Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

The Queer Expansion Of Role Theory: A Drama Therapy Intervention With Lgbtq+ Adults, Abigail Truax

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

There is currently a lack of information in understanding LGBTQ+ specific needs in mental health care, thus creating a marginalized space in which queer people are significantly more dissatisfied with mental health treatment as opposed to heterosexual and cisgender people seeking treatment (Avery, Hellman & Sudderth, 2001). This thesis will focus on the development of a method in which I will expand upon Robert Landy’s role theory and create a drama therapy role intervention crafted specifically for the queer population and their needs. Because of oppression within the LGBTQ+ community my focus will be on expanding role theory and its …

Gender Journeys : Arts-Based Participatory Action Research With Non-Binary Young Adults, Darren Thomas Cosgrove

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Increasing attention to the social and health disparities faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people has ushered in much needed attention to issues related to sexuality and gender diversity within social work literature. Among this burgeoning focus has been a particular emphasis on the experiences of transgender people. Such work is particularly relevant to social workers given the heightened rates of harassment and discrimination that transgender people face. Increased scholarly attention presents opportunities for new knowledge to inform social work policy and practice in service to transgender communities. While this expansion in literature addresses several significant needs, …

“This Is How You Navigate The World”: Impacts Of Mormon Rhetoric On White Queer Members' Identity Performances, Ben Brandley

Communication ETDs

The Mormon Church is one of the fastest growing and most conservative religious organizations in the world. The Church’s conservatism has meant that its rhetorics, doctrines, and discourses have cultivated a culture of queerphobia and anti-queer sentiments. By interviewing 15 transgender, bisexual, and gay Mormons who are active in the Church, I conducted a critical thematic analysis that yields insights and critiques into how Mormon rhetoric impacts the identity performances and relationships of queer members. Using queer theory and Whiteness as conceptual and theoretical lenses, the analysis revealed four major themes: 1) queerness as non-identity, 2) the primacy of divine …

The Relationship Between Lgbtq+ Representation On The Political And Theatrical Stages, Brett V. Ries

Honors Thesis

This thesis examines the relationship between LGBTQ+ representation on the political and theatrical stages. During some decades, LGBTQ+ theatre was dictated by the politics of the time period. During other times, theatre educated and filled the silence when the government and society turned the other way. By examining LGBTQ+ plays, musicals, and political events over the past century, there are clear themes that emerge. In both the theatrical and political arenas, LGBTQ+ representation has been limited by a concept called “repressive tolerance.” Every step of progress has been met with another restriction, ranging from stereotypical caricatures to legal discrimination. In …

Collective Healing Within Queer Paradoxes: Deconstructing Emotional Abuse In Lgbtq2sia* Communities To Cultivate More Accountable And Compassionate Worlds, Alexia Siebuhr

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Emotional abuses within LGBTQ2SIA* communities are rarely acknowledged as existing or often normalized. Through care and anti-oppression works, transformative justice models such as community and self-accountability have helped carve out ways of addressing harm directly and breaking cycles of violence. The research in this thesis has been through mixed qualitative methodologies including semi-structured interviews and surveys. The participants' along with other authors, artists, activists and scholars’ narratives draws upon the experiences of emotional abuse lived within structural and social surveillance. The settler colonial state sanctioned projects have responded to harm by perpetuating violence upon those most marginalized. Deconstructing emotional abuse …

Queer Political Organization In Israel, And Palestine: Shifting Away From Homonationalism, Tristan Blaisdell

Undergraduate Honors Theses

In this project, I present research I have done on the issue of pink washing queer Israeli and Palestinian citizens and homonationalism within Israel and Palestine. I also create an exhibit brief outlining a hypothetical museum exhibit on this topic to be put up at the museum of culture and environment. The first section outlines the history and theory of my exhibit, and a brief personal statement where I talk about my interest in the subject and where I’m coming from before I design this exhibit. My theory is built off concepts of diaspora, home, belonging, queer identity, and intersectionality …

“We’Re Here, We’Re Queer, We Will Not Live In Fear!”: A Content Analysis Exploring Gender Disparity In The Public Reappropriation Of Lgbtq+ Slurs, Nicolas Hall

Capstone Showcase

As minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community have faced many hardships throughout history, such as the use of language as a weapon against them. However, this research explores the public display of linguistic reappropriation of LGBTQ+ derogatory language and terms within the community. Throughout history, the use of slurs (e.g. faggot and dyke) and their social definitions have shifted from having no connection to the community to directly affected these individuals. These terms have been used to demonize members of the LGBTQ+ community for decades. Despite this reality, there are some scholars who suggest that these terms are being reappropriated, …

The Mothman And Other Strange Tales: Shaping Queer Appalachia Through Folkloric Discourse In Online Social Media Communities, Brenton Watts

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Little work has been conducted on the intersections of queer and Appalachian identities, in part because these two identities are viewed as incompatible (Mann 2016). This study uses a multimodal critical discourse analytic approach to examine the Instagram posts of the Queer Appalachia Project, which represent a substantial body of discourse created by and for queer Appalachians. Of specific interest to this analysis are those posts which employ folkloric figures, such as West Virginia’s Mothman, to do identity work that is queer, Appalachian, and queer-Appalachian. Often, this act is accomplished through juxtaposition with Appalachian imagery and the reclamation of homophobic …

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 …

Bi The Wayside?: Shifts In Bisexual Representations In Teen Television, Analise Elle Pruni

Theses and Dissertations

Television can be a reflection of the values we have as a society and its representations can have an impact on the way people, especially youth, shape their identities. This examination of teen-oriented television shows on the CW network looks at bisexual and queer representations and compares them with previous representations. I ground this essay in the youth-oriented television context, the progression of queer television representations, and ideas about media representation in a post-gay era. My assessment of the CW’s bisexual protagonist Clarke Griffin in The 100 and several sexually fluid characters in Legacies help show how the network has …

Same-Sex Sexual Coercion Among Women: The Impact Of Minority Stress On Perpetration And Victimization Experiences Of Women Of Diverse Sexual Identities, Allison Kirschbaum

Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to investigate women’s experiences with same-sex sexual coercion perpetration and victimization. Specifically, I sought to explore the role that the stress of living as a sexual minority plays in these experiences as well as to determine whether the psychological variables of perceived powerlessness, psychological distress, social support, and alcohol use mediate the relationship between minority stress and perpetration and victimization experiences. Data were collected online from self-identified women and individuals assigned female at birth who reported experiencing genital sexual contact with another woman (N=339). Of the cisgender women in the sample, 31.6% reported …

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 …

Queering Music Therapy: Literature Review Of Queer Music Therapy And Music Therapy Education, Eva M. Steward

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This capstone thesis presents current research on the queer (LGBTQ+) community and music therapy. Research on the education of music therapists in working with queer identified clients and patients as well as the current theories and recommendations when providing affirming music therapy for queer clients and patients is discussed. Queer theory is defined and its relationship to psychotherapy, expressive arts therapies, and music therapy is explored. This research shows that even though there is a current push for music therapists to create an affirming and therapeutic environment with queer clients and patients, there is a lack of research, education, and …

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.

İbne, Gey, Lubunya: A Queer Critique Of Lgbti+ Discourses In The New Cinema Of Turkey, Azmi Mert Erdem

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In my thesis, I examine the intersections between liberalism, neoliberal globalism, and LGBTI+ visibility and identity politics, through films that present “openly” non-normative sexualities through cis/transgender male, female, or non-binary characters in the new cinema of Turkey. First, I survey existing scholarship on how liberal capitalism impacts the formation of LGBTI+ subjectivities and identity politics. Furthermore, I trace how non-normative sexualities, practices, and discourses evolved along with socioeconomic and political shifts in the Turkish Republic following the Ottoman Empire. Accordingly, I review Turkey’s adoption of neoliberal ideologies in the 1980s and how these ideologies engage with its local, heterogenous gender …

Queering Utopia: Act Up And The Disruption Of Heteronormativity, Nicholas Lepp

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The existing literature on queer utopianism tends to analyze static aesthetic artifacts as opposed to diachronic social movements designed to create material policy changes. This opens room for various criticisms of queer utopianism regarding it being too wishful and devolving into political and social forms of queer dystopia. In order to remedy this concern, this thesis seeks to investigate how queer utopic thought can be used to create long-lasting change. To answer this question, this thesis is broadly divided into two sections—one theoretical and one practical. My theoretical section delves into an analysis of the after-effects of queer utopic cuts …

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 …

Women Coaches Navigating The Leadership Labyrinth At A Division Ii Regional Comprehensive University: Queering Discourse And Narratives, Julie A. Wienski

Higher Education: Doctoral Research Projects

Representation by female head coaches in the NCAA is at an all-time low. This study analyzed an institution (LSU) where women’s representation and gender equity is higher than average. Using a qualitative inquiry approach applying Critical Narrative and Foucauldian Dispositive Analyses in a queering fashion, the study explored ways in which institutional (macro) discourses shaped individual (micro) daily narratives. The overarching goal for this study was to reveal themes, language and discourse informing women’s coaches’ recruitment, retention and persistence at an NCAA Division II and Regional Comprehensive University excelling in gender equity and inclusivity.

Findings indicated power-knowledge connections via Foucauldian …

Sex Education Or Self Education? Lgbt+ Experiences With Exclusionary Curricula, Karli Reeves

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Though much research exists on LGBT+ exclusion from school-based sexual and reproductive health (SRH) education, the strategies used by LGBT+ individuals during their search for knowledge regarding the subject are not as widely documented. Using the ethnographic research method of semi-structured interviews, this research explores the experiences of young LGBT+ adults with formal sexual and reproductive health education and examines the self-education methods employed by this population in the context of exclusionary and cisheteronormative curricula. This project also functions to contribute to existing literature in the field of anthropology and other social sciences regarding the subject of SRH education, particularly …

Provocations From The Field - Derangement And Resistance: Reflections From Under The Glare Of An Angry Emu, Pattrice Jones

Animal Studies Journal

The situations of emus may illuminate the maladies of human societies. From the colonialism that led Europeans to tamper with Australian ecosystems through the militarism that mandated the Great Emu War of 1932 to the consumer capitalism that sparked a global market for ‘exotic’ emus and their products, habits of belief and behaviour that hurt humans have wreaked havoc on emus. Literally de-ranged, emus abroad today endure all of the estrangements of émigrés in addition to the frustrations and sorrows of captivity. In Australia, free emus struggle to survive as climate change parches already diminished and polluted habitats. We have …

Nietzsche And Emancipatory Politics: Queer Theory As Anti-Morality, C. Heike Schotten

C. Heike Schotten

Unsettling Geographies: Primitivist Utopias In Queer American Literature From Walt Whitman To Willa Cather, Benjamin Meiners

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In “Unsettling Geographies: Primitivist Utopias in Queer American Literature from Walt Whitman to Willa Cather,” I argue that the colonial discourse of primitivism played a central role in the queer literary imaginaries of both canonical and non-canonical U.S. authors. Building on the work of historians of sexuality who trace the complex development of the twentieth-century homo-/hetero- binary, I show how literary works produced in this historical moment—roughly 1860 to 1925—explored and in some instances even advocated alternative queer modes of citizenship and erotic imagination and practice. Focusing on the works of Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Willa …

Queering The Archive: Transforming The Archival Process, Lizeth Zepeda

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

The purpose of this work is to recognize the lack of queer of color lens within the archival profession that determines the appraisal, preservation, and impeding access. Queering the archive transforms the institution with possibilities of inclusivity for social justice and the rewriting of histories. Traditionally, the archival institution has reaffirmed hegemonic power structures by erasing and ignoring histories of marginalized communities. A way to disrupt this is to queer these archival institutions to confront these power dynamics and make interventions against the racist, sexist, classist and heterosexist structures that maintain them. Thus, this paper focuses on how processing through …

Queer Lives In Archives: Intelligibility And Forms Of Memory, Gina Watts

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

Exploring queer archives through a variety of texts and case studies, this paper seeks to understand three primary themes: the departure of traditional archival theory in queer archives, the absence of records and what they might mean for queer history, and a conception of queer time and space contributed to by archival records. Together, these suggest a specific form of intelligibility and memory available to people identifying as queer through the existence of these communal archives, one which reaffirms a history that some were determined to bury and which challenges and expands typical understandings of activism in the archival profession. …

Jarrod Hayes. Queer Roots For The Diaspora: Ghosts In The Family Tree. Ann Arbor: U Of Michigan P, 2016., Annie De Saussure

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Jarrod Hayes. Queer Roots for the Diaspora: Ghosts in the family tree. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016. 325 pp.

Denis Provencher. Queer Maghrebi French: Language, Temporalities, Transfiliations. Liverpool: Liverpool Up, 2017., Alvaro Luna

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of Denis Provencher. Queer Maghrebi French: Language, Temporalities, Transfiliations. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2017. 314 pp.

“I Want To Be Who I Am”: Stories Of Rejecting Binary Gender, Ana Balius

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Historically, in academic literature—sociological and otherwise—surrounding the daily lives of LGBT+ people, people who reject binary gender are very marginally represented. In this study, I specifically seek to understand the way my participants articulate their sense of their gender identities through the stories they tell of their experiences. This study attempts to answer the following questions: What are the stories of gender identity construction for people who reject binary gender? How do they understand the ways they are held accountable to binary gender in the day-to-day? How do they perceive and make meaning of gender in their lives? Through ten …

Microaggressions Within The Lgbtq+ Community: An Autoethnography, Erika A. Perez Montes

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

This autoethnography is about different points in my life where I committed microaggressions towards the LGBTQ+ community specific to different genders, sexual orientations and/or how people in the community present themselves. I use “thick intersectionality” ‒ an embodied exploration of the complex particularities of individuals’ lives and identities associated with their race, class, gender, sexuality, and national locations ‒ as a means of portraying my message, voicing the emotions that I felt, and the identity I occupied at that moment. I show that the intersectionalities of queer folks’ identities create unconscious microaggressions towards other queer folks. The purpose of my …

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.