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

Trauma And Stigma In Aids Literature: Tony Kushner’S Angels In America (1995) And Colm Tóibín’S The Blackwater Lightship (1999), J. Javier Torres-Fernández

Journal of Franco-Irish Studies

This paper explores the representation of trauma and stigma tied to HIV/AIDS in The Blackwater Lightship (1999) by Colm Tóibín and Angels in America (1995) by Tony Kushner. Both works arguably respond to the socio-political and biomedical crisis that affected queer identities and international politics. These experiences of health and illness highlight the silenced and marginalized voices of those infected with HIV during the 80s and 90s. HIV/AIDS-related stigma and shame marked the LGBTQ+ community under the illness as punishment metaphor for their sexuality. The role of politics and religion remains fundamental in the historical silence around this illness and …

Morril, Ren, Zorica Andric

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Ren Morrill shares personal experiences of his childhood, coming out, relationships, and the influence of his chosen family. During the conversation, Ren talks about his family dynamics, struggles with gender identity, and societal expectations, offering insights into the complexities of being gay. Ren reflects on the loneliness that many gay men experience and references influential figures like Walt Whitman and Anne Rice. He emphasizes the importance of his chosen family, specifically friends from the roleplaying games community, highlighting their significant impact on his life. The interview then moves on to Ren's views on pronouns, self-discovery, and the challenges that gay …

Neal, James, Wendy Chapkis

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jim Neal is a 65 year old gay man born and raised in Galesburg, Illinois. Following his parents’ divorce at age 7, he moved with his mother and brother into their grandmother’s home. Neal discusses how, throughout his childhood, he witnessed predatory men in positions of power abusing boys; this served to inform his early perception of homosexuality. Those experiences also presented an internal struggle for Jim Neal between his own identity as a gay man and his perception of adult gay men. As a child, he found support in his family and closest community for his non-traditional gender interests …

Corporeal Archives Of Hiv/Aids: The Performance Of Relation, Jaime Shearn Coan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Corporeal Archives of HIV/AIDS: The Performance of Relation, explores how choreographers and theater artists in the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City used time and space to involve their audiences experientially in the project of grieving and rebuilding in the midst of the temporal chaos of mass death and illness (crisis time). Refusing to portray HIV/AIDS as a discrete or singular phenomenon, these artists revealed how it intersected with every aspect of life, including artistic practice, thereby delinking their bodies from a singular association with pathology and death. Undertaking extensive archival research on the work …

Keppel, Bobbi, Megan Mcknight, Janine Rynkowski

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Bobbi Keppel is an 87-year old bisexual activist. Her father was a civil rights activist and union organizer; in part because of this, she felt she was a born “disruptor.” As a child, Bobbi Keppel was ill and struggled with being a “sickly kid.” She later married and had two children. During her marriage, she came out as bisexual with the support of her husband. She is a contributor to the classic anthology “By Any Other Name: Bisexual People Speak Out” (edited by Loraine Hutchins and Lani Ka'ahumanu). For many decades, Keppel has been an educator on issues of bisexual …

Drew, Gia, David Kersey, Katie Prior

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Gia Drew is a 52-year old transwoman who serves as the director of Equality Maine: an organization in Portland, Maine that provides educational programs to support the LGBTQ+ Community of Maine. Her life experience has greatly prepared her for this role, and she shares that with us in this interview. Her story is vast as it spans over several topics (as indicated in the “keywords” section), several different states, and two very different regions of the country. Gia struggles with coming out as trans for her entire young adult life as she navigates bisexuality, hypermasculinity, social pressure in K-12 schools, …

Reckitt, Lois Galgay, Johnna Ossie

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Lois Galgay Reckitt was born and raised in Massachusetts. She attended Brandeis University and then Boston University for her graduate degree. After college, she married a man who was in the Coast Guard. They moved to South Portland to the house she still lives in today. She came out at age 33 when she was deeply entrenched in the growing women's movement. She had a rocky divorce with her self-proclaimed feminist husband who blackmailed her when he found out she was a lesbian. In 1971 she became the treasurer for the first National Organization for Women (NOW) chapter in Maine. …

Cusack, Ralph, Hannah Cain

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Ralph Cusack was born in Maine and has lived most of his life in the state. He is one of the founders of The Harbor Masters of Portland Maine, men’s leather club, and an active member of the leather community and a navy veteran. This interview covers his participation in the Harbor Masters of Portland, Maine, living through the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 80s, his participation in many years of gay pride events and the march on Washington in 1987, owning the gay bar Blackstones in Portland, ME, and his service in the US Navy.

Citation

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Lg Ms 035 Ryan Conrad Collection Finding Aid, Katharine Renolds Thomas

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Ryan Conrad is a radical queer activist. He is co-founder of Naughty North, an inter-generational radical queer/trans direct action collective in Maine. He participates as a volunteer, board member, and/or advisor for a number of community organizing groups, including EquityFund (board member 2008-present), Outright Lewiston/Auburn (Special Projects Coordinator and volunteer advisor, 2006-present), Maine HIV Prevention Community Planning Group (2009-present), and Maine Video Activist Network (co-founder and volunteer, 2006-present), among others. Conrad curated the June 2009 exhibition "Future of the Past: Reviving the Queer Archives" at Maine College of Art. The Collection contains materials related to radical queers in Maine …

Henderson, Susan, Emma Wynn Hill

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Susan Henderson is a gay woman living in Portland, Maine. She realized she was gay after attending a meeting of the Wilde Stein Club at the University of Maine in Orono. After leaving Orono, she worked at the Portland Social Security Office and stayed there for 36 yeasr. She helped to write a newsletter for the Maine Gay Task Force that turned into Mainly Gay Magazine, a magazine that reached people nationwide. On the Maine Gay Task Force she helped to put on the Gay Symposia that the group hosted for almost ten years. She came out in the 70s …

Antonik, Thomas, Ethan Masselli, Kailyn Braley

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Thomas Antonik is a gay man from Maine. Thomas moved to New York City in 1979 to attend the School of Visual Arts. He was diagnosed with HIV in the early days of the epidemic and one year later was diagnosed with AIDS. He was a part of the People with AIDS Coalition. In 1989, Antonik moved back to Maine and worked part time while also attending to his health. Antonik is an artist who works in painting and photography. He is also a practicing Quaker.

Citation

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

Understanding The Irony: Canadian Gay Men Living With Hiv/Aids, Their Catholic Devotion, And Greater Well-Being, Renato M. Liboro, Richard T.G. Walsh

Psychology Faculty Research

Nine Canadian Catholic HIV-positive gay men were interviewed to obtain a better understanding of why and how they were able to persevere in their faith despite their religion’s teachings against homosexuality and contributions to the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS. By examining the lived experiences and personal perspectives of the participants, the study aimed to explore and elucidate the significant role of Catholicism and the Catholic Church both as a continued source of marginalization and oppression, as well as strength and support, for Canadian gay men living with HIV/AIDS today.

Lg Ms 038 Frances Peabody Papers Finding Aid, Katharine Renolds Thomas, Christina E. Walker

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Frannie Peabody was one of Maine's leading AIDS activists. Best known in Maine and nationally for her exceptional leadership in the AIDS epidemic, she also gave significant service on historic preservation, child welfare, and gay rights issues. She was a founder of Portland’s The AIDS Project and of the Frannie Peabody Center (formerly Peabody House), as well as of Greater Portland Landmarks. The Papers contain Peabody's personal papers, including her work with The AIDS Project and bereavement counseling.

Date Range:

1981-1999

Size of Collection:

24.5 ft.

Downtown's Queer Asides, Lucas Hilderbrand, Alexandra Juhasz, Debra Levine, Ricardo Montez

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Lg Ms 026 Michael Martin Papers Finding Aid, Nicholas Martin

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Print materials collected by this AIDS activist, primarily about the AIDS epidemic and treatment, including The AIDS Project in Maine.

Size of Collection:

1 ft.

Queer Pedagogical Desire: A Study Guide, Matt Brim

Publications and Research

This essay explores the queer pedagogical desires that attended my writing of the Study Guide for the documentary film United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (Jim Hubbard, 2012). The analysis takes up Robyn Wiegman’s central question in Object Lessons, “What is it we expect our relationship to our objects of study to do?”, which is of particular importance to the discipline of queer studies insofar as the field is oriented around the desire to meld social justice with critical pedagogy. The queer professor’s desire in the case of the Study Guide-as-object was to create a text that …

El Espacio Torcido En La Narrativa Mexicana De Temática Homosexual: 1977-1997, Juan Carlos Rocha Osornio

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis examines how the narratives of Raúl Rodríguez Cetina, Luis Zapata, Mario Bellatin, and Gerardo Guiza Lemus recreate what I call Espacio Torcido (Queer Space) in which they aim (some more than others) at questioning and deconstructing the values of the heteronormative system: ambiguity, pleasure, rupture, and the quest for legitimacy compose this space. While each author takes a different approach, it can be said that they all participate in the construction of the history of the gay community in Mexico as seen in the latter part of the XX century: 1977-1997. In particular, this study looks at how …