Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Casar Public Lecture: How Far Have Women Come In The Past 120 Years In Egypt And The Us?, The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar

Performances, Events, and Presentations

About the lecture: In honor of the 16 days of activism set by the UN campaigning for eliminating violence against women, CASAR hosted an event to see how far women have come in the past 120 years in the United States and in Egypt, and what changes might be possible in the foreseeable future. This was CASAR’s last public event for the Fall 2023 semester, and was made special by the warm welcome from Director Mark W. Deets, and the efforts of Yasmeen El Ghazaly, who created a video compiling important figures of women throughout the decades in the United …

Smith, T. Love, Kassey Kreer

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

T Love Smith is a 46 year old born in Lincoln, ME, who identifies as non-binary and queer. After coming out to their mom at age 19, who had also come out as gay when T was 5, they were met with an unsupportive, negative response. Going through a tough childhood filled with alcohol abuse and no community for T to confide in about their gender/sexual identity, T found themselves in toxic relationships in their early adulthood. Eventually they were able to come to terms with their identity and came out as non-binary. T discussed their time in the military …

Murray, Evan, O'Connor Matthew

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Evan Murray is a 45 year old nonbinary transman. They were born in Boston, Massachusetts and moved to Windham, Maine. Within the interview, Murray discusses the problems with going to a school that is too small, identity challenges within family, and the love of political activism. He had also discussed how his identity had changed over the years, as a young adult, coming to the identity of nonbinary, and later embracing their more masculine aspects. He attended USM and then later a college in Washington, State. He also discusses the importance of chosen family including his relationship with his three …

Spadafore, Sampson, Benjamin Lachapelle

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Sampson Spadafore is a 27-year-old queer, transmasculine person who currently lives in Westbrook, Maine. They are originally from Syracuse, New York, and attended Nazareth College in Rochester, New York. They graduated with a degree in musical theater. Spadafore discusses shifts in their gender self-presentation and gender fluidity as well as media erasure of trans men. They then moved to Portland, Maine, to work for Maine Boys to Men and have also worked with Speak About It; Maine Renters United; and Democratic Socialists of America. A political current focus is using social media and art to raise awareness about Palestine. Writing …

Burdin, Johannah, Samantha Rouillard

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Johannah Burdin shares her story as a lesbian/queer woman experiencing southern Maine in the 1990s. Her story touches on topics involving coming out, relationships, a traumatic incident that left her disabled, activism, and much more. She was active in her youth in spreading awareness on the AIDS/HIV crisis, education on safe sex, and spent her evenings at popular Portland gay bars, like Sister’s Bar and Limelight/The Underground. Although she is not much into drinking, she recognized these were some of the few spots queer people could go to make community and relationships. Johannah also shares her story of becoming a …

Casar Public Lecture: 'How Different Are We? Sexual Harassment Education In The Us And Egypt', The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar

Performances, Events, and Presentations

This event was part of a series of events centered around women since November is the United Nations month dedicated to awareness about the Elimination of Violence against Women. Director of CASAR Professor Mark W. Deets introduced the speaker, Jilllian Campana, Professor and Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Campana has given a TEDx talk in Mumbai, Created a film titled The Puzzle Club, and written several books including Western Theatre in Global Contexts: directing and teaching culturally inclusive drama around the world (Routledge, 2020) and It’s Not My Fault: five new plays …

Bilodeau, Richard, Maggie Powers

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Richard Bilodeau is 54 years old and identifies as a gay man. He grew up in Portland, attending Deering High School. He is married to his partner Scott and they went on their first date in 1988. He studied applied clinical chemistry at the University of Vermont and began his career in the Maine Medical Center lab. He earned his bachelors and master's in business from the University of Southern Maine. Currently, he works as a professor in the School of Business and Honors Program. Over the years, he also had ownership in alternative health and TV programming businesses. He …

Hua, Donovan, Megan Molloy

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Donovan Hua is a queer, non-binary artist and advocate in Portland Maine. Donovan was born in China and was adopted when they were two years old. They moved to Portland and have lived in the area since. They were raised primarily by a single mother who greatly influenced their relationship with Catholocism and spirituality. Donovan later attended Casco Bay High School where they came to terms with their gender identity and sexual orientation. Hua speaks about their chosen family of friends and the sense of community they offered through their navigation of both their identity and their disability.

Hua discusses …

Michaud, Jim, Angelli Bishop

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jim Michaud, (he/him), was born in 1964. Jim is a local Mainer, born and raised in Lewiston, Maine. He was born into a middle-class family with his siblings, was raised Catholic, and even attended Catholic school in his earlier years. Since the late eighties, Jim has identified as a gay man. He is a USM alumnus and attended the USM Gay Men's Alliance, which was his first ever encounter participating in an LGBTQ-organized environment. Being proactive in his political activism, Jim annually attends the Pride Parades in Boston, New York, and Maine. He stresses the importance of creating open space …

Smith, Betsy, Kayla Graffam

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Betsy Smith is a 63 year old lesbian woman who was born in Bangor and grew up in Exeter Maine. She was raised by her mother and father on a potato farm with her three siblings. She attended Jacksonville University, where she came to terms with her sexual identity and received a degree in physical education. She eventually was hired as a math teacher in Vermont and later Portland, Maine. After moving to Portland, Smith became involved in volunteering for gay rights activist groups like the MLGPA. She was involved in multiple campaigns, including the various Maine Won’t Discriminate campaigns …

Barkley Roy, Jill, Rachel Gilbert

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jill Barkley Roy is a 42-year-old woman from Sault, Ste. Marie, Michigan who moved to Maine in 2004. A self-described “democrat from birth”, Jill grew up in a small conservative town with her sister older sister Christine. She attended the University of Michigan Ann Arbor as a women’s studies major. Jill found herself surrounded by new and exciting opportunities in college, becoming involved in several LGBT organizations that would eventually bring her to the East Coast. At age 23, Jill began working with Family Crisis Services, now known as Through These Doors, a domestic violence resource center. Upon working as …

Brodack, Jason, Emily Cook

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jason Brodak is a 44 year old man of Polish heritage, currently working at the University of Southern Maine and living in Bath, Maine, with his husband. Brodak discusses living in Detroit Michigan, Chicago Illinois, and New York. He attended Michigan State University and later received his bachelor's degree in Interior Design from an arts school in Chicago. He discusses his childhood, coming out, briefly joining the Navy, the role of gay bars and gay chatrooms in his life, gay marriage, and the HIV AIDS epidemic.

Please cite as: Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection, Lesbian, Gay, …

In Yellow: A Solo Poem-Play, Emily Kitchens

Faculty Articles

“In Yellow” was developed in the INKubator residency at Art House Productions (Jersey City, NJ) in 2019 with the following blurb:

In Yellow is a solo poem-play about a relationship between a young woman and a ceramic doll her grandmother made that she has just accidentally broken. It is about grief. It is about breaking out of generationally instilled feminine values. It is about the color yellow. It’s all true.

“In Yellow” is an experiment of a poem and play for one voice. I was in New York City for about 10 years, before that The Bay Area, but am …

Calling In Antiracist Accomplices Beyond The Writing Center, Hillary Coenen

The Writing Center Journal

A reflective, ethnographic study of a grassroots, antiracist educational workshop (The Conversation Workshops, TCW) reveals that writing center (WC) pedagogy and feminist invitational rhetoric’s (FIR) influence on TCW enables participants to recognize their own and their partners’ expertise, meaningful experiences, valuable perspectives, and their need to be listened to, accounted for, and understood. In an invitational model, particularly one based on a one-with- one, interpersonal dynamic, participants are more like collaborators than audiences, an approach that can be applied in diverse educational settings, and which reflects the WC’s model of one-with- one pedagogy. This dynamic also reveals one of TCW’s …

Lg Ms 052 Sage Hylton (-Lemons) Papers, K A. Perry

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Sage Hylton-Lemons grew up in Portland, Maine. In high school, Hylton-Lemons found sanctuary as a gay teenager in the youthdriven group Outright, where his involvement progressed from attending weekly meetings to being a member of the Board, then President of the Board. As an Outright member and activist, Hylton-Lemons spoke at schools and events, became a peer-advisor, and helped other communities organize their own Outrights. He was instrumental in conceiving and organizing Outright's first annual prom in 1998. He was profoundly influenced by Christian T. Chenard, a nurse practitioner for the City of Portland Public Health Positive Healthcare Program. …

Strolling And Scrolling: On Mycologies And Queer Environmental Futures, Sabine Lebel

The Goose

This essay uses queer mycologies to advocate for radical rest in the face of anti-queer organizing and hate. The author explains how a burnout diagnosis forced her out of the office and into the woods with her dog. Learning to walk the dog on a leash precipitated a deep queer kinship with the dog, mushrooms, and slide molds in the Acadian forest.

Auc Community Only Lecture: Gender-Based Violence (Gbv), Women & The Law In Egypt, The Prince Alwaleed Center For American Studies And Research Casar

Performances, Events, and Presentations

This special guest lecture was part of the course “Exploring Feminist Perspectives in Egypt and the US” taught by CASAR Adjunct Faculty Yasmeen El-Ghazaly. The lecture was given in Arabic by Counselor Mohamed Samir, who is a senior member of the judicial authority in Egypt, responsible for the accountability of civil servants’ crimes and misconduct. He is also a lecturer in Political Science and Gender Based Violence Crimes. Samir has over 25 years of experience in his career, and was invited to discuss “challenges and legal obstacles women face when discussing gender based violence in Egypt.” In his insightful lecture, …

Poulin-Burrage, Edward "Teddy", Brendan Mcbrine

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Edward “Teddy” Poulin-Burrage is a biracial queer man who has lived in the Portland area for just about his entire life. Teddy has been deeply involved in the world of activism for more than half his life at this point, including with the Southern Maine Workers Center, Sexual Assault Response Services, Portland Racial Justice Congress, Pride Portland, Equality Maine, and other groups. Teddy has mostly done behind the scenes work for these organizations, usually focusing on coalition-building and forging relationships with other organizers. On top of this, Teddy has been a regular in the local gay bar scene for quite …

From Empowerment Movement To Hijacked Hashtag: A Thematic Analysis Of #Shoutyourabortion, Sidney R. Reynen

LSU Master's Theses

This study delves into the digital landscape of the contentious abortion debate, focusing on the use and hijacking of the Shout Your Abortion hashtag. Drawing parallels to previous research on digital feminism, hashtag activism, and hashtag hijacking, this study further expands such literature by revealing shifts in anti-abortion rhetoric and strategies post-Dobbs. I identified seven themes within the supportive discourse: abortion narratives, pro-choice and other feminist rhetoric, calls to action, feminist art and shareables, reproductive health information and resources, positive-to-neutral mentions of the movement, and engagements with anti-abortion users. Within the hijacked posts, I identified five themes: Shout …

Marcous, Dana, Robben Harris

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Dana Marcous is a spiritual, successful and fascinating man who at times lives in the extremes, but always seems to maintain his balance. His life story and his spiritual path are so closely intertwined, it might appear as if he has eclipsed the spiritual and physical world. From being a world-class hairdresser and opening one of the most successful hair salons in Maine, to pursuing a career as an actor in L.A., Dana is a person who always follows his dreams and looks for the signs. This interview contains stories of Dana’s early life, including his process of coming out …