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

Odd Girls, Pulp Fiction And Lesbians, Natalie Aronson

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

1957’s Odd Girl Out, a novel written by Ann Bannon, reminds readers, past, present and future, of the ever-growing need for positive queer representation. This project’s main goal is to take a look at the genre of Pulp Fiction novels of the 1950s, and examine how queer representation – specifically lesbian representation – has been written. Paul Thompson’s Masculinity in Lesbian “Pulp” Fiction is a text I use throughout, as it not only examines the genre overall, but also delves into Bannon’s ever-growing impact, providing much-needed context for the novels. While the genre of Pulp Fiction novels, queer or not, …

Crip Queer Storytelling: An Intersectional Analysis, Audrey T. Heffers

Journal of Creative Writing Studies

Abstract

Where are queer disabled characters, and how do they avoid tokenization? This particular approach will use the following criteria as its foundation:

1) The story has a character who is both disabled and queer. (This must be explicit in some way and not ambiguously coded within the text, or solely paratextual.)

2) The character is central to the narrative. (If the character were removed, would the story change significantly?)

3) The story can be affected by disability, but (with due respect to making space for such stories) the story isn’t solely/centrally about disability/overcoming ableism.

The hope with these criteria …

Archival Presence Of The Queer Experience: An Analysis Of Power In Information Management, Emmett Myers

The Compass

“Who controls the past, controls the future; controls the present, controls the past.”1 Archives, places in which historical records are kept, play a role in controlling the past, future, and present of society. Exploring archives and their relationship with power and authority allows us to understand their impact on documenting intersectional identities, especially those of the LGBTQ+ community. In this paper, I will examine the presence of the LGBTQ+ community within archival spaces, analyze literature regarding the three main principles of archival theory, and offer a new model for a more inclusive and queer framework for archival theory. My research …

The Icarian Dilemma: The Battle Of Faith Versus Identity Addressed With Scenic Design, Allistar G. Barrett

Senior Honors Theses

American Christians and the LGBTQ+ community have long been in a cultural war with one another. However, queer Christians – individuals who are both LGBTQ+ and Christian – have rarely found solace in either community, instead being shunned and ostracized for their beliefs and identities. Using the transformative art of theatre to address cultural divides, a theatrical scenic design was developed for Joe Calarco’s Shakespeare’s R & J, a retelling of the traditional Romeo and Juliet script through the lives of four Catholic school girls. This design uses the Greek mythology of Icarus, Catholic culture, the original Romeo and Juliet, …

What The Uk Can Learn From India About Trans Rights And Inclusive Feminism, Ammel Sharon

Popular Media

The article reflects on the UK Supreme Court’s recent interpretation of “woman” under the Equality Act 2010, noting its impact on trans inclusion in public spaces. In contrast, Indian feminist and queer movements have embraced more inclusive, self-reflective approaches to gender, resisting fixed legal definitions. Drawing on examples from sports activism, legal scholarship, and grassroots organising, the author calls for collective ethics that expand rather than restrict the possibilities of belonging.

Dykebreaking: The Homophobic Rape Of Lesbian Woman And The Next Frontier Of Hate Crime Laws, Mallory L. Harrington

Advanced Issues in Criminal Law: Sex Offenses

This article will explain the motivations behind homophobic rape by examining it as both a sex offense and a hate crime, before arguing that its unique status at the intersection of both categories of offenses places its victims in a particularly vulnerable position and situates those who offend in this way in a more serious category of offender than other sex offenders.

Ua12/2/1 College Heights Herald, Vol. 100, No. 3, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

Magazine edition of the College Heights Herald for the period February 17 - April 20, 2025.

• Wilborn, Price. You Matter & You Are Not Alone
• Smith, Kane. Peggy Crowe Reflects on Counseling Center in Face of Staff Shortages
• Stafford, Hallie. Help with Horses – New Beginnings Therapeutic Horse Riding
• Hawkins, Kaylee. How a WKU Professor Helps Improve Student Mental Health – Jay Gabbard, National Alliance on Mental Illness Recovery Support Group
• McMahon, Jake. More Than a Coach – Brent Chumbley, Track & Field
• Simpson, Libby. WKU’s American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Brings Mental Health Into the Light
• Hardesty, Emma. Trans …

Make Them Hear You: Examining The Evolution Of Activism And Advocacy In The Gay Rights Movement, Angela Davis

Best Integrated Writing

This paper provides a thorough accounting and discussion of the strategies the LGBT movement employed during the past sixty years in an effort to achieve greater legal protections against exclusion and mistreatment. It offers an assessment of the successes and challenges of the movement, providing insights into the efficacies of strategies that may be employed in future waves of the movement.

Le Silence, Le Prédéterminisme Et La Sexualité : Le Cas De Thérèse Desqueyroux, Daniel E. Folger

Vernacular: New Connections in Language, Literature, & Culture

Le silence fait partie intégrante de l’histoire de Thérèse Desqueyroux. A Argelouse, née d’une famille dont la tradition exige l’effacement de l’individualité, elle n’échappe pas à cette répression en se mariant avec Bernard, ni en se sauvant à Paris. La nature inéluctable de son destin fait qu’elle est parfois comparée aux héroïnes tragiques Andromaque et Phèdre. Néanmoins, la parole de cette dernière possède un pouvoir que celle de Thérèse ne détient pas. Malgré la nature étouffante du mutisme imposé sur elle, le silence prend quelquefois un côté positif, notamment lorsque Thérèse est auprès de son amie Anne de la Trave. …

Queerly Writing, Queerly Researching: Using Art-Based Research To Re-Examine My Past And The Imagined Future Of Queer Educators, Matthew Panozzo

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

Through my own coming out process, I turned to LGBTQ+ books as mentors and guides on how to live authentically. These texts shaped my time as a middle and high school English teacher, as well as my time as a doctoral student. This article uses excerpts from Caught Between Closets (Panozzo, 2020), a social fiction written as my doctoral dissertation, to explore and highlight the way queer K-12 educators navigate personal and professional closets. These excerpts were written using a reiterative process (writing to research; researching to write) to re-examine personal experiences, empirical research, multimodal texts, and grey literature. This …

Casar Student Discussion Series #7: Censored Classrooms - Should Parents And Community Members Have A Say In Restricting Certain Books In Schools, Based On Factors Such As Religion, Age Appropriateness, And More?, The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar

Performances, Events, and Presentations

Every semester, CASAR AUC holds miscellaneous student debates discussing the hot controversial topics in the US, Egypt and from around the world in hopes of raising awareness about these topics & broadening the perspectives of our students as they learn to engage in fruitful discussions as they share different opinion on the topic being deliberated.

On April 10th 2025, at this CASAR Student Discussion event #7 in light of the current book bans in the US happening from Trump's administration, we debated this question: 'Censored classrooms: Should parents and community members have a say in restricting certain books in schools …

What Is A Nation? Colonial Legacies, Identity, And Reclaiming In Métisse Autobiographical Narratives – A Case Study Of Sugar And Slate And Garçon Manqué, Thaïs Maëlle Autin

Foreign Languages & Literatures ETDs

This thesis examines the question of national belonging in autobiographical narratives of second-generation immigrant métisse women. I study the similar aesthetic manner in which individuals with different regional and cultural influences grapple with concepts of identity, gender, racism, exile, and negotiation, and the way in which the authors anchor themselves in a broader familial and national heritage. I argue that such an enterprise can be understood as part of the alternative heritage wave, based on Andrew Higson’s theory. The texts put in question traditional understandings of nation. Doing so opens the possibility of engaging in a dialogue that expands the …

Rupert Raj’S Written Acts Of Activism And Care Throughout The 1980s And 1990s, Mia Jakobsen

Amplify: A Journal of Writing-as-Activism

In researching acts of activism and care in Canadian queer and trans racialized history, I examined how Rupert Raj advocated and cared for other trans individuals through his writing in the 1980s and 1990s. He noticed that there were few publications for trans individuals so he created easily accessible methods to share vital information regarding research and support that would have otherwise been difficult to acquire. Raj’s writings shared vital transgender research, literature, and expertise from across the globe. He provided critical support to and for other trans men through his easily accessible publications and letters, serving as an information …

"I Know Who I Am": Draw-And-Tell Conversations With Gender-Creative Children, Eline Leemans Lenne

Dissertations and Theses

A growing number of children identify in various gender-creative ways, likely due to broader social awareness and affirmation of transgenderism. Gender-creative children face higher risks for adverse social, academic, mental health, and healthcare outcomes compared to non-transgender peers. Support from loved ones along with guidance from pediatric providers can mitigate poor outcomes and ensure that gender-creative children live healthy and happy lives. Young gender-creative children's perspectives about the aforementioned topics are markedly absent from the literature, which instead highlights adolescent and adult proxy perspectives.

In this participatory arts-based study anchored by a constructivist epistemology and informed by post-structuralist, queer, and …

Mapping Trends In Gender-Inclusive Legal Language Between Circuit Courts In The United States, Juliette M. Rhinow

Student Publications

This study examines the use of gender-inclusive legal language in federal circuit court opinions in the United States between 2020 and 2024, with a focus on how judicial political ideology influences linguistic behaviors. Drawing on postmodern feminist theory and utilizing content analysis, the research compares six federal circuit courts by coding 46 court opinions for inclusive and exclusive linguistic practices related to transgender and non-binary individuals. Inclusive practices included the use of self-identified names and pronouns, affirming decisions, and acknowledgment of transgender identities, while exclusive practices involved misgendering, outdated terminology, and restrictive rulings. Results show that progressive circuits demonstrated significantly …

A Research Proposal: The Scapegoating Of Transgender Americans By Us Presidential Candidates From 2016 To 2024, Savannah Torres

Posters - 2025

This study will employ a qualitative content analysis to analyze the scapegoating of transgender Americans by U.S. presidential candidates from 2016 to the 2024 elections. This approach will allow for an in-depth exploration of political rhetoric, policy proposals, and public discourse regarding the trans community. In doing so, this study will highlight the lived experiences of transgender Americans in which they have faced both support, indifference, and marginalization from candidates. The content analyzed will include political rhetoric expressed by the candidates through their campaign and administrations. This analysis is with the intent to find recurring themes relating to the scapegoating …

Transgender And Gender Diverse Young Adults’ Navigation Of Sexuality: What Mental Health Providers Need To Know, Sage A. Volk

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

Though literature has documented that TGD individuals may face unique challenges when attempting to develop healthy romantic and sexual relationships (Hill-Meyer & Scarborough, 2014), research has also identified that intimate partners can serve as an immeasurable source of support and resilience for their TGD partners (Coppola et al., 2021; Galupo et al., 2019). While there is strong evidence to support the importance of TGD individuals developing healthy intimate relationships, there is little guidance in the literature for mental health providers wanting to discuss these domains with TGD clients in psychotherapy (Spencer and Vencill, 2017).

The present study addresses this gap …

Transgender And Gender Diverse Youth Navigating Relationships And Sexuality: Recommendations For Affirming Clinical Practice, Hannah Marie Coffey

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

Healthy relationship development is critical for adolescents’ social-emotional wellbeing, and shifting social expectations and identity development in adolescence can be challenging (Kenny et al., 2013; Roach, 2018). This can be particularly complex for transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth given the occurrence of identity development alongside navigating safety, access to affirming spaces, and limited availability of queer-inclusive education (Levitt and Ippolito, 2014; Xing et al., 2015). The positive psychosocial impacts of comprehensive sex education and the relevance of discussing relationships in therapy with adolescents situate mental health providers well to address some of the gaps in knowledge and access to …

Exploring The Impact Of Pharmacy Education On Pharmacy Residents' Confidence & Knowledge Of Gender-Affirming Hormone Therapy, Grace Thompson, Jordan Ballou, Chao Cai

Senior Theses

This thesis will examine the relationship between pharmacy school education about gender-affirming hormone therapy and the confidence and knowledge of PGY1 and PGY2 pharmacy residents at ASHP-accredited or candidate pharmacy residency programs across the United States. This cross-sectional study was completed through an analysis of de-identified survey data, including demographics, confidence-based questions, and knowledge-based questions. The study survey and thesis were compiled by reviewing the current literature regarding the perceptions of pharmacists, pharmacy residents, and student pharmacists on transgender and gender diverse topics. The survey was sent to pharmacy residents through residency program directors (RPDs) and program contacts. After considering …

In Case I Make It: An Autoethnographic Argument For Care, Space, And Utopia, Faelyn T. Cowan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Taking an autoethnographic and autotheoretical approach I examine within this project TomboloBooks’ Queer Comic Book Club. Drawing from José Esteban Mun֮oz’s ideas of queer utopia and Jen Jack Gieseking’s framework of constellations, and analyzing my own experiences, I present the Queer Comic Book Club (QCBC) as a moment of utopic queer worldmaking and argue for it’s potential as a site of alternative mental health care. Though I cannot provide here a generalizable model of book clubs as care, what I offer here is a series of possibilities, arguing for the potential of these spaces as community resources and sites of …