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

Rural Space As Queer Space: A Queer-Ecology Reading Of Fun Home, Debra J. Rosenthal, Lydia Munnell

2018 Faculty Bibliography

Alison Bechdel's Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic has quickly joined the ranks of celebrated literary graphic novels. Set in part at a family-run funeral home, the book explores Alison's complicated relationship with her father, a closeted gay man. Amid the tensions of her home life, Alison discovers her own lesbian sexuality and her talent for drawing. The coming-of-age story and graphic format appeal to students. However, the book's nonlinear structure; intertextuality with modernist novels, Greek myths, and other works; and frank representations of sexuality and death present challenges in the classroom.

This volume offers strategies for teaching Fun Home in …

Queer: Good Gay, Bad Gay, Black Gay, White Gay?, Ian Barnard

English Faculty Articles and Research

"As Deadline .com bluntly put it, 'Kevin Spacey Apologizes to Anthony Rapp for Alleged Sexual Advances; Chooses to "Live As A Gay Man."' The outraged response of progressive intellectuals, activists, and cultural critics to Spacey’s twofold tweet has demonstrated, inter alia, the resilience of old school assumptions and expectations about coming out and about gay identity and gay identifications. These outraged responses have come especially from younger generations of intellectuals, activists, and critics, but also across generations, genders, and sexual orientations. Despite decades of attacks on models of gay identity that center on teleological narratives of coming out, and critiques …

Let’S Escape Into The Music: A Cross-Generational Oral History Of Orlando Lgbtq+ Spaces, Hannah Powell

Honors Program Theses

Since Orlando’s first gay bar, The Palace Club, opened in 1969, LGBTQ+ spaces have played an essential role in the Orlando queer community. They have acted as loci of gathering, solidarity, identity-formation, recreation, and even healing. There is an absence of literature on the LGBTQ+ community in Orlando and, more generally, in Central Florida as a whole. The legacy of LGBTQ+ spaces in Orlando is worthy of study due both to the city’s rich queer history and Orlando’s singular experience of the deadliest act of hate-motivated violence against the LGBTQ+ community in the history of the United States. Through documenting …

In-Terracial Conversation, Cheryl Dunye, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Blurring The Spectrum: Exploring Queer Conservatism, Austin P. Mejdrich

Masters Theses

Running parallel to the groundbreaking and historic advancement of LGBTQ rights over the past decade has been the rise in the prominence and public discourse of queer conservative thinking. From the Log Cabin Republicans to far-right nationalistic politics, queer conservatives underscore both diverging ideologies within the modern American conservative tradition and the increase of far-right politics in Western societies. This study argues that queer conservatism, while traditionally less explored in the broader context of sexuality politics, is consequential to an understanding of the LGBTQ community and queer politics. Thus, an exploration of queer conservatism as a political ideology is explored, …

Of The Crickets, Kathryn Lien

Theses and Dissertations

Of the Crickets imagines the overlapping worlds of ethical ecological solutions to climate changed sustenance and the potential for collective excellence in female exclusive environments. Using garments, furniture, site-specific installation and directed performance, the project harnesses social and material sensitivity to mine solutions for idealized living.

On Lgbt Studies At Vcu: An Interview With Richard Godbeer, Amita Rao, Emily Furlich

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"I Think That's Really What It Comes Down To, Is Intimacy": Lgbtq+ Polyamory And The Queering Of Intimacy, Emily Pain

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Polyamory is an intimate practice, identity, and philosophy that permits open and honest relationships with multiple partners and centers on values such as communication, trust, and egalitarianism. The limited body of existing research on polyamory has contributed important perspectives towards a sociological understanding of polyamorous relationship negotiations and family challenges; however, it has focused primarily on privileged groups, drawing participants from polyamorous communities that are largely comprised of white, middle-class, heterosexual cisgender men and bisexual cisgender women. LGBTQ+ (‘queer’) lives have been severely marginalized in this literature, reinforcing oppressive gender and sexual hierarchies and leaving many important questions unanswered. Moreover, …

Beyond Litigation : The Behavior Of Cause Lawyering Organizations In The Lgbtq Movement, David Lawrence Trowbridge

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Scholarship tells us that cause lawyers, including those in the LGBTQ movement, are likely to avoid non-litigation tactics in favor of court-centered strategies (Klarman 2005; Rosenberg 2008; Scheingold 1974). Other research suggests that lawyers are likely to steer the LGBTQ movement’s agenda away from both grassroots interests and its more radical agenda (Leachman 2014; Levitsky 2006). However, more recent scholarship shows an increased reliance on non-litigation tactics in the LGBTQ movement and publicly available evidence indicates cause lawyers are working on diverse sets of issues within the movement (Cummings and NeJaime 2010; Marshall 2006).

Discrimination, Mental Health, And Preparedness For Aging In Trans(Gender)/Gender-Nonconforming Adults, Richard S. Henry

Theses and Dissertations

This cross-sectional study examined relationships among discrimination, mental health (i.e., depression and anxiety), preparation for aging (i.e., familiarity and planning), social support, death attitudes, and aging anxiety among TGNC adults (N = 154). Neither discrimination nor mental health predicted preparation for aging familiarity or planning. Discrimination did, however, predict both anxiety and depression, although only the non-affirmation subscale was a unique predictor of both. As discrimination and mental health were not a significant predictor of preparedness for aging in the previous regressions, the hypothesized mediation model and subsequent moderated mediation models were not conducted. Additional exploratory multiple regressions were …

A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender + Student Support Group Within A Central Florida State College: A Qualitative Study, Remy Ansiello

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For decades, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) + students attending institutions of higher education have been marginalized and have experienced hostility and outright discrimination, causing the need for student support groups for this population on college campuses. Recent laws passed at a national level have brought a greater level of equality to this minority group; however, feelings of marginalization, homophobia, heterosexism, and heteronormative culture persist. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to ask how students participating in an LGBT + support group within a Central Florida public state college perceive their experiences in college. The researcher also asked …

Reeling Backward: The Haptics Of A Medium And The Queerness Of Obsolescence, Travis L. Wagner

Student Publications

This article considers the haptics of queer activist footage shot on video, and more specifically footage shot on magnetic media. Despite ideal methods of care, magnetic media faces extreme concern from a preservation standpoint. As a format that is both subject to rampant deterioration (known colloquially as “sticky shed”) and obsolescence (with the ceasing VCR production), the queer activist videotape is an archival artefact irretrievably stuck in a liminal space. To play a tape is to contribute to its destruction, yet to not play the tape is to overlook potentially unique moments in queer history. As such, this article explores …

“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 …

Tracing Writer/Reader Identity In, And In Response To, Queer Latinx Autohistoria-Teorìa, Corrina Wells

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

This project examines how diverse representation changes the discourse around queer latinx identities. This project extends theories of representation that show how a text changes the imaginary of the reader through a two-part methodology. First, through explicating Spit & Passion and A Cup of Water Under My Bed, this project examines how these texts construct a readers’ imaginary. Then, through a corresponding qualitative assessment on readers’ responses to the texts, this project identifies the extent to which the texts change the beliefs and understandings of a small group of students. Articulating an ecology of identity using the texts under examination, …

The Power Of Queer Representation In The Media, Jack Harris

Audre Lorde Prize

This paper examines the lack of representation of the queer community in today's film and television productions. Recent work such as The CW's The 100 and Nickelodeon's The Legend of Korra are used to create an intersectional analysis of the tropes associated with queer characters and the effect that queer representation has on viewers. The intersectionality of queer rights and feminism is mapped out in an effort to understand the root of the issue and, in that discovery, find solutions for the future.

Disarming “Nature” As A Weapon: A Queer Ecosemiotic Reimagining Of Futurity And Environmental Ethics Through Memoir, Sam Lauer

Master’s Theses

In this thesis, I posit that the need for an active, conscious, and radical queering of ecocriticism as a literary and cultural theory has arisen in light of the postmodern problematization of “nature” and the “natural,” along with the queerness of society, culture, and science. The way we understand “nature” (in life and in texts), whether of physical environments, inherent selfhood, or normalcy, begs to be appropriately informed by discourses and realities of queerness in order for both social and environmental healing to take place. I have analyzed three works of queer creative nonfiction—memoirs—to illuminate the ways in which the …

“Jailed On The Charge Of Sodomy”: A Same-Sex, Interracial Marriage In 1888, Adam Yeich

Nineteenth-Century Ohio Literature

Adam Yeich explains and presents an Ohio newspaper report of a same-sex, interracial marriage in 1888 in Arkansas. This article includes the full text of the newspaper report, an introduction explaining its significance, and a bibliography.

Inversion And The Third Sex: Gender Variance And Queer Expression In Anti-Suffrage Rhetoric, Anthony Pankuch

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In the early decades of the 20^th century, critics of the women’s suffrage movement commonly denounced their opponents’ perceived disregard for the gendered norms of the era. Given the clear delineation of rights provided to either sex at that time, any expansion of women’s liberties meant an incursion into what was seen as a predominantly masculine realm. Countless arguments put forth by anti-suffragists suggested a complete breakdown of what is today contextualized as a predominantly cisgender, heterosexual society. Simultaneously, the development of psychology and sexology as fields of study lent moralizing voices a highly pathologized foundation upon which to …

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 …

Introduction: For Better Or For Worse? Relational Landscapes In The Time Of Same-Sex Marriage, Michael W. Yarbrough

Publications and Research

As same-sex marriage has become a legal reality in a rapidly growing list of countries, the time has come to assess what this means for families and relationships on the ground. Many scholars have already begun to examine how marriage is helping some same-sex couples, but in this introduction I call for a broader and more critical research agenda. In particular, I argue that same-sex marriage crystallizes a key tension surrounding families and relationships in many contemporary societies. On the one hand, strict family norms are relaxing in many places, allowing more people to form more diverse types of caring …