Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Developing More Equitable And Critically Conscious Organizations: Testimonios And Critical Platicas With Black And Latino/X Lgbtq+ Male Chrd Leaders, Mario Burton

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation connects the recent DEIB movement within organizations to larger social justice movements, specifically those that impact workers and the workplace. Critical human resource development (CHRD) professionals, who serve as “insider activists”, are highlighted due to their work to continue movement objectives within organizations. Through testimonios and critical platicas, this study explores how Black and Latino/x LGBTQ+ CHRD professionals, in particular, are experiencing the workplace, especially as it relates to their engagement with how DEIB is practiced within organizations. Through this study, these professionals provide insights into the ways that workplaces can be redesigned and reimagined to be …

Inhabiting "Sore Butt Cracks": Queering The U.S. Long-Term Care System, Alison Lawrence

Women's and Gender Studies: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

In the face of a failing long-term care system, the author positions a queer theoretical lens as a potential source of creativity and empathy to help us build a care system that supports the dignity and personhood of all patients. The comedic work of a long-term care patient, Youtuber Clay-The-Comedian, is analyzed through a queer-theories lens as a new approach to long-term care that celebrates the personhood of all types of bodies, while also never diminishing the often difficult reality that folks in need of care face. This queer rhetoric engages with the messy, embodied experiences of patients to develop …

Exploring The Influence Of Globalization And Self-Expression In Shaping The Vietnamese Lgbtq+ Community In Urban Vietnam, Minh-Thy Tyler

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The LGBTQ+ community is estimated to make up around 9% to 11% of Vietnam’s total population. Over the past few decades, Vietnam has undergone significant changes, marked by its increasing interconnectedness with the global community. These changes have also brought about a shift in perceptions and advocacy toward the LGBTQ+ community. Also bringing along a change in attitude towards the LGBTQ+ community in Vietnam is self-expression and fashion. Through drag or wearing gender-nonconforming attire, queer individuals are able to challenge the restrictive gender binary prevalent in Vietnamese society. Self-expression and fashion are also critical in helping queer individuals form and …

Place Me In Gettysburg: Relating Sexuality To Environment, Kylie R. Mandeville

Student Publications

This project links sexuality and environmental issues in the context of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It considers how I, a queer student at Gettysburg College, can be in “right relations” with this environment. While queer ecological scholarship defines “right relations” as relationships where all beings—people of all identities, as well as animals, plants, and the land—can flourish through their interactions, I inquire whether such flourishing is possible for me, and others like me, here in this place. To answer this question, the project links queer ecological scholarship with environmental history scholarship specific to the Gettysburg battlefield and civil war. It also involves …

"Queer Even In Safe Spaces: Homeless, Shelter Failures, And The Queer Community", Kara West

Audre Lorde Writing Prize

Privileged groups consistently expect marginalized group identities to provide comfort, be it in the way the members actually showcase their identities, the work they do for society, or their general respect for the status quo. The queer community, specifically, has long been subject to prejudice and violence, and while tolerance is slowly increasing in the United States, the present day is no exception. Queer folks in the US are even much more likely to be homeless or in domestic violence situations than their heterosexual counterparts. Furthermore, once in vulnerable housing situations, queer folks are dangerously less likely to receive the …

Lgbtqc: Queer Perspectives On The Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities, Robert Burke

Anthropology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Cities are broadly conceived to be queer utopia when compared with rural spaces. While the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa fit this simplistic model in some ways, the region has several unique characteristics that warrant their own investigation. I argue that the social climate of the Quad Cities is generally perceived as welcoming and inclusive by the LGBTQ+ community. However, despite an assortment of community-building institutions, some find socialization and partner-seeking a bit difficult. Many advocate for investment in a variety of physical LGBTQ+ “third places” (public gathering places), which would yield a variety of benefits for this community. …

Queer Otherwise: Embodying A Queer Identity In Cape Town, Teak Emanuel Hodge

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research responds to the following question: how do LGBTQ South Africans in Cape Town come to understand and embody their queerness? Drawing on ideas of the body as a sense making agent (Meyburgh 2006) and site of socio-political contestation (Foucault 1975) this research adapts body-mapping methodologies (de Jager, Tewson, Ludlow, Boydell 2016) to excavate the ways in which LGBT South Africans negotiate their queerness. Through centering the experiences of three LGBTQ identified South African’s in conversation with the experiences of the researcher, this paper delves into how queer people make sense of and understand themselves in relation to their …

Queer Spaces, Future Places: Conversations With 3 Black Capetonian Femmes On Embodying Liberation, Ivana Onubogu

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Black femme bodies face multi-axial oppressive forces resting on their racialization, gendering, sexuality and possible other factors like socioeconomic status and ability. I interviewed 3 queer-identified Black femmes between the ages of 18 and 35 that are based in or work out of the Cape Town area. Femmes is defined as trans womxn, nonbinary femmes, femme lesbians and femme bisexuals, effeminate mxn, or any other femme-identified queer person. The purpose of this project is to investigate the possibility of a liberated Black queer future as an embodied practice within the context of the Black Capetonian queer community. Participants were selected …

The Notions Of The "Closet" And The "Secret" In Oscar Wilde's, The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Jessica Maria Oliveira

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will discuss the notions of the “closet” and “secret” within Oscar Wilde’s, The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as offer a clear and precise definition of queer theory to assist in elucidating many of the concepts being discussed. Close reading techniques will be utilized to further uncover the metaphoric, symbolic, and otherwise figurative importance of certain aspects of The Picture of Dorian Gray and supporting texts. Through Judith Butler’s conceptualization of sex and gender, as well as Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of the “secret”, this paper will explicate the intricacies of Wilde’s work and unveil queered aspects …

Jesse Routte: Using Style To Signify Injustice, Emma Nordmeyer

Race, Ethnicity, & Religion

Jesse Routte, first African-American student to graduate Augustana, made national headlines in 1947 for wearing a turban on a visit to Alabama. In this paper, I explore how Routte's stylistic choices uprooted and questioned the racism of the Jim Crow era.

The Formation Of Queer Consciousness In Gay, Latin, Men: How Experiences Affect The Lives Of Queer Latinos, Daniel Leon-Barranco

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

I am interested in investigating the question: How does experience, in a Latinx environment, affect the “coming out” process for queer, Latinx, men? Additionally, the aim of this research is to discover whether Queer Latinx peoples retain their cultural identity/consciousness or abandon it. This project is relevant to analyze whether Latinx culture impacts peoples to abstain from or retain their cultural identity/consciousness. I also hope that this research can prove whether an amalgamation of standpoint theory and Situated Knowledge can come together to affect the process of (re)claiming identity; as the Latinx man claims their sexual identity. This research aims …

How To Be The Perfect Asian Wife!, Sophia Hill

Art and Art History Honors Projects

“How to be the Perfect Asian Wife” critiques exploitative power systems that assault female bodies of color in intersectional ways. This work explores strategies of healing and resistance through inserting one’s own narrative of flourishing rather than surviving, while reflecting violent realities. Three large drawings mimic pervasive advertisement language and presentation reflecting the oppressive strategies used to contain women of color. Created with charcoal, watercolor, and ink, these 'advertisements' contrast with an interactive rice bag filled with comics of my everyday experiences. These documentations compel viewers to reflect on their own participation in systems of power.

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 …

Reeling Backward: The Haptics Of A Medium And The Queerness Of Obsolescence, Travis L. Wagner

Student Publications

This article considers the haptics of queer activist footage shot on video, and more specifically footage shot on magnetic media. Despite ideal methods of care, magnetic media faces extreme concern from a preservation standpoint. As a format that is both subject to rampant deterioration (known colloquially as “sticky shed”) and obsolescence (with the ceasing VCR production), the queer activist videotape is an archival artefact irretrievably stuck in a liminal space. To play a tape is to contribute to its destruction, yet to not play the tape is to overlook potentially unique moments in queer history. As such, this article explores …

The First-Year University Experience For Sexual Minority Students: A Grounded Theory Exploration, Edward Alessi, Beth Sapiro, Sarilee Kahn, Shelley L. Craig

Department of Social Work and Child Advocacy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This exploratory study used grounded theory to understand the role of minority stress on the first-year experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning emerging adults attending a university in the Northeastern part of the United States. Twenty-one lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning sophomores participated in focus groups asking them to reflect on their first year of university. Themes suggest that participants tackle multiple challenges simultaneously: the developmental task of increased independence and stressors specific to lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer, and questioning adults such as encountering stigma. Furthermore, participants manifested resilience in response to minority stress. Participants joined campus …

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans And Queer + (Lgbtq+) Experiences While Accessing Healthcare And Social Services Within Brantford/Brant County, Christine Wildman

Social Justice and Community Engagement

The purpose of the qualitative study was to better understand how Brantford/Brant County LGBTQ+ community members experience accessing healthcare and social services. Over one month I interviewed 8 LGBTQ+ community members and conducted a focus group with 4 Trans and Gender non-conforming individuals. An intersectional feminist and critical Trans politic analysis was used to understand how LGBTQ+ community members experience accessing care. The results reveal that LGBTQ+ community members experience structural violence through oppressive administrative practices. Specifically, heteronormative and homonormative behaviors and assumed heterosexuality and/or gender, which creates a climate where LGBTQ+ people do not feel safe seeking healthcare and/or …

Rhetorical Commonsense And Child Molester Panic--A Queer Intervention, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

This article considers how contemporary representations of child molesters in scholarly, political, and popular culture participate in projects that revolve around the recuperation of heteronormativity. I argue that these multimodal obsessions with child molestation displace the resilience of entrenched homophobic fears, prejudices, and dispositions, giving the lie to the commonplace that the political advance of same-sex marriage in the United States signals the apotheosis of gay rights. My analysis focuses on two representative popular and scholarly texts: the long-running television series Law and Order: SVU and a scholarly article about the Jerry Sandusky case published in jac. The former …

Performing, Sensing, Being: Queer Identity In Everyday Life, Justin J. Rudnick

Communication Studies Department Publications

Drawing from performance, affect, and queer theories, I explore how queer identity is storied, performed, and sensed in everyday life. I access performance and sensory ethnographic practices to examine how queer persons “do” their identities on a daily basis. I draw from data collected through ethnographic participation in a queer-friendly district of Columbus, Ohio in addition to in-depth interviews with fourteen self-identified queer persons I met through my fieldwork. My approach privileges observations and reflections of mundane moments of everyday life to position queer identity as a routine, repetitive, habitual, and otherwise performative practice. I question the emphasis on verbal …

Two-Spirit Indigenous Americans: Fact Not Fiction, Casey S. O'Higgins

Student Publications

This paper examines the narratives of Two-Spirit Indigenous Americans who have been oppressed by heteropatriarchal norms of colonization. Two-spirit creation stories are explored to show the prevalence and importance of their identities prior to contact with Euro-American settlers and the evolution of violence, exclusion, and marginalization due to colonization.The term "Two-Spirit" is examined as a cultural identity of the Indigenous Americans. Finally, the paper looks at how Two-Spirit scholars are looking to combine Queer Theory with Indigenous Studies to deconstruct colonial heteropatriarchal America.

Queering The Library Of Congress, Carlos R. Fernandez

Works of the FIU Libraries

This poster will attempt to apply the techniques used in Queer Theory to explore library and information science’s use and misuse of library classification systems; and to examine how “queering” these philosophical categories can not only improve libraries, but also help change social constructs.

For millennia, philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, have used and expounded upon categories and systems of classification. Their purpose is to make research and the retrieval of information easier. Unfortunately, the rules used to categorize and catalog make information retrieval more challenging for some, due to social constructs such as heteronormality.

The importance of this …

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 …

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 …

Normaal Is Gek Genoeg: Homonormativity & Inclusivity In Amsterdam’S Lgbtq Community, Devin Hanley

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper examines the mechanics of inclusivity and exclusion within a homonormative framework in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) spaces in modern-day Amsterdam. Using interviews from five participants involved in various capacities with LGBT/Q spaces in the city, the following paper asserts that the divide between the LGB and TQ communities in the city is predicated, in large part, on the openness in each community towards nonnormative sexual and (especially) gender expressions. In conclusion, it offers suggestions for further inquiry into intersectional inclusion and exclusion factors in these spaces, as well as an examination of the pronounced political …

Review Of Just Queer Folks: Gender And Sexuality In Rural America By Colin R. Johnson, Emily Kazyak

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Colin Johnson’s book Just Queer Folks provides a powerful corrective to the faulty assumption that gender and sexual nonnormativity and rurality are incompatible. As a historian, Johnson focuses on both the discourses about sexuality emerging and the wide array of sexual practices occurring in the first half of the twentieth century in rural America. He analyzes a wide range of sources to make two central points: first, that heterosexuality and heteronormativity are not “indigenous to rural areas,” but were constructed there (p. 18); second, that same-sex sexual behavior and gender nonconformity were commonplace in rural America in early twentieth century. …

Education, Community, Narrative Voices: The Internet As A Queer Storytelling Platform, Melody Yourd

Gender & Queer Studies Research Papers

The Internet provides a space where artists may produce queer narratives without censorship, so these representations often offer more diversity and complexity than the negative, stereotype-based queer representations that are more common in more mass-consumed fiction. This paper examines how the online fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale and the webcomic The Less Than Epic Adventures of TJ and Amal represent their queer main characters, and how those storytelling forms and the Internet as a storytelling platform influence both queer and non-queer audiences alike. These interactive storytelling forms allow queer audiences to participate in creating their own narratives, and also …

The Queer Truth, Chelsea E. Broe

SURGE

I remember learning about intersexuality (then called hermaphrodism) for the first time in my health class when I was twelve years old. In that lesson, my teacher mentioned that when a child is born intersex, the parents will likely choose a binary sex (male or female) for the child, have the child undergo sex reassignment surgery, and raise the child to fit the corresponding gender. My teacher went on to explain that sometimes the parents pick the “wrong” sex for their child, and the child grows up feeling like he or she should be the “opposite” gender. Implied in this …

Final Report As A Member Of The Lgbtq Center Staff, Joseph A. Santiago

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Center

It is with a heavy heart that I write my final report as a member of the LGBTQ Center Staff. I have been part of the Center since 2002 and have seen it grow in many ways over the years. It is my hope that it will continue to improve and establish the programs and services that make it a leader and innovator in LGBTIQQ and cultural studies. The following is a brief breakdown of the spring 2012 semester.

Old Maids And Faeries: The Image Problem, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

Librarian stereotypes are akin to those of gays and lesbians. Librarians battling negative professional images are in common cause with gays and lesbians battling similarly slanderous representations. This article proposes relationships between these varieties of maligned people and professionals.

The Lesbian Herstory Archives, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

An introduction to the history and radical practice of New York City's Lesbian Herstory Archives with discussion of the period-specific situation of the archive housed in, but outgrowing, private quarters.