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

Designing Inclusive Stem Curricula: A Design-Based Study Of Teacher Learning And A Queer Inclusive Framework, Kyle Nolting

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education has historically marginalized queer identities, shaping inaccurate curricula and fostering unwelcoming classroom environments. To address this, my research uses design-based research to investigate the design of queer-inclusive STEM curricular resources. I partnered with in-service secondary STEM teachers amidst a series of professional development courses to co-create curricular resources. My research is grounded in queer theory, using a Gender Inclusive Framework to collaboratively develop inclusive design principles. My findings revealed a strong desire by teachers for more authentic and fluid representations of gender and sexuality in STEM curricula, particularly beyond the biological science discipline. …

Behind Prison Walls: Unmasking The Victimization Experience Of A Transgender Inmate: A Narrative Study, Kevin E. Hemminger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transgender individuals experience disproportionately high rates of victimization within the U.S. criminal justice system, at rates some studies estimate as four times greater than those of cisgender individuals (Marchi et al., 2025). Victimization may occur at the hands of correctional officers, institutional staff, or fellow inmates. This narrative study focuses on the life story of a formerly incarcerated transgender woman, tracing her experiences before incarceration, throughout her time at two different correctional facilities in two different states, and her life following release. While Community Based Research (CBR) was not adopted as a formal methodological framework, its principles — centering lived …

Who Tells Our Stories?: An Analysis Of Lgbtqia2s+ Community-Museum Collaboration In Northeastern Wisconsin, Frances Kerkhof

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, histories of LGBTQIA2S+ individuals have been excluded from mainstream conversations and censored from public records. This exclusion was evident in how LGBTQIA2S+ history is retold in museum spaces. Over the past few decades, public institutions have shifted how LGBTQIA2S+ histories are communicated, with efforts to include more diverse histories and perspectives. During the summer of 2025, I conducted a museum ethnography of the Neville Public Museum’s Telling Our Stories: LGBTQ+ Voices of Northeastern Wisconsin to answer the research question: How does community engagement enhance the representation of the LGBTQIA2S+ community in a local museum in Northeastern Wisconsin? Through this …

Defying Impossibility: Critical Qualitative Reorientations To Black Lgbtqia+ Sense Of Belonging, Olivia H. Hunte

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Belonging is a human need central to survival and can be cultivated within all spheres of life. Social environments are vital for experiencing a sense of belonging. In some social environments, Black LGBTQIA+ people encounter greater impediments to their daily lives with consequences for survival, including threatening their belonging needs. Within the United States, systems of oppression create and inform conditions within social environments that can potentially thwart pathways to belonging for Black LGBTQIA+ people. Thus, fulfillment of belonging needs for Black LGBTQIA+ people is one of nuance, pain, resilience, hope, harm, trauma, resistance, and healing; scant research is available …

Better Serving Those Who Serve: Supporting Psychological Wellness Of Lgb Military Personnel In The Post “Don’T Ask Don’T Tell” Era, Anne Neuweiler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Few studies have been able to explore lesbian, gay, and bisexual military personnel’s experiences in military mental healthcare settings. This study examined the experience of LGB servicemembers in military counseling environments, as well as how to support these servicemembers in military mental health and military communities. Six participants volunteered for the study and six semi-structured interviews were completed with LGB servicemembers who had contact with mental health. Three research questions guided the present study and a transcendental phenomenological frame was used to analyze the data and themes emerged. Research question one yielded three themes: 1) “I'm Definitely not Gay”: The …

A Phenomenological Study Of Caregivers For Sexual Minority Hospice Patients, Catherine H. Bianchi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals face disproportionate barriers in healthcare across the lifespan that persist and often intensify at the end of life. Despite hospice’s mission to provide comfort, dignity, and patient-centered support, it remains unclear whether these services equitably meet the needs of sexual minority patients. Seeking hospice care presents a unique conundrum for many LGB individuals: it necessitates inviting representatives of a historically exclusionary healthcare system into the privacy of their homes - spaces that often serve as sanctuaries of identity, safety, and autonomy. The already vulnerable experience of seeking care in one’s final days can be …

Transgender Individuals’ Experiences Of Ruptures And Repairs In Group Psychotherapy, Gabrielle W. Kaufman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the political climate across the United States worsens for transgender and gender diverse (TGD) individuals (Harmon, 2025), it has become increasingly important to attend to the mental health needs of this population (James et al., 2016). Group therapy is a widely used treatment modality that is often more accessible than individual therapy (Burlingame & Strauss, 2021) and provides unique interpersonal opportunities (Burlingame et al., 2016). While it is expected that TGD individuals face unique challenges in group therapy due to their gender identities (Chen et al., 2020), very little is actually known about the experiences of TGD individuals participating …

“My Body Was Never Mine”: An Arts-Based Phenomenological Analysis Of Queer And Trans Adolescent Involuntary Psychiatric Hospitalization Experiences, Megan Doyle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Involuntary psychiatric hospitalization has life-saving and crisis-stabilizing intentions for queer and trans adolescents experiencing mental health crises; however, there are significant concerns about the adverse effects of this practice. This study employed two interwoven qualitative methods, interpretative phenomenological analysis and arts-based research, to gain a deeper understanding of queer and trans individuals’ adolescent experiences of involuntary psychiatric hospitalization. The theory of abolition was applied to examine the carcerality and identity-based oppression embedded within this procedure. Participant narratives and artwork revealed how involuntary psychiatric hospitalization is non-affirming for queer and trans young people in crisis, and the impacts of experiencing coercion, …

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 …

The Embodiment And Experiences Of Gender Euphoria Among Transgender And Nonbinary Communities: A Mixed Methods Inquiry, Brendon T. Holloway

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gender euphoria is a critical aspect of embodiment for transgender and nonbinary (TNB) people that has long been overshadowed in academic research by deficit narratives and gender dysphoria. While gender dysphoria is the distress an individual may experience related to their gender, gender euphoria encapsulates the positive emotions a TNB person may experience because of positive gendered experiences. Despite community documentations of gender euphoria since the 1970s, academic research on gender euphoria has only recently begun to emerge. This three-paper dissertation advances this body of scholarship by exploring how gender euphoria is conceptualized, experienced, and embodied in TNB communities. Utilizing …

Sustaining Queerness: A Phenomenological Study Of Colorado Educators, Devani Lemmon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to engage queer Colorado educators to explore how to sustain their identities as queer educators in a politically fractured state. By focusing on Colorado, I could assess the extent to which the legal protections afforded there adequately support educators in sustaining themselves. Additionally, the findings from Colorado had the potential to further illuminate factors influencing teacher sustainability and retention on a much larger scale. The questions for this research project were: 1) How are queer educators sustaining themselves and each other in an increasingly volatile political climate? 2) What, if any, factors impact queer …

Survival Guide For Queer Families In Heteronormative Healthcare: Liberatory Consciousness And The Paradox Of Dependent Healthcare, A Critical Policy Discourse Analysis, Dwenna A. Holden

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this study I explored and analyzed how the queer experiences of an anonymous higher education institution in the western United States’ self-identified queer faculty and staff intersected with the discursive framing of the college’s dependent healthcare structure and documents. Within a critical paradigm I designed research around a high-density theoretical approach to weaving various branches of queer theory together with critical theory around policy and law in relation to queer bodies and hostile heteronormative policy environments. I arrived at solutions based in complaint, survival, and transformation. I used critical policy discourse analyses to interrogate the college’s dependent healthcare documents …

Victims Unknown: An Evaluation Of The Way Louisville, Kentucky Communicated About Aids At The End Of The 20th Century, Alexander M. Vernon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This is thesis examines the way that printed news sources reported on AIDS during the height of the epidemic in Louisville, Kentucky. It compares between mainstream and grass-roots sources to work to identify shortcomings in reporting, and how reporting on a public health crisis can be improved upon in the future. It uses an intersectional framework to deconstruct why certain news sources reported on specific demographics of the population, across racialized and gendered lines. Chapter One analyzes the epidemic and then contextualizes the language that was used. Chapter Two focuses on mainstream local newspapers, while also defining demographics of AIDS …

Just Say Gay: An Exploration Of Authenticity And Connection; Queer Identified Therapists’ Lived Experiences Of Identity-Based Self-Disclosure, Courtney Dunne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current sociopolitical climate in the United States continues to reinforce the complexities and nuances that mental health providers face when facilitating therapy. Over the past few years, anti-DEI legislation has aimed to control the narrative in educational and therapeutic settings regarding what therapists and educators are permitted to teach and share about themselves (Flannery, 2024). At the same time, anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric continues to dominate the media and further marginalizes individuals whom are in the queer community. In turn, LGBTQ+ individuals continue to face an increased risk for homelessness, substance use disorders, and suicide, which particularly has impacted LGBTQ+ youth …

Sources Of Sexual And Romantic Education: Associations With Sexual Minority Men’S Sexual Experiences And Romantic Relationship Quality, Charlie Huntington

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Individuals with sexual minority identities experience a variety of poorer mental and physical health outcomes, including those related to sexual and romantic quality, relative to heterosexual individuals (Beaulieu et al., 2017; CDC, 2021). These poorer romantic, sexual, and psychological outcomes may be attributable in part to lacking access to affirmative and relevant modeling of sexual minority experiences, such as through sex education (Gillespie et al., 2022; Keiser et al., 2019). This study aimed to understand how sexual minority men learn – in ways potentially both helpful and unhelpful – about romantic relationships and sexual activity, and how these experiences are …

Gentleman Death In Silk And Lace: Death And The Maiden In Vampire Literature And Film, Emily Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis contains an examination in the psychosocial significance of Hans Baldung Grien’s “Death and the Maiden” art motif, created during the Renaissance period following the Black Death, and its resurgence in the vampire fiction genre of both literature and film. I investigate the motif in Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) and Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire (1976) as well as their film adaptations by Francis Ford Coppola (1992) and Neil Jordan (1994), respectively. By examining the presence of the motif in art, literature, and film, I found that the common threads across all investigated works were the dominant social …

The Neoliberal Noirs Of Gary Indiana, Carson Morgan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is concerned with the two AIDS-era novels of Gary Indiana, a long-neglected yet essential literary figure who, as the critic Christian Lorentzen has argued, “connects the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in ways readers and critics are only beginning to apprehend” (xii). Beginning chronologically with a study of Indiana’s first two novels, Horse Crazy (1989) and Gone Tomorrow (1993), this thesis attempts to realize Lorentzen’s call to action, attending particularly to the ways in which Indiana’s novels write the neoliberal subject. More than exploring life under the AIDS crisis and embodying a radical queer approach to narrative, I contend, …

Queer Interethnic Relationships: Couple-Level Minority Stress And Resilience For Intersectionally Marginalized Partners, Sree Sinha

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Interethnic relationships and same-sex relationships continue to increase in the U.S. While LGBQ and heterosexual people are equally likely to be in romantic relationships, LGBQ individuals are more likely than their straight peers to be in an interracial or interethnic romantic relationship. The present work aims to expand intersectional investigations regarding queer people of color (QPOC), including accounting for their individual as well as relational well-being, by use of the couple-level minority stress (CLMS) paradigm. CLMS theory speaks to the unique stressors experienced as a result of being in a relationship that is societally marginalized, impacting both dyadic and individual …

Liberation And Inclusion Through The Voices Of Trans Youth: A Phenomenological Approach, Klaudia Neufeld

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The primary aim of this phenomenological study is to elevate trans youth voice to understand the essence of their individual and shared lived experiences within school systems designed for them to be silenced, excluded, and erased. In alignment with Eve Tuck’s desire-based research, this study is designed to counter deficit narratives of trans youth. Participants include six racially and ethnically diverse trans youth, ages 13−17 in the U.S. state of Colorado. Analyses revealed four themes: a gender-identity transition journey; navigating geography; safety and the impact of school culture; creating belonging through a coalition of community and friendship; and youth lessons …

The Queer Ecology Of Clouds In Nineteenth-Century British Poetics, Lucien Darjeun Meadows

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the nineteenth century, British writers were interested in the emergent science of meteorology, and their lyrical writing (their “poetics”), from poetry to creative and scientific prose, often turns to clouds as both meteorological formations and as material metaphors for human-environment interactions. These writers frequently invoke clouds to disrupt or “queer” depictions of human-environment relationships built on human domination of environmental beings. Clouds, in poetic writing, help writers (and readers) instead experience subject-subject relationships of reciprocity—a collaborative, non-hierarchical way of existing with and learning from our ecological relatives.

Dwelling in the confluence of literary studies, queer studies, and ecology, The …

“The Urgent Necessity For More Original Creative Works By Transgender And Gender Expansive Artists" Is Not The Title Of My Thesis., Alicia Fireel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a mix of personal reflection, academic research, and an examination of The Girl Crazy Queer and Other Fairy Tales, a play I wrote and performed in October of 2023, co-produced by The University of Louisville’s Department of Theatre Arts and Pandora Productions, a Louisville-based theatre company dedicated to Queer theatre. This thesis and the play mirror each other; both contemplate Queer experiences, Queer histories, Queer trauma, and Queer stories. In the thesis I accomplish this through examining four subjects: myself, my play, the connection between modes of storytelling and aspects of transgender Queerness, and the perils that …

Queer Is Here, Hopefully To Stay: The Incorporation And Reception Of Lgbtq+ History At The History Colorado Center, Madeline Ohaus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Historically, the documentation of LGBTQ+ histories, struggles, and accomplishments has been absent from museum collections and exhibitions. Scholars argue that given the authoritative nature of museums and their influence on the public, exclusions of LGBTQ+ history can mount to institutional erasure of queer identities. However, in the past decade, there has been an increase in attempts to document and curate exhibitions highlighting and encouraging the public to engage with LGBTQ+ history. While this history is imperative to preserve and display, it can be met with controversy, leading some LGBTQ+ history exhibitions to be relocated or even removed. During the summer …

Without Permanence: Mapping Multi-Genre, Cross-Disciplinary Frameworks For Trans* Studies, Jesse Jack

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project takes a cross-disciplinary and multi-genre approach to Transgender (Trans*) Studies to proliferate diverse and ambiguously-gendered representations of trans* experiences across time. It identifies the emergence of rhetorical intertextuality in recent trans* literatures as a discursive response to the biopolitical regulation and erasure of ambiguously-gendered, trans* experiences. It identifies the intersecting influences of twentieth- and twenty-first-century medical paradigms, surveillance apparatuses, popular trans* autobiographies, and archives in representing and exceptionalizing certain trans* experiences over others. In contrast, this project engages in a close reading of Pajtim Statovci’s Crossing (2016) and Andrea Lawlor’s Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl …

"I Am Who I Am": Lgbtq+ Student Experiences At A Baptist Liberal Arts University., Edwin Pavy

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Though studies exploring the experiences of LGBTQ+ students on Christian college and university (CCU) campuses are increasingly prevalent, research continues to demonstrate that CCU environments are often unwelcoming. Gender and sexual minority students often face additional challenges or risks in attending a faith-based institution. To drive meaningful change, recommendations need to be tailored to individual institutions. This study sought to make meaning alongside LGBTQ+ students at a single institution – Baptist Heritage University (BHU) – with a decidedly appreciative approach. Grounded in Bronfenbrenner’s ecology of human development, we conducted an arts- based action research study to gain a deeper understanding …

Disorienting Object Oriented Ontology: Queer Landscapes And Ecological Bodies In Richard Siken And Harryette Mullen., Andrew N. Hutto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on a recent development within the study of metaphysics, known as object oriented ontology (OOO), and works out questions of being alongside contemporary poetry. Recognizing the post anthropocentric purchase afforded by OOO’s claim that everything is an object and that these objects are impossible to correlate with, this thesis will look at the use of objects in Richard Siken’s War of the Foxes and Harryette Mullen’s Recyclopedia. Drawing heavily from Sara Ahmed’s queer theory of disoriented objects and Timothy Morton’s ecological insights, this thesis will argue that despite OOO’s advancement, there are critical gaps to fill in …

The Glass Coffin: Gothic Adaptations And The Formation Of Sexual Subjectivity., Colton T. Wilson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is now an almost foregone conclusion that classic depictions of vampirism resonate with contemporary queer audiences. A sympathetic response to the monster’s persecution is often the key factor in these arguments, yet little attention is paid to the textual details that prompt such a process of identification. This study posits that the iconography used to establish a connection between monstrosity and non-normative sexuality has its origins in Victorian Gothic fiction, whose descriptions of vampirism were assimilated into the discourse of the fin-de-siècle medical field known as sexology. Theories that defined homosexuality as an illness with physical and psychological symptoms …

"Death Can't Touch Them Now": Aids Response And Memorialization In Louisville, Kentucky, 1982-1992., Olivia A. Beutel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aims to address the role of the queer community in Louisville, Kentucky during the AIDS epidemic. Beginning with the first reported AIDS death in the city in 1983 throughout the 1980s, dialogue focused on those living with AIDS, specifically on education for prevention and aid to those afflicted by the disease. Individuals in the queer community—gay men, lesbians, bisexual men and women, transgender men and women, and others—created resources that were not being provided by the larger city government. Then, in the 1990s, national attention to the AIDS Memorial Quilt encouraged people to participate in rituals of commemoration, …

Identity And Resistance: Queer Puerto Rican Subjects, Pentecostalism, And The Shadow Of U.S. Imperialism, Jared Vázquez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

James K.A. Smith argues that the first principle of Pentecostalism is that the same Holy Spirit described in the New Testament is !actively, dynamically, and miraculously present both in the ecclesial community and in creation” today. This ontological experience of the Holy Spirit transforms Pentecostalism into a hermeneutic thorough which Pentecostals interpret their social world. In his attempt to articulate a Pentecostal epistemology Smith leaves implied what this project seeks to make explicit: the emergence of subjectivity is mediated through the experiences of the body and is therefore affective and phenomenological in nature. I argue that pentecostal spiritual practices are …

Exploring The Relational Impact Of Breast Cancer On Younger Women Partnered With Women, Kaitlin V. Ross

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Approximately 268,600 new cases of breast cancer in women are diagnosed each year in the United States. Due to improvements in cancer detection and treatment, survivorship is higher than in the past. More than ten percent of new diagnoses are in women 45 years or younger. There are approximately one million sexual minority individuals living with cancer in the US, yet this population is understudied in cancer care. For sexual minority women with breast cancer, sociocultural factors such as lack of affirmative care influences their disease experience. Further, sexual minority women and women partnered with women may be subject to …

Trans And Genderqueer Military Service Member-Veterans: An Acculturation Phenomenology Of Civilian Reintegration, Joseph A. Galluzzo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As United States military policy continues to evolve and affirm the accession and retention of trans and genderqueer (TGQ) service members, more TGQ people will join and ultimately separate from military service. Reintegration is a term that represents the experience of beginning to separate from the military and transitioning into civilian life, and those who encounter it are referred to as military service member-veterans (MSMVs). Though empirical knowledge of reintegration for MSMVs overall continues to improve, cultural relevance has only recently been considered, and no research has investigated the reintegration experiences of TGQ MSMVs specifically. The primary purpose of this …