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Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons

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Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies

College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University

2015

English Student Work

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Full-Text Articles in Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

“Teamshipness”: Stories Of Love, Loss, And Laughter, Bailey Elizabeth Zallek Apr 2015

“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 …