Cross campus climate during the early 1990's and the coming out process.

Interview keywords: academics, campus, coming out process, conservative, family, friendship, heteronormativity, Jesuit, LGBT, relationships, religion, stereotypes, Worcester

Fearless Friday: Erin Duran, Christina L. Bassler

SURGE

As we conclude PRIDE Week, we honor Erin Duran, the fearless director of LGBTQA Advocacy and Education. In Erin’s three years at Gettysburg, he has established institutional support for the LGBTQA community and has worked to make the campus more inclusive and accepting of all students. [excerpt]

A Conversation With Anonymous (2)

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 1987. This alum was not out at Holy Cross. He reflects on his time on and off the hill and on the state of LGBT legal protections today.

Interview keywords: activism, college, coming out, dating, friendship, gay men, HIV/AIDS, legal protections, marriage, media, politics, professors, social class, theatre, work, working class.

A Conversation With Jeff

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 2013. Jeff discusses their experiences at Holy Cross as an out student and as a student leader and activist.

Interview keywords: activist, battle fatigue, coming out, friendship, heterosexism, higher education, Jesuit, leadership, progress, relationships, residence life, student organizations, training

The Semantics Of Repression: Understanding The Continued Brutality Towards Lgbtqa Individuals In The Russian Federation, Joseph C. Recupero

Student Publications

This work serves to examine the linguistic style and choices used by Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin as it pertains to issues of the LGBTQA community in the country and the Anti-Propaganda Law. Using the methodology of Critical Discourse Analysis, the author compares the speeches of Vladimir Putin to those of Western leaders Barack Obama and Ban Ki-moon, drawing conclusions as to why brutality towards LGBTQA individuals in Russia has been allowed to continue relatively unopposed. The author suggests that it may be Vladimir Putin's careful choice in words and speaking styles that allows the issue to persist.

“Teamshipness”: Stories Of Love, Loss, And Laughter, Bailey Elizabeth Zallek

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

This project seeks to examine the effects of language on readers’ perspectives of same-sex and opposite-sex relationships. I interviewed 13 people at various stages of romantic relationships and told their stories from the first-person perspective. By only using the gender-neutral first-person pronoun “I” and gendered pronouns for the speakers’ partners, each story creates ambiguity about the type of relationship (whether same- or opposite-sex) featured. By doing so, I am asking readers to view each couple as just that—a couple. Not a gay couple, a lesbian couple, or a straight couple. I am challenging all of us to examine what phrases …

Lg Ms 034 Gayla Archives Finding Aid, Megan Hendrix

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

GAYLA is a brotherhood of gay and bisexual men, “expressly designed to provide mutual support, nurturance, friendship, loving, and mentoring of one another,” in order to maximize personal and collective growth. It meets annually for a week in the summer at Ferry Beach in Saco, Maine. The brothers sustain their spirit through the year by organizing periodic winter reunions, area social events and pot-lucks; publishing a newsletter; and establishing a virtual network through email and a GAYLA brothers only Yahoo group. The Archives contains documents and artifacts from the annual conferences, including photographs, audio cassettes, video cassettes, schedules, planning …

Gender And Sexuality In Nepal: The Experiences Of Sexual And Gender Minorities In A Rapidly Changing Social Climate, Sophia Greene

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Gender and sexuality in current day Nepal is at the crux of a societal revolution, as the deeply ingrained patriarchal society framed against the emergence of new ideas results in a shifting social climate in which old and new clash. As modernization and economic development permeate Nepal, they bring with them individualistic ideals which gradually infiltrate society, altering long held social attitudes toward marriage, gender, and sexuality. However, despite societal change and even changing legislation for the rights of women and members of the LGBTI community, both of these minorities still face overwhelming discrimination and prejudice in Nepali society. Sexual …

Talking Mirrors: Experiences Of Older Transgender Adults And Culturally Competent Mental Healthcare Profes-Sionals With Talk Therapy In The Netherlands, Kate Cieplicki

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Historically, both the general population and mental healthcare providers specifically have misunderstood the transgender identity as pathological and unnatural. Despite persistent ignorance in the mental healthcare field about the background and needs of transgender adults, a psychoanalytic evaluation is required by the gender clinic for a transgender individual to begin the gender transition process in the Netherlands. This requirement creates a degree of tension and mistrust between the transgender individual and the mental healthcare field. Such discomfort is unfortunate because statistically transgender adults face more mental health problems than their cisgender peers, likely because of the stress that comes from …

Being A Lesbian Librarian, Collection Development In Lesbian Librarianship, And Archives As Lesbian Spaces, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

Edited talk From Pratt SILS Gender LIS Panel curated by Dinah Handel on March 27th, 2015
Co-presenters include: Sian Evans; #artandfeminism Wikipedia Editathon & Jen LaBarbera; Filling in the Margins: The use of Queer Theory, Feminist Standpoint Theory, and Critical Race Theory to build inclusive archival collections
This talk remarks on the role of the librarian to provide lesbian-specific content.

Trans Terrains: Gendered Embodiments And Religious Landscapes In Yogyakarta, Indonesia, David B. Esch

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transgendered Indonesians live in the fourth most populated nation in the world with more Muslims than any other country. This thesis summarizes an ethnography conducted on one religiously oriented male-to-female transgender community known in the city of Yogyakarta as the waria. This study analyzes the waria’s gender and religious identities from an emic and etic perspective, focusing on how individuals comport themselves inside the world’s first transgender mosque-like institution called a pesantren waria. The waria take their name from the Indonesian words wanita (woman) and pria (man). I will chart how this male-to-female population create spaces of spiritual …

But, Why Not?, Anonymous

SURGE

I am the lucky one.

That’s how I’ve felt growing up in backwater Pennsyltucky, yet somehow managing to be openly queer. I came out to my friends and family as bi/pan-sexual in the 8th grade. None of my coming-out experiences resulted in horror stories. At that point most people had already guessed and accepted the fact that I was most definitely a queer kid. Even the most conservatively religious members of my friend group seemed perfectly okay with the fact that my sexuality didn’t fit with their ideas of morality. I was who I was, and to all outward appearances …

My Husband Is Now A Woman? The Experiences Of Transgender Individuals In Partner Relationships, Lisa Platt

Forum Lectures

How would you react on a first date if the person disclosed they used to be the other gender? Or if your partner/spouse decided to switch genders? This research examines the psychological and social challenges transgender individuals often face when seeking and maintaining romantic partner relationships. The experiences of the transgender community are beginning to receive more attention in both psychological research and mainstream culture. One area conspicuously absent is comprehensive research regarding the nature and challenges of transgender individuals' partner relationships. This study was a qualitative exploration of the transgender partner experience. Participants were recruited nationwide through convenience sampling. …

Getting "Bi" In The Family: Bisexual People's Disclosure Experiences, Kristin S. Scherrer, Emily Kazyak, Rachel M. Schmitz

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

There are many similarities in gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals’ coming out experiences, but bisexual people face unique challenges. Despite this, an explicit focus on bisexual people is missing from family research. Using family systems and cultural sociological perspectives, the authors analyzed how social and cultural factors shape disclosure processes for bisexuals as they come out to multiple family members. After analyzing qualitative data from a diverse group of 45 individuals, they found that bisexual people navigate monosexist and heterosexist expectations in their family relationships. Cultural constructions of bisexuality shape the ways that bisexual people disclose their identities, including how …

Lg Ms 038 Frances Peabody Papers Finding Aid, Katharine Renolds Thomas, Christina E. Walker

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Frannie Peabody was one of Maine's leading AIDS activists. Best known in Maine and nationally for her exceptional leadership in the AIDS epidemic, she also gave significant service on historic preservation, child welfare, and gay rights issues. She was a founder of Portland’s The AIDS Project and of the Frannie Peabody Center (formerly Peabody House), as well as of Greater Portland Landmarks. The Papers contain Peabody's personal papers, including her work with The AIDS Project and bereavement counseling.

Date Range:

1981-1999

Size of Collection:

24.5 ft.

Tape-By-Tape: Digital Practices And Cataloguing Rituals At The Lesbian Herstory Archives, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Publications and Research

This essay will outline the digital collections of the Lesbian Herstory Archives with an emphasis on process and workflow. The paragraphs below will describe the efforts put forth by the all- volunteer collective, and their dedication toward making materials accessible through the use of digital technology to preserve, catalog, and exhibit lesbian herstory. Interviews with Archive Coordinators, called “Archivettes”, Rachel Corbman on the Online Public Access Catalog, Saskia Scheffer on Photos, and Maxine Wolfe on Audio, will provide examples of LHA digital practices in the creation and maintenance of the Photo Collection, OPAC, and Audio Tape Digitization projects. Additional mention …

Exploring Cultural Representation Of Same-Sex Marriage: A Content Analysis Of Wedding Announcements In The New York Times, Aaron Blasvak, Aaron Hoy

Sociology Department Publications

No abstract provided.

The Cross In My Closet, Ann M. Sasala

SURGE

All this changed when I turned fourteen. Suddenly the quiet peace was shattered by my raucous, rebellious response to the “Adam and Eve Not Ann and Eve“ chanted by my neighbors, teachers, and family. The solace I once felt during prayer became a black hole of hate; instead of listening for words of kindness, instead of finding serenity, I spit in the faces of my family, friends, and religion. Hoping to purge my body of its new found, fiery anger, I turned to a priest who told me there could be no salvation: “man shall not lie with man…it is …

Young Activists, New Movements: Contemporary Chinese Queer Feminism And Transnational Genealogies, Wen Liu, Ana Huang, Jingchao Ma

Graduate Student Publications and Research

As young, diasporic feminist activist–scholars involved in queer feminist move- ments across China, Taiwan, and New York City, we reflect on the emergent ‘‘new’’ queer feminism in China today, with its amorphous cohesion and dramatic impact, as highlighted by the subway protest. Drawing on transnational feminism, we are part of this latest ‘‘new’’ response to growing global inequalities and neo-colonial feminist discourses that calls for a critical re-engagement with global politics (Grewal & Kaplan, 2001). However, as activists who center our political involvement in Asia, ‘‘transnationalism’’ is not only a vision, but an already exist- ing state, as we see …

"'The Law’S The Law, Right?' Sexual Minority Mothers Navigating Legal Inequities And Inconsistencies.”, Emily Kazyak

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

LGB parents face a number of legal inequities and confront a legal landscape that not only varies drastically by state but also quickly changes. Research has shown that some LGB parents and prospective parents have inaccurate knowledge about the laws relating to parenting. Drawing on data from 21 interviews, I ask how sexual minority mothers gain knowledge about the law. I found that people were very aware of the legal inequities they face and sought to become knowledgeable about the law before they had children. Sexual minority mothers reported using four primary methods to learn about the law: doing independent …

Beyond The Dialectics And Polemics: Canadian Catholic Schools Addressing Lgbt Youth Issues, Renato M. Liboro, Robb Travers, Alex St. John

Psychology Faculty Research

In 2012, Canadian media coverage on Bill 13—an Ontario legislative proposal to require all publicly funded schools to support Gay-Straight Alliances as a means of addressing issues concerning bullied lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) students—instigated a divisive exchange among representatives of the Ontario Catholic school sector. Beyond these dialectics and polemics, a proactive mix of advocates from schools in the Waterloo Catholic District School Board (WCDSB) of Ontario took steady steps to address the circumstances of their LGBT students. This study included semi-structured interviews with ten stakeholders from the WCDSB to determine if strategies and programs deemed successful for …

Digital Aids Documentary: Webs, Rooms, Viruses And Quilts, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Downtown's Queer Asides, Lucas Hilderbrand, Alexandra Juhasz, Debra Levine, Ricardo Montez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Lgbtq Relationally-Based Positive Psychology: An Inclusive And Systemic Framework, Daniela Domínguez

Psychology

Positive psychologists have contributed to our understandings of how positive emotions and flexible cognition enhance resiliency. However, positive psychologists’ research has been slow to address the relational resources and interactions that help non-heterosexual families overcome adversity. Addressing overlooked LGBTQ and systemic factors in positive psychology, this article draws on family resilience literature and LGBTQ literature to theorize a systemic positive psychology framework for working with non-heterosexual families. We developed the LGBTQ Relationally-Based Positive Psychology framework that integrates positive psychology’s strengths-based perspective with the systemic orientation of Walsh’s (1996) family resilience framework along with the cultural considerations proposed by LGBTQ family …

The Transgender Military Experience: Their Battle For Workplace Rights, Michelle Dietert, Dianne Dentice

Faculty Publications

Although there have been studies that focus on the experiences of the gay and lesbian population serving in the United States military, few have focused on the experience of active duty transgender service members. Transgender individuals transgress the binary conception of gender by deviating from societal gender norms associated with assigned sex at birth. The Department of Defense has set policies and standards that reflect a binary conception of gender, with a focus on conformity. We argue that able-bodied gender variant service personnel are just as capable of serving their country as anyone else. Because of the repercussions associated with …