Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons^™

Part-Time Normals: Embodied Trans Geographies Of Homonationalism, Ivy Faye Monroe

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Self-understanding of one’s gender identity both emerges from, and rearticulates into, the ways one experiences and mediates their personal and social relationships with the geographic worlds they inhabit. Trans geographical literature has, to date, created compelling work on the social geographies of trans people in highly-gendered spaces. This thesis extends the existing literature to research how gender is both experienced and performed in the mundane structures of everyday life. Building from theories of cruel optimism and homonationalism, this research examines how the discursive and spatial epistemologies of gender identity inform attachments to structures of normativity. Through archival research of transvestite …

“I Thought I Found Home”: Locating The Hidden And Symbolic Spaces Of African American Lesbian Belonging, Aretina Rochelle Hamilton

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation investigates the place-making practices of African American lesbians in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1990 to 2010. For this project, I ask how African American lesbians claim space to examine how race, sexuality, and class shape their place-making practices. The study is situated in the city before and following the 1996 Olympic Games, which was a period of rapid social, economic, and political growth.

The primary question posed in this study is as follows: How do African American lesbians claim space in Atlanta? This dissertation posits three arguments. First, African American queer spaces are transitory, reflecting the shrinking boundaries of …

Straight Time And Scandal: Travesti Urban Politics In São Paulo, Brazil, Christine L. Woodward

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

São Paulo, Brazil is currently pursuing a project of creative urbanism. Though city rhetoric insists this project is rooted in tolerance of sexual diversity, I suggest that city policy effectively perpetuates normative conceptions of family and respectability. Using data gathered through a series of qualitative interviews with transgender and travesti individuals living in São Paulo, I argue that the straight time of São Paulo’s creative urbanism generates exclusionary temporalities and spatialities in the city that render travestis out of time and out of place. Furthermore, I argue that travestis use their capacity to enact shame through scandals to generate temporalities …