Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Twomey, Danielle, Elizabeth Cantey

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Danielle Twomey is a trans woman who was born and raised in Maine. She was born into a working class home and has four other siblings. Her mother died when she was seven and her father’s second wife helped to put the family into a better class. Her father was abusive, as were her peers, and her younger years were “brutal” as she was “physically small”, “effeminate”, and “clueless” when it came to fighting. She watched the world around her to learn how to fit in. She knew she was expected to be like the little boys her age but …

Community Activation: Response To Aids In Chicago, Braydon Conell

Graduate Review

The response to the AIDS epidemic in Chicago shows continuity with the national trend of fighting ignorance. In the 1980s, Chicago emerged as a hotspot of gay life, positioned between watershed moments in New York and San Francisco, crafting an opportunity to forge a powerful, accepting community within the city through community responsiveness, educational initiatives and political activism. Chicago is more representative of the typical American city and is why this study is centered here. Chicagoans provided their own actions in response to city and county government inaction. Medical activism by gay doctors at the Cook County Hospital, for example, …

Article 6.21, Tatiana Stolpovskaya

Theses and Dissertations

Article 6.21 is a short documentary film that aims to examine the state of censorship around queerness in Russia today and its effects on personal lives in the queer community.

Twenty years after Russia decriminalized homosexuality, on June 30th in 2013, President Vladimir Putin signed Article 6.21 "for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values", also known as the "Gay Propaganda Law". Its broad and ambiguous wording allows the government significant leeway in deciding what kind of public queerness is punishable.

In 2020 Russia passed multiple constitutional amendments that affect many areas …