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

Queer(Y)Ing Labels: Dialogues Of Identity, Sherry Coman

Consensus

No abstract provided.

2slgbtqia+- Sexuality In Changing Canadian Lutheran Contexts And Identities, Karen Kuhnert

Consensus

With attention to diverse history, theology, experiences and concerns, this article uses Lutheran contexts and identities to construct a frame for the eventual telling of untold 2SLGBTQIA+ stories. This paper provides accessible structural elements (narratives, time-markers, web-links, videos and image files from reputable sources in Canadian and Lutheran history and theology so readers interested in life-giving quests of belonging can more easily and accurately engage in the ongoing work of reformation from the position of unity in the Gospel that sets people free.

Report On The 2022 Global Interfaith Commission On Lgbt+ Lives, Susan C. Johnson

Consensus

No abstract provided.

Sexing The Stage: Designing Sets For Queer Plays, Elliot Cetinski

Theater Summer Fellows

How can we design queer plays in a way that acknowledges challenging content and celebrates queer theater history? How does a set designer use the research on a play’s challenging content and its historical relevance to influence the design and aid in telling the story? What are the tools and processes indispensable to a scenic designer’s creative process? Answers to all of these questions are the goal of my project, where I am exploring the queer plays of 1920s’ playwright Mae West and designing the set for her play The Pleasure Man through a modern queer lens. As a queer …

Pride And Prejudice: A Modern, Queer Retelling For The Stage, Kate Isabel Foley

Theater Summer Fellows

In the course of studying LGBTQ topics in a queer drama class, I noticed that there was a glaring omission in our readings: the “B.” However, this lack of bisexual representation wasn’t due to a poor syllabus, but to a dismaying lack of bisexual representation in theatre as a whole. This observation, as well as my own experience as a bisexual woman, motivated me to use my love of writing and theatre to fill the void. After performing in Pride and Prejudice at Ursinus, I knew that Jane Austen’s story was the key to me bringing visibility to an underserved, …

Queer Horror, Laura Westengard

Publications and Research

This chapter examines the queer Gothicism of American horror to consider the ways in which marginalized genders and sexualities have been either condemned or covertly endorsed through horror’s textual and visual mediums. In mainstream cis-heteronormative society, queer genders and sexualities have been an abjectified, “horrific” presence, and these mainstream investments represented via horror, as a mode of expression devoted to irruptions of the body, means that the presence of queerness is often registered as an a priori spoliation of bodily norms. Like the term “queer” itself, audiences have often reappropriated the Gothic figures that appear in horror, and some queer …

_Not That Bad_: Lessons Women Learn In A Rape Culture, Sydney J. Selman

Pursuit - The Journal of Undergraduate Research at The University of Tennessee

In 2018, Roxane Gay assembled an anthology that addresses the severity of rape, rejecting the common belief that some sexually violent acts, compared to others, are not that bad. This collection, titled Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture, compiles pieces from thirty different authors and sheds light on how the notion of not that bad contributes to a broader structural social problem involving sexual violence. This social problem, known as rape culture, is commonly defined as a culture that normalizes sexual violence and blames victims of sexual assault (“What is Rape Culture?”). In other words, rape culture …

Coping Strategies For Inner Conflicts Between Gay Bear Identity And Health Concerns, Chichun Lin, Darren D. Moore

The Qualitative Report

Gay bear refers to a burly gay man with a hirsute body and face. Chinese gay bear men are highly homogeneous and strictly emphasize a uniform bear appearance; however, obesity is an obvious health issue in this population. This study aims to explore the Chinese gay bear men's inner conflicts between bear identity and health concerns. Eleven Chinese gay bear men including four Taiwanese, two mainland Chinese, two Hong Kong, two Malaysian, and one Singaporean were interviewed. The study used a thematic analysis approach and found three coping strategies including (a) Eat healthy but maintain a minimal bear standard; (b) …

Exploring The Impacts Of Covid-19 On Lgbtq+ Intimate Communication, Jakob L. Coykendall

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

The question guiding this exploratory qualitative research study is, “How has the COVID-19 pandemic impacted LGBTQ+ intimate communication and relationships?” Recently, scholars have demanded that communication scholarship be conducted through an intersectional lens that analyzes multiple dimensions of social identities, including LGBTQ+ identities. Queer Theory poses questions around gender, sexual, and romantic identities that can help expand our understanding of different forms of intimate communication. “Queering” interpersonal communication research involves challenging traditional understandings of communication within identities such as sexuality and gender at the individual and structural levels (Chevrette, 2013). Queering communication research supports a more in depth analysis of …

Clubbing Criminals: The Hirschfeld Centre And The Emergence Of Queer Club Culture In Dublin, Ann-Marie Hanlon

Irish Communication Review

Ireland in the 1970s and 80s was an extremely hostile place for the LGBT community: male homosexuality remained a criminal offence and social, legal and political oppression was the norm. This article documents the emergence of a nascent queer clubbing scene in Dublin in this period and investigates the historical intersection of partying and politics in a DIY translocal music scene defined by the sexual politics of the time. In particular, this research focuses on exploring the social and political importance of Ireland’s first purpose built queer club, Flikkers, which opened in the Hirschfeld Centre, Temple Bar on St. Patrick’s …

Gender Norms And Gendered Traits, Rowan Bell

Dissertations - ALL

Gender oppression is sustained in part through enforcement of and compliance with gender norms. Understanding how they work is therefore salient to the goal of gender liberation.According to the category-based view, which is common in analytic feminist philosophy, gender norms are assigned to individuals based on their assigned gender category, such as woman or man. I argue that this is insufficient, because it ignores the experiences of those who are marginalized or excluded from those categories. On a category-based view, individual responsiveness to gender norms will track gender category assignment; only individuals assigned the category woman will be responsive to …

Dignity, Respect, And Freedom, Lindsey Abercrombie

Anthós

This paper looks at Irene Redfield, a character from Nella Larsen's Passing, analyzing how dignity is prioritized above all else in her life. Viewing Irene through the lenses of race, sexuality, and class, this paper delves into the intricacies of Irene's mind, attempting to contextualize her by her overt and repressed desires. Passing is a nuanced novel with complicated characters. Many scholars have attempted to understand the symbolism Larsen has imbued the novel with, producing insightful works to challenge the reader's initial perceptions of the novel and the characters. Through taking a deep-dive into Irene's mind, readers can become …

Making A Monster: Queerness And Disability In Gothic Literature, Julien R. Draven

University Honors Theses

Scholars within the gothic genre have long been exploring the concept of the "other" within literature. Looking at the topics of queerness and disability through the lens of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein it's clear that much of the rhetoric surrounding these identities in the 19th century is still very much present in modern society--even if it's worded a bit differently. This literature review covers how queerness and disability are related, disability, eugenics, sexuality, gender, and monstrosity all within the gothic genre of literature.

Postmodern Poetry And Queer Medievalisms: Time Mechanics, David Hadbawnik

New Queer Medievalisms

This volume builds on recent scholarship on contemporary poetry in relation to medieval literature, focusing on postmodern poets who work with the medieval in a variety of ways. Such recent projects invert or “queer” the usual transactional nature of engagements with older forms of literature, in which readers are asked to exchange some small measure of bewilderment at archaic language or forms for a sense of having experienced a medieval text. The poets under consideration in this volume demand that readers grapple with the ways in which we are still “medieval” – in other words, the ways in which the …

Identity In The 21st Century Nigerian Fiction: A Case Study Of Blackass By Igoni A. Barrett., Ogochukwu B. Ossai

Beyond the Margins: A Journal of Graduate Literary Scholarship

This paper attempts to examine the allegorical narrative strategies and politics of identity—race, and gender, using postcolonial and racial frameworks. The novel, Blackass written by a Nigerian writer is a 21st century fierce comic satirical adaptation of Metamorphosis, a novella by Franz Kafka. The intricacies and culture within a society and ethnicity in a nation such as patriarchy are explored through the language, characters, and development of the plot in Nigerian literature. For this essay, I enter into the discourse of race by analyzing the social and cultural phenomena that occur throughout the structure of the fictional work.

“An Eternity Or Two Later”: Family Of Choice In Elaine Castillo’S America Is Not The Heart, Caroliena E. Cabada

Beyond the Margins: A Journal of Graduate Literary Scholarship

Many of the challenges faced by environmental activists are issues of scale. How can vital changes be enacted and sustained over the necessarily long time scales of environmental restoration? Elaine Castillo’s America Is Not the Heart (2018) illuminates a possible avenue for activists engaged in environmental justice work. Parts of the book contains extensive flashbacks to Hero’s, the protagonist’s, time as part of a cadre of the New People’s Army in the Philippines during the Marcos dictatorship. Though the NPA is not strictly an environmental activist group, the organization takes their cues from queer ecofeminist frameworks and the intersections between …

Limp Wrists, Clenched Fists: An Analysis Of Queer Performance Art As A Tool For Political Resistance, Neha Verma

Bridges: An Undergraduate Journal of Contemporary Connections

This paper explores the use of queer performance art as a tool for community mobilization and resistance to socio-legal oppressions. This essay is grounded in movements for queer liberation in the Global South, racialized working-class queer communities, and queer disability justice. As queer culture and aesthetics are often misappropriated for wider cisheteronormative audiences, this work reminds the revolutionary nature of queer performance art.

The Effects Of “No Pro Homo” Policies On Lgbtq+ Perceptions In The American South, Isabella L. Brocato

Honors Theses

Five states in the American South currently have “no pro homo” policies in place, while an increasing number of bills targeting discussions about sexuality and gender identity in public schools are being introduced to House floors around the country. Although there is extensive research on the ways in which these policies put the physical and mental well-being of LGBTQ+ students at risk, there is little to no research about how they shape public perceptions of the LGBTQ+ community collectively. With inspiration from Kenneth and Mamie Clark’s social science study cited in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), this study works …

Queer History In The Streets: A Walking Tour Of Portland, Maine, Megan Macgregor

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The University of Southern Maine’s Jean Byers Sampson Center for Diversity in Maine’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer + Collection preserves the history of LGBTQ+ communities in Maine. The collection contains books, personal papers, photographs, and newspapers documenting the LGBTQ+ activism from 1970s to 1990s.

While three research publications have some out of the collection (one article and two thesis), no overall history about Maine’s LGBTQ+ community has been written. As a result many Mainer’s, queer and straight, know very little of the history. The instruction and outreach librarian and the staff of USM’s Special Collections wanted an opportunity to …

Journeying Toward Liberation: Creating Civic Utopias Through Restorative Literacies, Rae L. Oviatt, Megan Mcelwee, Owen Farney

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

In this article, we forward three narratives from educators whose lived experiences moving from underrepresented youth to queer educators support the necessity of furthering representation for historically marginalized youth across classroom spaces. We begin with situating our argument in response to current policies that would seek to silence historically marginalized voices, histories, literacies, and thereby inhibit a more just social and civic future. Our narratives provide three varied perspectives of lived experiences as youth moving toward our current status as queer educators. Finally, we seek to call in other educators to engage advocacy and resources to support this work in …