Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

My Last Concussion, Shannon Valkr

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

MY LAST CONCUSSION is a thesis consisting of a critical introduction, a number of poetic influences, and a collection of poems. The introduction touches on the themes of the collection, my personal history with my subject, my changing approach to poetry, and a brief evaluation of the work as a whole. It details my approach to Catholicism, paganism, transgender identity, and oppression. My work grapples with both my current understanding of myself and my inability to enunciate my reality in the past. I aim to view divinity and personal history through a lens of queerness.

Advisor: Kwame Dawes

The Mental Health Experience Of Transgender And Gender Diverse Colombians: Que La Diversidad No Cueste La Vida, María Natalia Acosta Canchila

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents from University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Experiences of TGD people in various countries reflect difficulties accessing mental health services and significant mental health needs. In Colombia, experiences in broader healthcare systems suggest various barriers to care that include experiences of discrimination. However, specific experiences in mental health services have not been thoroughly examined. The current study aimed to understand the experiences, perceptions, and needs of TGD people in Colombia in mental health systems. Qualitative data was collected via 40 semi-structured interviews with TGD people in Colombia, data was analyzed via reflexive thematic analysis. Findings suggests great mental health needs related to needing support in the process …

The Bloodless Period: A Transfeminine Experience, Rin Nguyen

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

There is limited research exploring menstruation in transgender and gender diverse (TGD) populations, and studies have primarily examined the relationship between menstruation and gender congruence. Findings revealed menstruating TGD people experienced distress related to decreased gender congruence (Eisenberg et al., 2021), and 88% of TGD people expressed interest in menstrual suppression to manage the distress (Schwartz et al., 2022). By contrast, Lowik (2020) highlighted a transfeminine person who wished to menstruate to achieve womanhood and commented on the “bloodless period” (i.e., menstrual-like symptoms in the absence of bleeding) upon receiving gender-affirming hormone therapy. To the author’s knowledge, there is no …

Title Ix's Trans Panic, Deborah L. Brake

Articles

Sport is an agent of social change, but that change does not always track in a progressive direction. Sport can be a site for contesting and reversing the gains of progressive social movements as much as furthering the values of equality and justice for historically marginalized groups. This dynamic of contestation and reversal is now playing out in a new wave of anti-transgender backlash that has gained adherents among some proponents of equal athletic opportunities for girls and women. In this latest twist in the debate over who deserves the opportunity to compete, the sex-separate athletic programming permitted by Title …

Dismantling Binary Assumptions In Sex Estimation: Uplifting Trans And Gender Diverse Identities In Forensic Anthropology, Audrey Holbeck

Honors Theses

Forensic anthropology is a study within the field of physical anthropology that seeks to apply osteological expertise to legal and criminal situations. One of a forensic anthropologists’ most important jobs is to build a biological profile, consisting of age, biological sex, stature, and ancestry, in correspondence to an unidentified decedent. As we enter the third decade of the 21st century, instances of violence against trans and gender non-conforming individuals are unfortunately prominent, however, there has also been more awareness shed on trans activism. Trans individuals are at a higher risk of being victims of violent crime, and thus, forensic anthropologists …

Sexuality And Borders In Right Wing Times: A Conversation, Alyosxa Tudor, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

We respond to prompts about the relationships between race, migration, and sexuality, as these intersecting differences have been forced into the same frame by the violent practices of right-wing regimes, and brought into relief by Covid19. Even as we have long known that sexual politics are a way to govern bodies, and to distribute uneven states of vulnerability, we are seeing new incarnations of government. What we aim to point out is how people who are seen as “different” are being attacked, maimed, dispossessed and murdered. But perhaps more importantly, we insist on the specific nature of right-wing times because …

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. …

It's Complicated: The Impact Of Marriage Legalization Among Sexual Minority Women And Gender Diverse Individuals In The United States, Laurie Drabble, Angie Wootton, Cindy Veldhuis, Ellen Perry, Ellen Riggle, Karen Trocki, Tonda Hughes

Faculty Publications

This mixed-methods study explored perceptions of the impact of marriage legalization in all U.S.states among sexual minority women and gender diverse individuals. Survey data were collectedfrom a nonprobability sample of individuals 18 years or older who identified as lesbian, bisexual,queer, same-sex attracted or something other than exclusively heterosexual—as well asindividuals who identified as transgender or gender nonbinary (for example, genderqueer, transwoman, trans man, nonbinary, or gender non-conforming). The analytic sample included 418participants in an online survey who responded to open-ended questions about the perceivedimpact of marriage legalization. Qualitative analyses revealed perceptions of marriagelegalization that situated individual meanings in the context …

Healthcare Avoidance Due To Anticipated Discrimination Among Transgender People: A Call To Create Trans-Affirmative Environments, Luisa Kcomt, Kevin M. Gorey, Betty Jo Barrett, Sean Esteban Mccabe

Social Work Publications

Transgender people encounter interpersonal and structural barriers to healthcare access that contribute to their postponement or avoidance of healthcare, which can lead to poor physical and mental health outcomes. Using the 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey, this study examined avoidance of healthcare due to anticipated discrimination among transgender adults aged 25 to 64 (N ¼ 19,157). Multivariable logistic regression analysis was conducted to test whether gender identity/expression, socio-demographic, and transgender-specific factors were associated with healthcare avoidance. Almost one-quarter of the sample (22.8%) avoided healthcare due to anticipated discrimination. Transgender men had increased odds of healthcare avoidance (AOR ¼ 1.32, 95% CI …

Identi-Tea Podcast: An Original Play, Karsyn Wilson

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Creative Works Winner for 2019:

Identi-Tea Podcast is an original play based on the word-for-word interviews of three LGBTQ+ students of color from UNLV who explore all the various facets of their identities formatted in the style of a podcast. In various moments during the play, audience members are prompted by the actors to critically engage with the ideas presented.

Asexuality: To Include Or Not To Include A Slice Of Cake In The Lgbtq+ Community, Devin Oliva-Farrell

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

Due to the growing number of sexual orientations and genders that have joined the LGBTQ+ community, a debate has sparked on whether all of these should be included. Specifically, this paper analyzes the debate on whether asexuality should be included or excluded from the group. The results from including or excluding asexuality will have drastic effects on the LGBTQ+ community, self-identified asexuals, and society as a whole when it comes to examining sexualities and genders.

This is illustrated in the following ways: 1) examining the definition of asexuality; 2) exploring the debates surrounding its inclusion or exclusion; 3) highlighting the …

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 …

La Búsqueda De Una Agenda En Común: Una Mirada Feminista A Las Organizaciones Lgbti En Nicaragua, Rachel Crane

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the global context, we are amidst a rapidly changing rights landscape for people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) as more and more governments begin to recognize same-gender partnerships. This gain in LGBT rights worldwide is in no small part to the political organizing and lobbying done by LGBT-rights organizations. Nicaragua’s history with gaining LGBT rights is relatively new, as the government did not repeal the anti-sodomy law here until 2008, thus stagnating the fight for acceptance in the country. As it stands, Nicaragua has a few legal protections for LGBT people, but they continue to …

Fearless Friday: Kaiden Krueger, Christina L. Bassler

SURGE

In this week’s Fearless Friday, we would like to spotlight Kaiden Krueger ’16!

Gettysburg College has been Kaiden’s home for the last few years. Kaiden, now a senior, knew from the start that his time at college would be transformative. He decided he was officially going to come out as a man and live the life he knew was right for him. [excerpt]

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 …

Original Plumbing: Performing Gender Variance Through Relational Self-Determination, Raechel Tiffe

Communication and Media Faculty Publications

In 2009, Amos Mac and Rocco Kayiatos, two transgender men, created Original Plumbing (OP) magazine, in an effort to “[document] diversity within trans male lifestyles through photographic portraits, essays, personal narratives and interviews.” In this essay, I argue that OP becomes a platform from which to understand the relational performance of transmale life. The magazine provides a foundation for transmen to take ownership of self-determination by constructing identity through a non-heteronormative framework, made possible through the queer worldmaking practices of an exclusively FTM (female- to-male) space. Throughout this essay, I critique what the magazine elects to value as “diversity,” tackling …

Civil Rights Reform And The Body, Tobias Barrington Wolff

All Faculty Scholarship

Discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression has emerged as a major focus of civil rights reform. Opponents of these reforms have structured their opposition around one dominant image: the bathroom. With striking consistency, opponents have invoked anxiety over the bathroom -- who uses bathrooms, what happens in bathrooms, and what traumas one might experience while occupying a bathroom -- as the reason to permit discrimination in the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. This rhetoric of the bathroom in the debate over gender-identity protections seeks to exploit an underlying anxiety that has played a role in …

The Lesbian And Gay Past: An Interpretive Battleground, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

The lesbian and gay past is an interpretive battleground that mainstream archives have refused to enter, assuming few risks in collecting, naming, or identifying archival collections. At the same time, libraries offer up worlds to those who work to unearth the secrets there.

The New York Public Library's 1994 "Becoming Visible" exhibit trumpeted The Arrival of lesbian and gay history to New York's cultural mainstream. The NYPL exhibit denies the library's role in secreting lesbian and gay history, and diminished the contributions of community-based archives to the exhibit.