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

Transgender And Gender Diverse Youth Navigating Relationships And Sexuality: Recommendations For Affirming Clinical Practice, Hannah Marie Coffey

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Healthy relationship development is critical for adolescents’ social-emotional wellbeing, and shifting social expectations and identity development in adolescence can be challenging (Kenny et al., 2013; Roach, 2018). This can be particularly complex for transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth given the occurrence of identity development alongside navigating safety, access to affirming spaces, and limited availability of queer-inclusive education (Levitt and Ippolito, 2014; Xing et al., 2015). The positive psychosocial impacts of comprehensive sex education and the relevance of discussing relationships in therapy with adolescents situate mental health providers well to address some of the gaps in knowledge and access to …

A Research Proposal: The Scapegoating Of Transgender Americans By Us Presidential Candidates From 2016 To 2024, Savannah Torres

Posters - 2025

This study will employ a qualitative content analysis to analyze the scapegoating of transgender Americans by U.S. presidential candidates from 2016 to the 2024 elections. This approach will allow for an in-depth exploration of political rhetoric, policy proposals, and public discourse regarding the trans community. In doing so, this study will highlight the lived experiences of transgender Americans in which they have faced both support, indifference, and marginalization from candidates. The content analyzed will include political rhetoric expressed by the candidates through their campaign and administrations. This analysis is with the intent to find recurring themes relating to the scapegoating …

Mapping Trends In Gender-Inclusive Legal Language Between Circuit Courts In The United States, Juliette M. Rhinow

Student Publications

This study examines the use of gender-inclusive legal language in federal circuit court opinions in the United States between 2020 and 2024, with a focus on how judicial political ideology influences linguistic behaviors. Drawing on postmodern feminist theory and utilizing content analysis, the research compares six federal circuit courts by coding 46 court opinions for inclusive and exclusive linguistic practices related to transgender and non-binary individuals. Inclusive practices included the use of self-identified names and pronouns, affirming decisions, and acknowledgment of transgender identities, while exclusive practices involved misgendering, outdated terminology, and restrictive rulings. Results show that progressive circuits demonstrated significantly …

In Case I Make It: An Autoethnographic Argument For Care, Space, And Utopia, Faelyn T. Cowan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Taking an autoethnographic and autotheoretical approach I examine within this project TomboloBooks’ Queer Comic Book Club. Drawing from José Esteban Mun֮oz’s ideas of queer utopia and Jen Jack Gieseking’s framework of constellations, and analyzing my own experiences, I present the Queer Comic Book Club (QCBC) as a moment of utopic queer worldmaking and argue for it’s potential as a site of alternative mental health care. Though I cannot provide here a generalizable model of book clubs as care, what I offer here is a series of possibilities, arguing for the potential of these spaces as community resources and sites of …

Breaking Binaries: Gender Non-Conforming Lesbians And The Undercurrent Of Biopower On Dating Apps, Lily M. Connolly

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines how gender nonconforming lesbians experience and navigate algorithmic constraints, commodification, and self-expression on dating apps. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of biopower, this study analyzes focus group discussions to argue that dating apps encode and enforce traditional gender norms. However, rather than acting solely as sites of constraint, dating apps also provide spaces where gender nonconforming lesbians creatively resist these limitations and subvert platform design to assert their politicized queer identities. This research highlights how biopower operates within digital dating platforms while also illuminating the subversive strategies users employ to reclaim agency. By situating gender nonconforming lesbian …

Re-Member The Time: Informed Engagement Through Embodied Memory Among Queer Black Greek Letter Organization Members, Shawna Patterson-Stephens, Antron Mahoney, Charles Stephens

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

This study examines the reflexivity of queer BGLO members after graduation and how they made meaning of their involvement when considering encounters with past critical incidents. The authors observed how queer-identified members of Black Greek-lettered organizations navigated opportunities for campus engagement in spaces prone to present heteronormative attitudes. The authors explored how queer-identified members of Black Greek-lettered organizations navigated the processes of identity development and meaning making in spaces prone to presenting heteronormative attitudes. This work is salient because it illustrates the development of subcultures within Black counterspaces in the postsecondary sector. These analyses explicate Black queer folx’s capacity to …

Reading The Rainbow: Exploring Themes And Identities In Lgbtqia+ Picture Books, Amanda Melilli, Alicia G. Vaandering, James W. Rosenzweig

Library Faculty Presentations

This presentation shares an analysis of over 275 picture books featuring LGBTQIA+ identities, providing evidence that the depiction of queerness in children’s literature is complex and varied. Tools for defining narrative themes and LGBTQIA+ identities will be shared as well as data on queer characters with intersecting identities. By exploring the nuances of LGBTQIA+ representation in picture books, attendees will gain a better understanding of novel research inquiries into representation.

Resilience, Joshua Liashenko

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Once a ubiquitous framework for assessing the capacity for recovery, perseverance, and success in the face of adversity, resilience has been met with growing critiques in its application. As a frequently used “pretty word” within health disparities research, resilience has come to signify how at-risk communities overcome hardship in ways this work argues overdetermine their labor, activist potential, and existence. This critique examines resilience through the lens of ethnographic research conducted among transgender and nonbinary healthcare providers who provide gender-affirming care within their communities. As a marginalized community experiencing transphobia and increasing structural barriers to life-affirming and life-saving healthcare, trans …

Breaking Boundaries: A Critical Trans Framework Analysis Of Anti-Transgender Sports Policies In Education, Tori Porter, Briana A. Savage, Dresden June Frazier

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

This policy analysis examines the impacts of anti-transgender sports legislation on K-20 transgender students through a critical trans framework. We investigate how anti-transgender laws enforce gender norms and intersect with other forms of oppression, such as racism and ableism, affecting multi-marginalized transgender students in sports and limiting access to a well-rounded education. Epistemic injustice is revealed, as these policies disregard transgender students' experiential knowledge and involvement in decision-making processes. Findings indicate that anti-transgender sports policies impact students at individual, institutional, and cultural levels, perpetuating discriminatory practices and reducing access to gender-affirming spaces and supportive adults. We argue for inclusive, evidence-based …

“It’S A Constant Wear And Tear”: Trans Visibility As Educational Labour In The Neoliberal School, Bishop Owis, Harper Keenan, Lee Iskander, Mario I. Suárez, Mollie Mcquillan, Christina Cook, Daniel Gallardo

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

Although transgender people are increasingly visible in mainstream North America, trans teachers are without adequate resources or protections to support their employment in schools. Legislation in both Canada and the United States that invokes concern about parental rights and “LGBT indoctrination” in schools illustrate the dangerous political landscape facing teachers. In 2023, over 500 anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) bills were introduced in state legislatures across the United States (Choi, 2024). Given this context, this paper explores trans education workers’ descriptions of trans visibility in the workplace. Drawing from interviews from the Trans Workers in Schools Project (TWISP), we …

Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears), Sheila Nayar

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) (2025), directed by Rohan Parashuram Kanawade.

Towards A Pedagogy Of Self-Determination: Teaching With Generative Ai In The Library Classroom, Russ Peterson

Georgia Library Quarterly

With the swift ascendence of generative AI tools like ChatGPT disrupting the academic and cultural landscape, librarians have debated how to respond to this incredibly consequential technology. From pondering its applications in completing rote tasks to denouncing its ethical conundrums, the debate has mainly centered on whether AI should even be used. In an instruction context, the scholarly conversation has been somewhat limited to how the ACRL Framework can be utilized when teaching with generative AI. What has yet to emerge is an assertive pedagogy that practically engages with generative AI while affirming the agency of students as independent actors …

Deuce Redemption: Grindhouse Cinema, Moral Panic, And Urban Renewal, Robert Brenner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

If you consult standard histories of the “redevelopment” of 42^nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenue, AKA “the Deuce,” you will read that it was filled with nothing but criminals and pornographers, that decent people avoided it at all costs, and the only way the block could be “saved” was by seizing it via eminent domain, evicting all the current tenants, and replacing them with Disney and its fellow entertainment corporations.

The purpose of this thesis is to offer a more nuanced alternative to these standard histories. I will argue that the Deuce was a lower-class, multiracial, queer entertainment …

Regulasi Homoseksual Di Estonia Era Uni Soviet Dalam Film Zharptitsa (Burung Foniks) (2021), Vincencious Louis Nararyawardana, Thera Widyastuti

Multikultura

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui dampak penerapan hukum terhadap kelompok homoseksual di Estonia pada era Uni Soviet dalam film Zharptitsa (Burung Foniks) tahun 2021. Metode penelitian yang digunakan adalah analisis interseksional Edwards dan Esposito (2019) yang melibatkan berbagai faktor berdasarkan gender, orientasi seksual, dan latar belakang individu yang saling bersinggungan dalam melihat dampak penerapan sistem hukum atas kelompok homoseksual di Estonia pada era Uni Soviet dalam film tersebut. Dengan menggunakan teori mengenai konsep performativitas identitas gender (Butler, 2020) dan teori orientasi seksual (Rosario dan Schrimshaw, 2014), penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menggaris bawahi penerapan hukum atas homoseksual di Estonia era Uni …

Plainclothes, Chris Deacy

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Plainclothes (2024), directed by Carmen Emmi.

Twinless, Chris Deacy

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of Twinless (2024), directed by James Sweeney.

Queen's Pride: A Queer Reading Of Star Wars Character Padmé Amidala, Madeleine Loewen

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

Ever since Luke Skywalker and Han Solo first appeared onscreen together in 1977, LGBTQ+ Star Wars fans have harnessed the power of queer reading to write themselves back into a galaxy far, far away, despite Lucasfilm’s long-term disapproval of such practices. Nonetheless, there exists little scholarly literature on queerness in the franchise, and even less on the potentially sapphic characters. Queen Padmé Amidala, first introduced onscreen in Episode I: The Phantom Menace, proves a surprising—but no less salient—queer figure in Star Wars. From her intimate relationships with her handmaidens, to her experimentation with gender performativity, to her quiet yet …

Trans Inequity, Intersectional Ritual, And Jewish Tikkun Olam (Healing Of The World), Valerie Estelle Frankel

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

As Jewish science fiction expands into twenty-first-century questions of identity, some authors explore the trans experience and build bridges towards intersectionality. Ritual and tradition become popular subjects. In the post-apocalyptic Fragments of the Brooklyn Talmud by Andrew Ramer, diverse rabbis create new prayers and practices. A Half-Built Garden by Ruthanna Emrys offers protagonists from a diverse commune who welcome aliens and rise up against the corporations. Bogi Takács’ short story “Three Partitions” questions where to segregate the shapeshifting Adira, and how the Orthodox space colony can change. Several of these stories ask how comfortable Jewish protagonists are with alien rituals …

Towards An Ethos Of Discussing In-Corporeal Gender In Fantasy Literature: Part I—A 'Feminine' Eldil And A 'Masculine' Vala, Luke Shelton

Mythopoeic Society Seminar Proceedings

Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, many people engaged with others on social media in ways that they had not before. During this time, many new interpretive communities arose. In one of these conversations, the way that fans interpreted Tolkien’s description of the physical characteristics of the Valar resonated with a passage in C.S. Lewis’s Perelandra (the second book of his Space Trilogy) where the narrator describes the physical manifestation of Perelandra and Malacandra. In this paper I perform a close read of the two passages, to examine the textual meaning, to see what interpretive room there is in …

Parallel Punishments: The School-To-Prison Transgender Pipeline, Rayna Momen, Lindsay K. Semprevivo, Cris Mayo

Journal of Queer and Trans Studies in Education

With increasing criminalization of transgender people, especially legislation targeting youth, researchers need to consider more closely the historical and continuing criminalization of gender non-normativity. We suggest in this article that closer attention to queer criminology in relationship to transgender and gender-related social justice education can help shape research agendas and school practices and disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline for transgender youth. Our focus is specifically on how disciplinary practices requiring identification as well as those that ignore identification both contribute to the growth of punitive responses to gender diversity, especially in relationship to race and ethnicity.

Parents Who Make America Great Again: Identity Politics In Right-Wing Populist Discourses On Gender Ideology And Immigration, Alina Hechler

Theses and Dissertations--Gender and Women's Studies

This dissertation explores how anti-immigration and anti-(trans)gender campaigns in the United States engage in an identity politics in which a group benefiting from heteronormative, white supremacist, and nationalist social structures discursively positions itself as an oppressed minority facing an elitist, oppressive, and parasitic establishment. While anti-transgender and anti-immigration platforms represent two distinct issues, they need to be situated within the broader context of right-wing politics. With a focus on the construction of parenthood, my dissertation juxtaposes these two forms of right-wing campaigns through a mixed-method approach by tracing the depiction of two parental figures that have recently emerged in right-wing …

Gen Z Sexual And Gender Fluidity In Us Scripted Television, Traci B. Abbott

English and Media Studies Faculty Publications

This essay addresses the rise in sexual and gender-fluid characters in scripted US television targeting the Gen Z audience (born 1997–2012), based on their moniker as the “queerest” generation, with over 20% of younger US and international respondents identifying as LGBTQ in polls, the majority as sexually fluid (bi/pansexual) or non-binary (genderfluid/genderqueer). By analyzing six series (2019–2023) marketed as “authentically” Gen Z, I argue this shift invests in Gen Z’s “hip” attitude towards such fluidity the same way Caldwell argues that 1990’s diversification of the televisual audience produced a “programming agenda…that cultivates and rewards distinction in ethnic, racial, and class …

Ua68/6 Newsletter, Wku Gender & Women's Studies

WKU Administration Documents

Newsletter created by and about the WKU Gender & Women's Studies program.

Witch, Please: The Campy, Sexually Depraved, And Sacrilegious Anti-Morality Tale, David Veatch

Playwriting (MFA) Theses

There will be no explanation, only reputation.

Sky, the little g god, is in their forest on the first Halloween, scheming on how to ascend to Big G God status, will Sky be able to bop their way to the top, or will a fascist plot, accidental immaculate conception, and their hubris ruin the bitchin'est night of the year?

The Sword And The Serpent, Gina Dittmeier

Children's Book Writing and Illustrating (MFA) Theses

This project provides insight into the monstrous bridegroom trope in fairytale and its influence in modern fantasy literature. The monstrous bridegroom trope has several different variations, but all of these variations result in a young and innocent woman marrying a monster. Through my critical essay, I look at this trope through a modern feminist lens, exploring the different variations of the trope in fairy tales, modern fairy tale adaptations, and fantasy literature. The essay brings in modern ideas of toxic masculinity and toxic femininity and applies them to the fairy tale inspiration of fantasy literature. The monstrous bridegroom trope and …

A Guide To Creating Trans And Gender Variant Inclusive Film Sets: For Directors And Department Heads On Non-Union/Low Budget Film Sets, Perce Alvarez

CMC Senior Theses

The following thesis explores transgender and gender-variant inclusivity practices in film production. It conducts an overview of information on lgbtq+ and transgender populations, discrimination, and filmmaking practices. From there, a baseline of definitions for terms and worldviews adopted by transgender and gender-variant communities is established. Primarily, this thesis focuses on establishing reasoning for and presenting practical applications of transgender inclusivity that can be implemented throughout the film production process. It accomplishes this by focusing on specific parts of the production process and how the leaders of those subprocesses can put these inclusivity practices into action.

Virginia Woolf And The Lesbian Literary Tradition, Hunter Candrian-Velez

English and Creative Writing | Senior Theses

Modernist English authors, such as Virginia Woolf in her novel Orlando: A Biography, built upon a pre-existing and long tradition of underground lesbian literature dating back to Sappho in Ancient Greece. Before Woolf, female writers of the 19th century continued this tradition by establishing the literary trope of the “Victorian Romantic Female Friendship,” which would later take on different shapes and connotations with discoveries made in the early 1900s related to sexology and homosexual inversion. These discoveries would lead writers to code their work in the hopes of avoiding censorship and government punishment. Writers such as Virginia Woolf, Elizabeth Gaskell, …

Quiet Resistance: Drawing On Covert Advocacy Research To Understand School Leadership Within The Current Anti-Trans Context, Alexandria Gribble, Erica Simpson, Meagan S. Richard

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Faculty Publications

Over the last few years, there has been a surge in anti-LGBTQIA+ and, specifically, anti-transgender, nonbinary, and gender non-conforming legislation. These laws target the rights of LGBTQIA+ students in K–12 schools, leading to policies censoring gender-inclusive curricula, mandating the outing of students, and restricting transgender students’ access to sports and facilities. The rapid emergence of these bills has outpaced research on how leaders—particularly justice-centred leaders—navigate these hostile policy contexts. Existing research taking a broader lens around leaders’ justice work in schools sheds light on how leaders engage in covert advocacy within complex and constraining contexts. However, understanding how leaders resist …

Exploring Canadian Social Work Students' Aphobic Attitudes: The Role Of Knowledge About Asexuality And Asexual People, Brianna V. Azzoparde

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Aphobic attitudes are negative biases and prejudices against asexual individuals that can contribute to aphobic discrimination. While the Canadian Social Work Code of Ethics states that social workers should not discriminate and should provide culturally responsive services to marginalized populations, individually held aphobic attitudes have the potential to diminish one’s ability to provide culturally responsive services to asexual people. This national study examined aphobic attitudes among 326 Canadian social work students, exploring the relationship between knowledge about asexuality and aphobic attitudes, including controlling for demographic factors, social contact with asexuals, and social attitudes that previous research has identified as being …

The Effect Of Need For Closure, Gender Essentialism, And Contact On Transphobia, Jacob E. Vargas

College of Education and Human Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Using a motivated social cognition framework, this study explores whether there is an indirect effect of need for closure on transphobia via gender essentialism and whether this relationship is moderated by transgender contact. Data were collected from an undergraduate sample of 405 cisgender participants (n_men = 159, n_women = 246). A simple mediation and a moderated mediation were used to examine the hypothesized relationships, controlling for participant gender. Results reinforced the positive correlation between gender essentialism and transphobia and the negative correlation between transgender contact and transphobia. However, the mediation and moderation hypotheses were not supported. Need …