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

Smith, T. Love, Kassey Kreer

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

T Love Smith is a 46 year old born in Lincoln, ME, who identifies as non-binary and queer. After coming out to their mom at age 19, who had also come out as gay when T was 5, they were met with an unsupportive, negative response. Going through a tough childhood filled with alcohol abuse and no community for T to confide in about their gender/sexual identity, T found themselves in toxic relationships in their early adulthood. Eventually they were able to come to terms with their identity and came out as non-binary. T discussed their time in the military …

Burdin, Johannah, Samantha Rouillard

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Johannah Burdin shares her story as a lesbian/queer woman experiencing southern Maine in the 1990s. Her story touches on topics involving coming out, relationships, a traumatic incident that left her disabled, activism, and much more. She was active in her youth in spreading awareness on the AIDS/HIV crisis, education on safe sex, and spent her evenings at popular Portland gay bars, like Sister’s Bar and Limelight/The Underground. Although she is not much into drinking, she recognized these were some of the few spots queer people could go to make community and relationships. Johannah also shares her story of becoming a …

Smith, Betsy, Kayla Graffam

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Betsy Smith is a 63 year old lesbian woman who was born in Bangor and grew up in Exeter Maine. She was raised by her mother and father on a potato farm with her three siblings. She attended Jacksonville University, where she came to terms with her sexual identity and received a degree in physical education. She eventually was hired as a math teacher in Vermont and later Portland, Maine. After moving to Portland, Smith became involved in volunteering for gay rights activist groups like the MLGPA. She was involved in multiple campaigns, including the various Maine Won’t Discriminate campaigns …

Cadwallader, Megan, Gretchen Thiele

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Meghan Cadwallader was born in 1976 in a small, rural town in Upstate New York. She grew up with a stable family and surrounded by the Catholic religion. Cadwallader realized she was lesbian around her junior year of high school. However, her sexuality was never a huge deal, more just another part of her. She went to college at Holland’s University, and all-girls school, in which she initially came out to people resulting in mixed responses. Meghan then went to Bucknell University In Pennsylvania. She received a degree in French and English with a concentration in creative writing. She talks …

Leighton-Cory, Jocelyn, Bella Shannon

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Jocelyn identifies as a Queer woman but also aligns with the label Gender-Queer. They are 40 years old and currently live in the city of South Portland where they serve as a member on the City Council and also work as a managing director at Space Gallery in downtown Portland. Jocelyn was born in Bangor, Maine, and lived there for a year before moving briefly to South Princeton, Maine, and eventually settling in Princeton, Maine, where they grew up. Jocelyn was raised by their single mother along with their older brother and younger sister. They received their B.A. in Arts …

Parker, Heidi, Tegan Bryne

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Heidi Parker is a 47-year-old lesbian, who uses she/her pronouns. Heidi Parker grew up in the South and Seventh-Day Adventist. One of her favorite parts about living in the South and still one of her favorite things today is the mountains. Heidi Parker has moved to a few places around the United States; including New York, Maine, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Morrow Beach. Heidi Parker worked as a PE teacher before getting a higher degree in Sports Management. After getting her degree, she moved to New York and worked at Syracuse and then moved to Maine to work …

The Queer Life Of Lorena Hickok, Samantha D. Leyerle

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the life of Lorena Hickok, a remarkable woman whose story has been glossed over throughout history. Hickok was an accomplished journalist and writer, and her life offers a fascinating glimpse into being queer in the early twentieth century. While much has been written about Hickok’s relationship with Eleanor Roosevelt, this thesis aims to go beyond their connection to examine Hickok’s entire life and experiences in greater detail. Through analyzing her work as a writer, as well as her personal correspondence and unpublished autobiography, this thesis illuminates the quiet details of defining moments in history, including the Great …

Lo, Q, Rheros Iliad Kagoni

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Q Lo is a 45 year old transgender man, the son of two Chinese immigrants who grew up in New York. Q discusses growing up as a queer person of color, how his gender and sexual identity was impacted by the lack of representation he saw around him, how his upbringing in Chinatown influenced his view of the world, and how his immigrant parents influenced his relationship with school, work and creativity. Q talks about attending college, dropping out of college, and his experiences going to MECA in Portland Maine while grappling with the classism and privilege he was experiencing …

Farnsworth, Susan, Larisa Filippov

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Susan Farnsworth is a 75 year old lesbian who has lived in Maine for over 50 years. She currently resides in Hallowell, ME, but has lived all over Maine and other places in New England. Farnsworth is an attorney and has her own law practice where she helps a variety of clients with their legal problems. She realized she was a lesbian while she was in law school during her marriage to a man. Farnsworth attended Bates College for her undergraduate degree before going to the University of Maine School of Law in Portland. The multiple political organizations she has …

Wanderer, Nancy, Mary Wallace

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Nancy Wanderer is a professor at the University of Maine School of Law and was also the first Director of the Legal Writing Program at Maine Law. She received a B.A from Wellesley College, and M.A. from George Washington University, and a J.D. from University of Maine School of Law. Nancy Wanderer has dedicated her life to women’s rights and protecting and fighting for the rights of other minorities as well. Since growing up in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, Wanderer has always been drawn to education and Academia.

She was married to her ex-husband during her Junior year at Wellesley in …

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 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 …

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.

Through Their Eyes: An Analysis Of Misrepresentation In Popular Lesbian Television Narratives, Delana Janine Price

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The purpose of this thesis is to explore lesbian television narratives that shape popular discourse. My goal is to find and expose the implications of monolithic expressions of queerness through both queer and heteronormative presenting television narratives. This exploration of the queer narrative voice addresses three distinct movements of cultural production: the proclaimed self-represented queer television narrative, the connotatively queer heterocentric television narrative, and the queer narrative produced in fan-based literature. For concision, I focus on the popular television dramas The L Word and Rizzoli & Isles, as well as the fan works produced for the latter. Through the lens …

Griffith, Kirsten, Beth Gibson

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Kirsten Griffith is a thirty-six year old woman living in Portland Maine. In this interview, she discusses her life from her early childhood up to the present day. Kirsten is part of the LGBTQ community and identifies as a femme lesbian. She is active in Portland Maine’s LGBTQ community and works with Pride Portland, the Equality Community Center and Maine Trans-net. Kirsten is a full-time student at Mount Holyoke and is the primary caregiver of her younger brother. Kirsten discusses living in California, learning about her sexuality, and her involvement in community projects through this interview.

Citation

Please cite as: …

Sacerdoti-Ravenscroft, Sebastiane, Samantha Round, Kaitlynn Werner

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Sebastiane Sacerdoti-Ravenscroft is a non-binary lesbian, who uses they/them/theirs pronouns. They’re currently working on their Graduate degree in Psychology at the University of Southern Maine, as well as working at CIEE Maine, launching a podcast about mental health with their wife, and they are acting Chair of Pride Portland! During the interview, religion, mental health, activism, and family dynamics are discussed, as Sebastiane explains their life in Maine after living in many different places across the globe.

Citation

Please cite as: Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer+ Collection, Jean Byers Sampson …

Koen, Susan, Michelle Pelletier, Skyler Hebert

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Susan Koen in a lesbian women who has participated in many political and feminist movements throughout her lifetime. She was raised in New Orleans, but moved around a lot during her life, giving her a vast array of life experiences. She participated in the Anti-Nuclear Movement of the 70s and co-wrote a book called Ain't Nowhere We Can Run: A Handbook for Women on the Nuclear Mentality. In addition to this, she has studied and participated in a number of feminist collectives, including the Off Our Backs newspaper, the Women's Pentagon Action, and the Maine Won't Discriminate campaign. Koen wrote …

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 …

'Tomboy' Is Anachronistic. But The Concept Still Has Something To Teach Us, Lynne Stahl

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This article explores the tomboy trope in film and literature and the "taming" that characterizes it, framing both in relation to contemporary debates about gender and sexual identity as well as cultural anxieties around queer, trans, and nonbinary identity. Examining texts from Louisa May Alcott's Little Women to the 1980 film Little Darlings, the article argues that even while the term tomboy may be obsolete, tomboy narratives document processes of rebellion that hold continuing value.

Sage, Johnna Ossie

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Sage explored her highly religious upbringing and relationship with her family. She is of Greek descent and her Greek-American culture played a large role in shaping her identity. Her parents rejected her during her young adulthood due to her sexuality and Sage discussed the impact that the ostracization had on her development. Her positive experience with being a part of a long-term, loving lesbian relationship was one that she frequently came back to during the course of the interview. On top of relationships and religion, Sage also examined her experiences undergoing workplace harassment and feeling unwelcome and unsafe in many …

Performing Queerness, Jasmina Sinanovic

Open Educational Resources

This is a syllabus for a course Performing Queerness

Mckenzie, Ellen, Caroline Wheeler, Marwa Ibrahim

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

This interview features Ellen McKenzie, an African-American lesbian woman living in Portland, Maine. Having lived in Portland for almost her entire life, Ellen can provide insight on growing up in one of the only black families in her community, the intersections between race and sexuality, co-parenting children from a spouse’s previous marriage and generally navigating the world and her career as a queer woman of color. Throughout this interview, we hear a lot about her childhood and her family’s history as civil rights activists in Maine, her relationship with her spouse and and co-parenting their children with both her spouse, …

Wood, Barb, Isabella Rieger

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Barbra ‘Barb’ Wood is 63 years old and lives in Portland M.E with her partner Carol. Barb realized she was queer her junior year in college when an underclassman that she met at a party took her back to her apartment and kissed her. After this kiss Barb recovered her other queer crushes through her series of romantic friendships with women. After college Barb worked as an insurance inspection agent in the state of Maine and later went on to become a resident of Portland. Barb was instrumental in the creation and distribution of Maine’s first queer newspaper OUR PAPER …

Rich, Penny, Bianca Sturchio, Johnna Ossie

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Penny Rich is a 70-year old lesbian living in Portland, Maine. She recieved a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Southern Maine. She is known for her involvement in major social events such as Portland Pride and the Women's Coffeehouse, as well as her experiences with gay bar culture throughout the 60's and 70's. She spends her time socializing, exercising, reading, and getting involved in local political and social issues that affect the LGBTQ+ community in Portland, Maine.

Citation

Please cite as: Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer+ Collection, …

Arbor, Kelly, Alanna Larrivee, Emma Wynn Hill

Querying the Past: LGBTQ Maine Oral History Project Collection

Kelly Arbor, who identifies as genderqueer, was born in Rumford, Maine in 1977. Arbor is an artist, educator, and proud activist. They have been involved with activism throughout their life including in college at the University of Vermont. In this interview, Arbor talks about overcoming challenges growing up trans in a rural community, and discusses such issues as poverty, classism, LGBTQ representation, sex education in schools, incest, consent, AIDS, and substance abuse. Kelly Arbor also describes being involved in the Maine-based group MESH – Maine Educationalists on Sexual Harmony – a group working to create a dialogue surrounding sex positivity …

Shifting Understandings Of Lesbianism In Imperial And Weimar Germany, Meghan C. Paradis

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

This paper seeks to understand how, and why, understandings of lesbianism shifted in Germany over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Through close readings of both popular cultural productions and medical and psychological texts produced within the context of Imperial and Weimar Germany, this paper explores the changing nature of understandings of homosexuality in women, arguing that over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the dominant conceptualization of lesbianism transformed from an understanding of lesbians that was rooted in biology and viewed lesbians as physically masculine “gender inverts”, to one that was …

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 …

The Complexities Of Female Sexuality: Narratives Of Women Who Have Experienced Both Heterosexual And Same-Sex Marriages, Krista Anne Butland

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Due to social stigma, millions of sexual minorities have concealed their true sexual identities by entering into heterosexual relationships and marriages. Eventually, some transition to same-sex relationships and are able to live authentic lives. This latter group had identified as genuinely heterosexual, never questioning their sexuality until a particular time in their lives when same-sex desires spontaneously appeared. The experiences of transitioning from heterosexual to same-sex partners are not well known, particularly for women who have been legally married to both men and women. Diamond's dynamical systems theory for same-sex sexuality and McCarn and Fassinger's lesbian identity formation model provided …

Emotional Distress, Alcohol Use, And Bidirectional Partner Violence Among Lesbian Women, Robin J. Lewis, Miguel A. Padilla, Robert J. Milletich, Michelle L. Kelley, Barbara A. Winstead, Cathy Lau-Barraco, Tyler B. Mason

Psychology Faculty Publications

This study examined the relationship between emotional distress (defined as depression, brooding, and negative affect), alcohol outcomes, and bidirectional intimate partner violence among lesbian women. Results lend support to the self-medication hypothesis, which predicts that lesbian women who experience more emotional distress are more likely to drink to cope, and in turn report more alcohol use, problem drinking, and alcohol-related problems. These alcohol outcomes were, in turn, associated with bidirectional partner violence (BPV). These results offer preliminary evidence that, similar to findings for heterosexual women, emotional distress, alcohol use, and particularly, alcohol-related problems are risk factors for BPV among lesbian …

Undergraduate Catholic Lesbians: The Intersection Of Religious And Sexual Aspects Of Identity, Christina Marie Chestna

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The following is a qualitative study designed to shed light on the experiences of undergraduate Catholic lesbians. The study focused on the unique ways in which these women negotiate the intersection of the religious and sexual aspects of their identities. Research shows that religious and sexual aspects of identity often conflict. In-depth research aimed specifically at the negotiation of religious and sexual identity dimensions is needed. In this study, semi-structured interviews were conducted with undergraduate Catholic lesbians who had the opportunity to speak about the ways in which they negotiate the potentially conflicting religious and sexual aspects of their identities. …