Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

On Being Trans: Narrative, Identity, Performance, And Community, Chloe Jo Brown

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis focuses on various topics related to transgender identity and culture. Through a combination of ethnographic and secondary research, I studied transgender coming out narratives, trans media representation, transgender performance and identity, and conceptualizations of group and chosen family in a community of trans students, the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group.

The three chapters of my thesis address some of the traditional milestones of a trans person’s acculturation: coming out, constructing one’s newly discovered trans identity, and finding community. Chapter 1 explores coming out as transgender, and the way in in which coming out is valued and discussed …

The Lost Tribalism Of Years Gone By: Function & Variation In Gay Folklore In Armistead Maupin's Tales Of The City Novels, Jimmy Browning

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis intends to demonstrate that, because of the unusual circumstances of its writing - a semi-journalistic piece produced during a period of crisis in the real-life community fictionally depicted - Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City series stands as an unusually accurate and reliable ethnographic source for information concerning the gay male subculture of San Francisco in the late 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, not only the practice and behavior themselves, but also reflecting their personal and communal function. The methodology employed in demonstrating this thesis is necessarily subjective. Like gay folklore scholar Joseph P. Goodwin in More Man Than …

I Love Ta Plow: The Role Of Traditional Farm Women In Peytonsburg, Kentucky, Linda White

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study is a development of the work roles of traditional farm women in Peytonsburg, Kentucky. Peytonsburg is a relatively isolated area along the western border of the Appalachians. Traditional processes such as broom-making, chair-making, quilting, spinning and traditional farming are still practiced there.

Taped interviews were conducted with seven women ranging from sixty-five to eighty-eight years old. The women were questioned concerning their house and field cores as well as their philosophies and attitudes toward their life styles. It was revealed in this study that the traditional farm women of this area work throughout the year to keep the …