Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons^™

Engines For Activism: Gsa Advisors Sparking Student Activism For Lgbtq+ Equity, Elizabeth J. Meyer, Rebecca Grace Kaplan, Erin Kurtz

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

This article reports on a study on educators supporting student activism for LGBTQ+ equity in schools. The research questions we address are: What impacts do activist-educators have on the activities of the students in their GSA (Genders & Sexualities Alliance)? In what ways do activist-educators support student activism for LGBTQ+ equity? Based on in-depth interviews with seven educators in Colorado, we use grounded theory to present a conceptual model called “Engines for Activism” (EFA). We share data that explain how student and educator interactions within the space of a student club led by an educator-activist can drive advocacy and activism …

Expressing Experiences Of Being Gender Non-Conforming In The “Ladies” Restroom Through Autoethnography-Based Research Poetics, Ellen D. B. Riggle

The Qualitative Report

Three research poems are created as an autoethnographic response to feedback on a research article on the author’s experiences as a gender non-conforming person in women’s public restrooms.  The feedback loop includes the sharing of lived experiences by others and theoretical (why?) discussions in the context of the gendered policing and politicalization of women’s restrooms.  The first found poem includes words, phrases, and descriptions of images used to label spaces designated as women’s restrooms.  The second prose poem recounts the author's experiences through a reframing of risk to women’s health, understanding the cultural context of male entitlement and White supremacy, …

Queer Kids In The Country: Challenges, Resources, And Queer Cultural Capital Of Rural Lgbtqia+ Youth, Michelle L. Page

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

This qualitative study investigates the experiences of rural youth who identify as LGBTQIA+. Both rural young people and LGBTQIA+ youth are less likely to pursue higher education and more likely to report negative experiences in their schools and communities. Rural LGBTQIA+ youth face different challenges than do urban and suburban queer youth; therefore, different resources and strategies must be unveiled, developed, and employed in an effort to support rural LGBTQIA+ young people. This study explicates the challenges and assets of rural queer youth, finding that such young people continue to experience challenges in their schools and communities, particularly around identity …

Beyond The City Limits: Representations Of Rurality And Lgbtqia+ Youth In Young Adult Literature, Michelle L. Page

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

Narratives of flight from rural to urban areas predominate in research related to LGBTQIA+ communities. Thus, rural LGBTQIA+ young people rarely see representations of themselves or their environments, especially positive portrayals. Such representations are important in that they are productive of identities, not just reflective of them. This study examines a collection of young adult literature with LGBTQIA characters and rural settings, analyzing the portrayals of place (rurality) and identity (LGBTQIA+). In this paper I will demonstrate how current LGBTQIA+ young adult literature reinforces dominant narratives that privilege urbanity and I assert that counternarratives to the rural flight story are …

Expressing Experiences Of Being Gender Non-Conforming In The “Ladies” Restroom Through Autoethnography-Based Research Poetics, Ellen D.B. Riggle

Gender and Women's Studies Faculty Publications

Three research poems are created as an autoethnographic response to feedback on a research article on the author’s experiences as a gender non-conforming person in women’s public restrooms. The feedback loop includes the sharing of lived experiences by others and theoretical (why?) discussions in the context of the gendered policing and politicalization of women’s restrooms. The first found poem includes words, phrases, and descriptions of images used to label spaces designated as women’s restrooms. The second prose poem recounts the author's experiences through a reframing of risk to women’s health, understanding the cultural context of male entitlement and White supremacy, …

Bowers, Lawrence And Obergefell: A Case-By-Case Analysis, Hailey Moran

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

What does Bowers v. Hardwick, Lawrence v. Texas, and Obergefell v. Hodges all have in common? Each of these Supreme Court cases chronicles the passage of time and advancement in LGBTQ+ rights in America. Not only, however, do they chronicle the rights that have been achieved for LGBTQ+ individuals, but they also chronicle the evolution of the Justices on the bench. These cases here help us understand the influences that encourage the Justice’s decision-making, whether it be the state of the law or the Court’s environment. By analyzing each case, we can understand not only how these cases were decided, …

Healthy And Successful Aging Outside The Closet: How Outness And Social Support Relate To Health And Aging Concerns, Jessica Segal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ability to disclose an LGBTQ+ identity is a significant part of many queer lives. A person’s outness can often be tied into their social support whether through their network or available resources. This study investigated how outness, social network, and access to resources relate to older LGBTQ+ individuals’ concerns regarding their care and their aging. A secondary data analysis was conducted using survey data from the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). The results showed that an increase in one’s social network indicated a decrease in aging-related care concerns; an increase in access to resources indicated a decrease in …

Pretty And Problematic: The Use Of Music In Guadagnino's 'Call Me By Your Name', Brandon L. Foskett

Deliberately Queer Journal

Tension in the reception of the American-Italian film Call Me by Your Name (dir. Guadagnino, 2017)—as a beautiful film that implicitly condones a problematic narrative—is shaped in part by its compilation soundtrack. Already lauded as a timeless masterpiece in cinematography, sensuality, and music, the film also receives steadfast criticism regarding its portrayal of homosexuality and alleged condoning of interage desire between Elio, a 17-year-old Italian-French boy, and Oliver, a 24-year-old American man. In this paper, I analyze five musical episodes from the film, including The Psychedelic Furs’ “Love My Way,” Ravel’s Une barque sur l’océan, and Sufjan Stevens’s “Mystery …

Why You're Gayhee For Jaehee: How Dating Sims Promote Queer Self-Discovery, Amira Elliby

2025 Spring Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Dating simulators are a video game sub-genre in which the player’s primary goal is to romantically pursue their favorite love interest through in-game interactions. While some dating sims present situations that encourage heterosexual female players to question, explore, and even accept possible queer identities for themselves, there is little research on what specific game elements foster this exploratory behavior. This project examines player responses and in-game content from two dating sims, Chrono Days Sim Date and Mystic Messenger, to determine which game aspects women found most helpful in encouraging them to question their own sexualities. Out of five key …

A Secluded Cabin On The Outskirts Of Riverside: A 1937 Trial For Conspiracy To Have Gay Sex, Randall Stoner, Randi Stoner

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In the early morning hours of Sunday, March 14, 1937, a group of deputy sheriffs and military police surrounded a secluded cabin on the outskirts of Riverside and forced their way inside, arresting everyone on the premises for conspiracy to violate California Penal Code sections 288a and 286: oral copulation and sodomy. Though same-sex relations were outlawed, these men had sought to create a place of privacy for themselves—only to have it surveilled and raided by members of law enforcement. The subsequent trial, People v. Jordan, was a landmark case for the city of Riverside. Many histories of LGBTQ …

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, …

Seeing Is Believing: Observing Trans Spirituality Through The Smith-Waite Tarot, Phoebe Santalla

MFA in Illustration & Visual Culture

In 1909 the Rider Company published the Smith-Waite Tarot deck which featured 78 illustrated cards by Pamela Colman Smith. With heavy use of appropriated and ambiguous symbology, the Smith-Waite deck became a meditation tool for realizing alternative realities. By observing the history of the deck, analyzing Smith’s approach to illustration, and retracing the counterculture occult explosion in the 1970s, this essay argues that the Smith-Waite deck is an object the reflects the queered body and self. The modern, trans-contentious, Western political climate creates an environment that obscures the fact that transgender people exist beyond the medicalization of their bodies. To …

My Gender In The Closet, Aspen Balducci

Student Sequential Art and Comics

This book details the transitioning and rediscovery of gender from a single person's perspective. Gender is not linear or binary, something all people should be free to study and discover.

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, …

Improving Health Literacy Among Transgender/ Gender Non-Conforming People Using Social Media, Isha Mittal, Michelle Cordoba Kissee

Research Colloquium

Background: Health literacy has been elicited as a barrier to healthcare amongst LGBT individuals. Social media has become a popular force in transmitting health information, but often time lacks evidence-based information.

Aims/purpose: The TikTok channel GenderDefenders was created to address the lack of reliable evidence-based information for transgender and gender-non conforming (TGNC) individuals.

Methods: Data was collected from current TikTok videos that were tagged with TGNC terminology to identify gaps in knowledge and commonly asked questions. Themes were selected and educational video recordings were created using WPATH and UCSF guidelines for transgender healthcare. Some topics included what …

The Gray Area: Sexuality And Gender In Wartime Reevaluated, Natalie Pendergraft

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

These three works, two academic papers and one screenplay, challenge traditional notions of gender and sexuality during wartime. Queer Vietnam service members did not all experience oppression, all the time, but rather carved out a space for themselves amongst their peers. Female nurses in the early cold war could keep their careers in the medical field due to its unique gendered history despite demobilization efforts across the country in different industries. Finally, through the medium of historical fiction, a Civil War soldier’s fears and desires are questioned as he experiences the phenomenon of the Angel’s Glow, a blue light that …

The Party’S Over: How Russia’S War On Queers Spelled Its Downfall, Lucy Papachristou

Capstones

The test of any democracy, the Russian philosopher and sexologist Igor Kon once wrote, lies in how it treats the citizens it most despises. In Russia, the government of Vladimir Putin has fashioned many enemies: migrant workers, ethnic and religious minorities, and women. But none have come under such vicious fire as the LGBT. As the war in Ukraine rages and Putin tightens his grip on power domestically, an almost obvious story unfolds: that this all began long ago, with the queers. And it is Russia’s queers — scorned, brutalized, shunned, and exiled — that can best tell the story …

Setting Up Shop Down South: Gay Visibility And Identity Formation At A New Orleans Bookstore, Katelyn N. Spencer

LSU Master's Theses

Looking specifically at the South’s first gay bookstore, Faubourg Marigny (FM) Books, this thesis will connect the existence of gay literature and space as impetuses of gay community identity within New Orleans. It will use the political, social, and cultural histories of the 1970s through the 2010s to contextualize the gay bookstore as a microcosm of its time and location. In doing so, it will examine how FM Books’ New Orleans location affected its function and its relationship with its community. It will also analyze how the bookstore fit into the city’s history of social tradition and aversion to flagrant …

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 …

The Need For Specialized Substance Abuse Treatment For Gay Men In The United States, Sarah Nance

Health, Human Performance and Recreation Undergraduate Honors Theses

Substance misuse and abuse is a global public health issue that affects sexual minority populations at a higher rate than the heterosexual population. Many popular gay socialization strategies include gay bars and chemsex, or sexualized drug use, in which substance use is common in both. The Minority Stress Model provides an explanation as to how stigma embedded in a society and within a person can act as a stressor and manifest into a substance abuse disorder. This stigma acts for many as a barrier to seeking healthcare out of fear of discrimination, causing many to hide their identity when seeking …

Post-Obergefell V. Hodges: How Lgbt Contact Can Alter Public Lgbt Policy Positions In The U.S. And Arkansas, Briana Huett

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Contact Theory (CT) of attitudinal change has utilized to understand perceptions of minority-group members and the policies that surround them since the 1950s. It has further been used to specifically examine how we form our opinions of LGBT-identifying individuals, the LGBT community, and LGBT policies more generally. However, further evidence is still needed from the CT literature surrounding how this form of contact interacts with individuals’ social identities to determine and alter their LGBT policy positions, how the level of contact with LGBT persons might have differing effects on these positions, and whether LGBT contact holds the same effects …

Trends In Scientific Output On The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender (Lgbt) Community Research: A Bibliometric Analysis Of The Literature, David An, Kavita Batra

School of Medicine Faculty Research

Introduction: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) represent a diverse group with special needs due to the unusual developmental experiences and social inequalities. This paper aims to explore and outline a future research direction in LGBT issues through tracing our historical understanding of this population from an aspect of scientific research. Methods: LGBT-related peer-reviewed documents were retrieved from the PubMed database and the study period was set from the inception to 2021. Python-based methods were then performed to analyze the publication metadata and extract the most prominent research topics based on the abstract contents. Key points covered in the study …

An Investigation Into Lgbtq+ Programming And Climate At A Midwest Master’S Comprehensive University, Evan M. Bonello

Honors Projects

An investigation exploring how a mid-sized Midwest master's comprehensive university promotes programming and DEI efforts toward queer students on campus. Student engagement within these areas and the needs of queer students are explored through survey responses.

The Challenges Of Lesbian Senior Leaders In The Army Branch Of The Department Of Defense, Ella Nunley-Spaights

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions of lesbian senior leaders and the types of challenges they experience while serving in the Army Branch of the Department of Defense. A secondary purpose of this study was to identify strategies lesbian senior leaders employ to overcome perceived challenges while serving in the Army Branch of the Department of Defense.

Methodology: This phenomenological study described the lived experiences of seven lesbian senior leaders serving in the Army who were retired from service within the past five years. Convenience and snowball sampling were utilized to identify women who …

Article 6.21, Tatiana Stolpovskaya

Theses and Dissertations

Article 6.21 is a short documentary film that aims to examine the state of censorship around queerness in Russia today and its effects on personal lives in the queer community.

Twenty years after Russia decriminalized homosexuality, on June 30th in 2013, President Vladimir Putin signed Article 6.21 "for the Purpose of Protecting Children from Information Advocating for a Denial of Traditional Family Values", also known as the "Gay Propaganda Law". Its broad and ambiguous wording allows the government significant leeway in deciding what kind of public queerness is punishable.

In 2020 Russia passed multiple constitutional amendments that affect many areas …

The Impact Of The Therapeutic Relationship On Transgender Clients’ Perceptions Of Their Therapist, Aaron Brockie

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between therapist practices, the therapeutic relationship and their impact on how transgender clients feel about their therapist. Previous research on therapist practices and the therapeutic relationship has looked into how these variables influence lesbian, gay, and bisexual clients’ feelings about their therapist, but as of yet, the dynamic has not been analyzed for transgender clients. Given the disproportionate prevalence for severe mental health issues in the transgender community, it is urgent that barriers to adequate and meaningful therapy outcomes be identified and addressed. Seventy eight participants were recruited from social …

Making Space For Themselves: Lesbian Separatism In Western Australia, Amber-Lia Van Aurich

Theses : Honours

This study documented and reconstructed the stories of lesbians who experienced separatism during the 1970s and 1980s in Western Australia. This era of history has received little attention, particularly the Western Australian context, therefore sharing these marginalised women’s stories addresses the knowledge gap and provides a sense of place and identity in the past. I aimed to explore Western Australian examples of lesbian separatism in addition to aspects of identity, connection, community, and culture. The research involved a narrative study of stories by six informants who self-identify as lesbian, collected in multiple one-hour interviews in situ and reconstructed into a …

A Queer(Er) Genocide Studies, Lily Nellans

Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal

This paper examines how queerness interacts with and is implicated in traditional genocides, i.e. those directed at racial, religious, national, and ethnic groups - the groups defined as protected classes in the Genocide Convention. It poses the following question: How can scholars of Genocide Studies learn from the queer theory-Genocide Studies nexus? To answer, this paper demonstrate how three distinct queer theory concepts can be woven with Genocide Studies to reveal novel insights into some of the field’s preeminent questions. Specifically, it draws on queer intellectual curiosity, heteronormativity, and reproductive futurism. Connecting queer theory with Genocide Studies yields empirical, analytical, …

Cracks In The Bathroom Stall: A Discourse Analysis On Transgender Bathroom Usage At Garden Spot High School, Kirsten D. Corneilson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent years, high schools across the country have seen the concern around transgender students using gendered facilities, such as bathrooms and locker rooms, come to the forefront. Often, dissenters raise worries of privacy and of “catering to a minority,” no matter what decision is reached. At Garden Spot High School in New Holland, Pennsylvania, the site of this research, one such concern has led to a district-wide decision to eliminate gendered facilities and move to single-use facilities, in the name of preserving student privacy. Through the examination of historical precedent and discourse analysis, this paper examines how transgender surveillance …

A Quantitative Approach And A Qualitative Approach Towards Intersectionality Among Individuals With Lgbtq+ Identities, Viet (Mason) Trinh

Honors Projects

This is a two-parted project that integrates a quantitative approach and a qualitative approach toward the concept of intersectionality. Research about intersectionality has shown the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. Therefore, I decided to explore the concept using both approaches. The quantitative section of this project investigates the relationship between victimization experiences due to race/ ethnicity and/ or LGBTQ+ identities and emotional well-being. The sample for this section consisted of college students from all states in the United States who identified as LGBTQ+ and were between 18 and 24 years old. The qualitative section examines salient identities, identity gaps, …