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

Overlooked Modi Vivendi, Natalia Silva

Masters Theses

Traditional gender roles, performance of heterosexuality, marriage, parenthood, and a large variety of other societal expectations manifest themselves in the domestic realm, both intangibly and spatially. The design of domestic spaces has historically catered towards heteronormative living stereotypes, marginalizing people whose way of living challenges the norm. Even in the present day, designers with non-user clients — developers, investors, real estate firms, etc. — will design with heteronormative households in mind. The rise in feminist and LGBTQ+ rights movements has allowed for non-heteronormative modi vivendi (ways of living) to be more vocally and visibly present in the sociopolitical and cultural …

Pornography, The Lgbtq+ Community, And The Queer Alternative, Rebekah Gredler

Student Research Submissions

Pornography is a complicated and controversial topic. Much has been said about how porn may or may not affect individuals, but very little has been done in the academic community on how pornography affects the LGBTQ+ community. In debates of censorship and regulation of porn, their voices are often ignored in public debate in favor of straight, feminist, or puritanical, religious discourses. This is problematic because pornography, particularly queer pornography, has done much for the evolution and self-affirmation of the LGBTQ+ community. It would be remiss if such positive effects of such a controversial exploit were to go unacknowledged. In …

The Life Of A Lesbian Feminist Activist And Professor. Trigger Warning: My Lesbian Feminist Life By Sheila Jeffreys, R. Amy Elman

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

No abstract provided.

Lgbtqc: Queer Perspectives On The Illinois-Iowa Quad Cities, Robert Burke

Anthropology: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

Cities are broadly conceived to be queer utopia when compared with rural spaces. While the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa fit this simplistic model in some ways, the region has several unique characteristics that warrant their own investigation. I argue that the social climate of the Quad Cities is generally perceived as welcoming and inclusive by the LGBTQ+ community. However, despite an assortment of community-building institutions, some find socialization and partner-seeking a bit difficult. Many advocate for investment in a variety of physical LGBTQ+ “third places” (public gathering places), which would yield a variety of benefits for this community. …

The Relationship Between Lgbtq+ Representation On The Political And Theatrical Stages, Brett V. Ries

Honors Thesis

This thesis examines the relationship between LGBTQ+ representation on the political and theatrical stages. During some decades, LGBTQ+ theatre was dictated by the politics of the time period. During other times, theatre educated and filled the silence when the government and society turned the other way. By examining LGBTQ+ plays, musicals, and political events over the past century, there are clear themes that emerge. In both the theatrical and political arenas, LGBTQ+ representation has been limited by a concept called “repressive tolerance.” Every step of progress has been met with another restriction, ranging from stereotypical caricatures to legal discrimination. In …

Same-Sex Sexual Coercion Among Women: The Impact Of Minority Stress On Perpetration And Victimization Experiences Of Women Of Diverse Sexual Identities, Allison Kirschbaum

Dissertations

The purpose of the current study was to investigate women’s experiences with same-sex sexual coercion perpetration and victimization. Specifically, I sought to explore the role that the stress of living as a sexual minority plays in these experiences as well as to determine whether the psychological variables of perceived powerlessness, psychological distress, social support, and alcohol use mediate the relationship between minority stress and perpetration and victimization experiences. Data were collected online from self-identified women and individuals assigned female at birth who reported experiencing genital sexual contact with another woman (N=339). Of the cisgender women in the sample, 31.6% reported …

Where Were The Lesbians In The Stonewall Riots? The Women’S House Of Detention & Lesbian Resistance, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

Where were the lesbians in the Stonewall Riots? They were jailed in the House of Detention for Women in Greenwich Village, New York City, two blocks away from the Stonewall Inn. Lesbians in the Women's House of Detention shouted from the windows to the rioters in the streets below, fueling the momentum of the Stonewall uprising. The women's prison was a site of lesbian confinement and resistance that inspired the 1969 uprising in Greenwich Village.

Polly Thistlethwaite is Chief Librarian at the Graduate Center, CUNY. She volunteered at the Lesbian Herstory Archives 1986 – 1997.

Asexuality: To Include Or Not To Include A Slice Of Cake In The Lgbtq+ Community, Devin Oliva-Farrell

Tredway Library Prize for First-Year Research

Due to the growing number of sexual orientations and genders that have joined the LGBTQ+ community, a debate has sparked on whether all of these should be included. Specifically, this paper analyzes the debate on whether asexuality should be included or excluded from the group. The results from including or excluding asexuality will have drastic effects on the LGBTQ+ community, self-identified asexuals, and society as a whole when it comes to examining sexualities and genders.

This is illustrated in the following ways: 1) examining the definition of asexuality; 2) exploring the debates surrounding its inclusion or exclusion; 3) highlighting the …

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans And Queer + (Lgbtq+) Experiences While Accessing Healthcare And Social Services Within Brantford/Brant County, Christine Wildman

Social Justice and Community Engagement

The purpose of the qualitative study was to better understand how Brantford/Brant County LGBTQ+ community members experience accessing healthcare and social services. Over one month I interviewed 8 LGBTQ+ community members and conducted a focus group with 4 Trans and Gender non-conforming individuals. An intersectional feminist and critical Trans politic analysis was used to understand how LGBTQ+ community members experience accessing care. The results reveal that LGBTQ+ community members experience structural violence through oppressive administrative practices. Specifically, heteronormative and homonormative behaviors and assumed heterosexuality and/or gender, which creates a climate where LGBTQ+ people do not feel safe seeking healthcare and/or …

An Exploration Of The Experience Of Female Same-Sex Marriage, Melissa Rose Mulick

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

In June 2015 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in favor of nationwide legalization of same-sex marriage. While same-sex marriage had previously been legalized in individual states, this ruling effectively increased the population of women legally married to other women. A review of research historically conducted on female same-sex relationships indicated that they were often fraught with heteronormative assumptions and biases, leaving the conclusions questionable at best. This dissertation used Amedeo Giorgi’s (2009) qualitative methodology of Descriptive Phenomenology in order to explore the essence of the experience of female same-sex marriage. Ten cisgender women who were legally married …

Teaching While Lesbian And Other Identities: Sexual Diversity, Race, And Institutionalized Practices Through An Autoethnographic Lens, Sondra S. Briggs

Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership Dissertations

The implicit acceptance among educators and in institutions of learning that discussions around LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) issues are off limits perpetuates the marginalization of these identities and those who inhabit them. In K-12 schools and college classrooms the prevailing silence sends disturbing messages about the treatment of adults and children when their sexual orientation fails to fit neatly into prescribed binary classifications. As one who has been silent as well as silenced, I understand this dichotomy from a unique perspective. Moreover, my lived membership within diverse cultural and racial groups that have been routinely marginalized through institutionalized practices …

La Búsqueda De Una Agenda En Común: Una Mirada Feminista A Las Organizaciones Lgbti En Nicaragua, Rachel Crane

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

In the global context, we are amidst a rapidly changing rights landscape for people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) as more and more governments begin to recognize same-gender partnerships. This gain in LGBT rights worldwide is in no small part to the political organizing and lobbying done by LGBT-rights organizations. Nicaragua’s history with gaining LGBT rights is relatively new, as the government did not repeal the anti-sodomy law here until 2008, thus stagnating the fight for acceptance in the country. As it stands, Nicaragua has a few legal protections for LGBT people, but they continue to …

What Happens Now?: Identity And Commitment Among Lesbian Women With The Passing Of Same-Sex Marriage Laws In Minnesota, Kendra Michaela Klump

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Marriage equality has become a hotly debated topic within public and political discourse within recent years. The personal choices we make based on our sexuality and intimate relationship have been taken out of the private arena and spotlighted as issues of institutional ideology, morality, and equality. Throughout this, the impact felt within LGBTQ communities based on this discourse has been largely overlooked. This study explores the immediate impact newfound marriage equality may have on individuals and couples identifying as members of a diverse sexuality group. Using semi-structured interviews, sixteen respondents self-identifying as lesbians provided narratives exploring the possible impact legalization …

How Law Shapes Experiences Of Parenthood For Same-Sex Couples, Nicholas K. Park, Emily Kazyak, Kathleen S. Slauson-Blevins

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) parents are increasingly common and visible, but they face a number of social and legal barriers in the United States. Using legal consciousness as a theoretical framework, we draw on data from 51 interviews with GLB parents in California and Nebraska to explore how laws impact experiences of parenthood. Specifically, we address how the legal context influences three domains: the methods used to become parents, decisions about where to live, and experiences of family recognition. Law and perception of the law make some pathways to parenthood difficult or unattainable depending on state of residence. Parents …

Normaal Is Gek Genoeg: Homonormativity & Inclusivity In Amsterdam’S Lgbtq Community, Devin Hanley

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This paper examines the mechanics of inclusivity and exclusion within a homonormative framework in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) spaces in modern-day Amsterdam. Using interviews from five participants involved in various capacities with LGBT/Q spaces in the city, the following paper asserts that the divide between the LGB and TQ communities in the city is predicated, in large part, on the openness in each community towards nonnormative sexual and (especially) gender expressions. In conclusion, it offers suggestions for further inquiry into intersectional inclusion and exclusion factors in these spaces, as well as an examination of the pronounced political …

Gay After Graduation, Laura J. Koenig

SURGE

I first went public with my sexual orientation over Surge last spring–my last semester at Gettysburg before graduation. I was scared, but ultimately lucky to be met with support from my friends and family. People generally accepted my sexuality and then moved on. Actually, life went on so quickly that it took me some time to catch up. [excerpt]

Gay Emerging Adult Dating In College: A Feminist Grounded Theory Exploration, Kathryn Alexandra Conrad

Masters Theses

Research on intimate relationships has mushroomed as the definitions, practices, and contexts for dating change across generations. As an often overlooked population, sexual minorities (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered individuals) have received increased scholarly attention within the social and family science research. Whereas this increased attention is warranted, still a lack of research exists regarding dating and romantic relationships among sexual minorities, particularly during emerging adulthood (ages 18-25). The purpose of this study was to explore the definitions, processes, and contexts for dating among a small, same-sex oriented sample of emerging adults (aged 18-25) currently enrolled in a large southeastern university …

How To Look Like A Lesbian Without Even Trying, Laura J. Koenig

SURGE

“Ugh. I hate those pictures. I look like such a lesbian in them,” my cousin explained to me while her family and I sat around their kitchen table. After she said this, her younger brother laughed into his chicken noodle soup and she hit him over the head. “Shut up. I’m telling you. They’re so bad,” she said. As the conversation went on, I learn that she was referring to pictures that had been taken at one of her lacrosse practices. The important part is that she was displeased with the photos. And it’s certainly not because someone had caught …

Civil Rights Reform And The Body, Tobias Barrington Wolff

All Faculty Scholarship

Discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression has emerged as a major focus of civil rights reform. Opponents of these reforms have structured their opposition around one dominant image: the bathroom. With striking consistency, opponents have invoked anxiety over the bathroom -- who uses bathrooms, what happens in bathrooms, and what traumas one might experience while occupying a bathroom -- as the reason to permit discrimination in the workplace, housing, and places of public accommodation. This rhetoric of the bathroom in the debate over gender-identity protections seeks to exploit an underlying anxiety that has played a role in …

When Gender Differences Don’T Organize Process: Studying Same Sex Couples, Naveen Jonathan

Marriage and Family Therapy Faculty Presentations

Reflects on a study of same-sex couples and the amount of equality between partners in their relationships.

Gender Matters: Making The Case For Trans Inclusion, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The transgender communities are producing an important and nuanced critique of our gender system. For community members, the project is self-constitutive and, therefore, has an immediacy that also marks the efforts of other marginalized groups who have attempted to make sense of the world through description, interrogation, and, ultimately, a program for transformation. The transgender project also has universalizing elements because, existing within the gender system, each one of us embodies a particular gender articulation. It is through this articulation that we define ourselves in relation to the gender we were assigned at birth, the gender we choose, the gender …

Science, Identity, And The Construction Of The Gay Political Narrative, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

This Article contends that the current debate over gay civil rights is, at base, a dispute over the nature of same-sex desire. Pro-gay forces advocate an ethnic or identity model of homosexuality based on the conviction that sexual orientation is an immutable, unchosen, and benign characteristic. The assertion that, in essence, gays are "born that way," has produced a gay political narrative that rests on claims of shared identity (i.e., homosexuals are a blameless minority) and arguments of equivalence (i.e., as a blameless minority, homosexuals deserve equal treatment and protection against discrimination). The pro-family counter-narrative is based on a behavioral …

September 11 Attacks And Surviving Same-Sex Partners: Defining Family Through Tragedy, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

The September 11 relief efforts present a unique prism through which to view the status of same-sex relationships and to consider which families count when the United States is supposedly at its most generous, most united, and most injured. On a basic human level, would the nation grieve for Peggy Neff, who lost her partner of 18 years when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, as it had for the widow of a fire fighter? Would Neff be eligible to file a claim with the multi-billion dollar federal September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which Congress established to compensate victims and …

Homosexuality As Contagion: From The Well Of Loneliness To The Boy Scouts, Nancy J. Knauer

Nancy J. Knauer

In the political arena, there are currently two central and competing views of homosexuality. Pro-family organizations, working from a contagion model of homosexuality, contend that homosexuality is an immoral, unhealthy, and freely chosen vice. Many pro-gay organizations espouse an identity model of homosexuality under which sexual orientation is an immutable, unchosen, and benign characteristic. Both pro-family and pro-gay organizations believe that to define homosexuality is to control its legal and political status. This sometimes bitter debate regarding the nature of same-sex desire might seem like an exceedingly contemporary development. However, the ex-gay media blitz of 2000 represents only the latest …

An Activist's Guide To Lesbian History: A Companion To The Video Not Just Passing Through, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

This guide, designed to accompany the video Not Just Passing Through, contains guidelines for conducting oral history, forms for donating material to mainstream and community based archives, and lessons for engaging lesbian history with activism.

The Lesbian And Gay Past: An Interpretive Battleground, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

The lesbian and gay past is an interpretive battleground that mainstream archives have refused to enter, assuming few risks in collecting, naming, or identifying archival collections. At the same time, libraries offer up worlds to those who work to unearth the secrets there.

The New York Public Library's 1994 "Becoming Visible" exhibit trumpeted The Arrival of lesbian and gay history to New York's cultural mainstream. The NYPL exhibit denies the library's role in secreting lesbian and gay history, and diminished the contributions of community-based archives to the exhibit.

Gays And Lesbians In Library History, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

Summarizes gay and lesbian activism in librarianship and the role of libraries in supporting gay and lesbian movements.

To Tell The Truth: The Lesbian Herstory Archives: Chronicling A People And Fighting Invisibility Since 1974, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

A portrait of the Lesbian Herstory Archives by a volunteer, describing the archive in its original home in Joan Nestle's Upper West Side New York City apartment that she shared with Mabel Hampton. Originally published in Out/Week Magazine.