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

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 …

Brother Outsider: Queered Belonging And Kinships In African American Men’S Literature, 1953-1971, Debarati Biswas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Brother Outsider: Queered Belonging and Kinships in African American Men’s Literature, 1953-1971 builds on the work of women-of-color feminists since the late 1960s and queer-of-color critique in the works of José Esteban Muñoz, Robert Reid-Pharr, Roderic Ferguson, and Nadia Ellis, in order to chronicle the emergence of a queer tradition in mid twentieth century African American men’s literature. Through literary analysis and archival research on marginal figures of African American culture during this period, this dissertation proposes that the black pulp novels of Chester Himes, Robert Deane Pharr, Clarence Cooper Jr., and Iceberg Slim perform a queer critique of and …

“The Childish, The Transformative, And The Queer”: Queer Interventions As Praxis In Children’S Cartoons, Heather Wright

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, Scott McCloud considers “the simplified reality of the cartoon,” establishing a definition and theory for the medium (30). McCloud believes that cartoons possess “a special power” that is tied to their unique ability to “focus our attention on an idea” (31). Put simply, there is something about cartoons that allows for an easy exchange of concepts. Cartoons can teach. Using cartoons, a general term, to refer to both comics and animation, this thesis examines the transformative power of queer world building and intervention in recent children’s cartoons and how it functions, and can …

Faces Of Bg: Diverse Backgrounds, Many Stories, One Community, Holly Shively

Honors Projects

If you ask people who have been around Bowling Green State University for at least a decade, they’ll tell you the university seems more diverse, but some people find that, based on statistics, the university isn’t diverse enough. Despite BGSU having roughly 77 percent of students being between the ages of 18 and 21 years old and 78 percent being white, smaller communities flourish within the larger BGSU community. FacesofBG.com is a website that explores diversity at Bowling Green State University through the motto “Diverse backgrounds. Many stories. One community.” Through educational components like diversity in the local news and …

A Conversation With Stephen T. Coady

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 1999. Highlights of this conversation include Stephen's experience in starting ABiGaLe at Holy Cross, his description of the campus climate during the late 1990's, and his reflections on being an activist during this time period.

Interview keywords: student groups, activism, support, coming out, ABiGale, Chaplain's Office

Hiding Behind The Closet Door: Representations Of The Homosexual Experience In A Streetcar Named Desire, Antonia Piccirillo

The Review: A Journal of Undergraduate Student Research

Themes related to homosexuality and the homosexual experience are interwoven in many layers throughout Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. This research paper analyzes contemporary commentary on homosexuality from the 1940s and ‘50s, Blanche’s experiences with light and perception, and moments of homosociality between the male poker players, to interpret how the homosexual experience is represented and exposed on stage through the two main characters in the play, Blanche and Stanley. Williams uses a heteronormative context to portray the homosexual experience, thus mirroring the way gay men had to navigate life in the closet while presenting to the public …

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.

Queer Mississippi Oral History Project Performance, Jessica Wilkerson

Queer Mississippi (Complete Collection)

Members of Dr. Jessica Wilkerson's Oral History of Southern Social Movements class (S ST 560) gave a presentation on their findings at the end of the semester.

A Conversation With Meghan Griffiths

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 2004. Highlights of this conversation include content on the role of Jesuit and faith-based education on personal development and identity formation. She speaks largely about her roles as an Orientation Leader and cochair of the LGBTQ Alumni network.

Interview keywords: Jesuit, faith, orientation leader, Catholic, queer, bisexual, LGBTQ Alumni Network

Living In The Liminal: Representation Of Transgender And Nonbinary Identity In 'Steven Universe', Mads Bradley

Media and Communication Studies Honors Papers

An analysis of the children’s animated series Steven Universe, this research takes a semiotic approach to explore anti-essentialist messages of gender identity. Atypical within the mainstream media, the cartoon expresses dynamic messages about gender by representing nonbinary characters and gender fluid themes. By contextualizing the American history of cartoon production, queer representation, and audience reception, this analysis provides insight into the importance of inclusive depictions of transgender identity in children’s media. Through close textual analysis and focus group findings with straight cisgender and queer informants, the research examines how the show portrays liminal identities. By combining textual analysis and …

A Conversation With Philip Dardeno Ii

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 2002. Highlights of this converation includes content on being involved in Allies and ABiGaLe, being gay at the turn of the century at Holy Cross, community and campus involvement.

Interview keywords: Allies, ABiGaLe, Millennial March, September 11 Terrorist Attacks

From Heo To Zir: A History Of Gender Expression In The English Language, Brodie Robinson

Senior Honors Theses

With the growing presence of the LGBTQ+ community on the global stage, the matter of gender has been rushed to the forefront of the public consciousness. News outlets have hotly debated the topic of gender expression, a topic which has motivated mass demonstrations and acts of violence, and this has promoted a linguistic conversation at the international level.

This thesis is intended to provide the historical context for the contemporary debate on gender expression in the English language, and explores both the grammatical background (the Indo-European origins of linguistic gender, the development of the modern pronoun system, etc.) and the …

A Conversation With Karen Mcshane

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history interview with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 2006. Highlights of this conversation include content on feelings of homesickness in college, events demonstrating global context such as teh 9/11 terrorist attacks, organizations on campus such as ABiGaLe, hate crimes, relationships, support systems, Holy Cross' Jesuit identity, the patriarchal language of Catholic services, mental illness and post-graduation resources.

Interview keywords: homesickness, September 11 Terrorist Attacks, coming out, ABiGaLe, hate crimes, relationships, support, Jesuit, Catholicism, atheism, Chaplain's Office, Counseling Center, clinical depression, Spanish, LGBT Alumni Network

The Bird That Flew Backwards, Robin Gow

English and Creative Writing Honors Papers

The Bird that Flew Backwards examines women poets from literary Modernism in the 1910s and Beat culture in the 1950s. Analyzing these eras in tandem reveals contrasting historical constructions of American womanhood and how sociocultural trends influenced how the “poetess” constructed herself and her work and illustrates the retrograde nature of women’s rights in the 1950s. Through close reading, digital mapping, and historical background, The Bird that Flew Backwards establishes a new critical perspective by linking the more well-known Modernists with lesser-known women in 1910s Greenwich Village Bohemia. This linkage between eras branches off to explore themes of formation of …

Lgbtq+ Children’S Picture Books In Ontario Public Libraries, Ashleigh Yates-Mackay, Danielle Bettridge, Alissa Droog, Alyssa Martin

FIMULAW

Diverse representation in picture books is important for the wellbeing of children and families; this includes LGBTQ+ representation, a frequently contested area of literature. Our poster identifies 33 of the most frequently recommended picture books with LGBTQ+ representations and reports on their inclusion in 40 selected Ontario Public Libraries. We then compared these results with five socioeconomic factors for each library: size of population served, the size of the print collection, the size of the materials budget, the average total median household income and the last decade of provincial election results for the riding in which the main branch of …

A Conversation With David B. Harvie

LGBTQ Alumni Oral History Project

This conversation represents an oral history with a Holy Cross alum who graduated in 1982. Highlights of this conversation include content on how Mr. Harvie commuted from home for his first two years at the College, as well as how his experience junior year while studying abroad in Germany helped him to be more confident in his sexuality. Furthermore, Mr. Harvie is very involved in the Catholic community. He helps organize a church, "In God's Image," for the LGBTQ community in New Jersey.

Interview keywords: Study Abroad, Chaplain's Office, Munich, Germany, coming out, night life, day student, commuter, New Jersey, …

Borderlands After Anzaldúa: Queer/Latinx Identity In Theory And Practice, Joshua Truett

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

The Latinx queer subjectivity complicates the racial and social discourses of the United States and Latin America, in both the academy and popular culture. The complex intersections of identity that marks the queer Latinx subject disrupts conventional narratives of race, ethnicity and culture, as well as gender and sexuality.

The Latinx identity breaks down the rigid construction of race as a biological “truth,” challenging the Black versus White racial binary that is the foundation of the United States racial mythology; the Latinx subject is constructed in the American racial imaginary as neither black nor white, but ¨brown.” This construction of …

Realness Over Reality: Analyzing Gender Binary Deconstruction In Rupaul’S Drag Race, Jonah Wilson

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies (2015-2021)

From its conception in 2009, RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) has grown incredibly in popularity, quality, and potential to serve as a mainstream way of change and acceptance for varying gender performances and identities. Particularly working within frames of commercialism, homonormativity, and queer commodification, RPDR loses a lot of its potential to serve as a radical, decentering challenge to the rest of mainstream television. In regards to rigid western ‘borders’ of gender and the gender binary, RPDR has done a considerable amount to deconstruct sociocultural boundaries that restrict individuals from presenting their gender identities and allowed a stage for transgender and …

Thelma, Kevin V. Dodd

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Thelma (2017) directed by Joachim Trier.

Naming The Nameless: An Exploration Of Queer Poetry And Empowerment, Jesse Yelvington

2018 Award Winners

No abstract provided.