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

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 …

No Hope?: Queer Negativity, Afropessimism, And The Limits Of Futurity, Colton Barton

Theses and Dissertations--English

Since their inceptions, black and queer studies have sought to articulate the positions of “black” and “queer” within American social life—often converging on the goal of liberation. This thesis examines the intersection of two “negative” theoretical frameworks—Afropessimism and anti-social queer theory (or “queer negativity”)—to interrogate both the limits and generative potential of radical negativity. Though emerging from distinct intellectual traditions, these frameworks conceptualize blackness and queerness as constitutive negations—gaps within the dominant social order that render those so marked inassimilable to normative notions of humanity. While the convergences of these theories can be illuminating, their shared pessimism risks obscuring alternative …

Lust, Labor, & Legitimacy: Visibility And Precarity In Platformed Sex Work, Sable J. Augustyn

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This thesis examines the labor of platformed sex workers, positioning their experiences as a site for understanding the entanglement of multiple intersecting economies. Through qualitative interviews, it explores how sex workers navigate platform infrastructures, manage audience engagement, and contend with visibility as both an economic necessity and a site of risk. Drawing on theories of emotional labor, visibility labor, and platform governance, the project highlights how sex work on digital platforms is shaped by overlapping systems of economic extraction, technological constraint, and cultural regulation. Platformed sex work emerges here as a layered and context-specific practice—embedded within creator ecologies, attraction economies, …

Woke-Lahoma: Anti-Trans Ideology On The Frontlines, Sarah H. Fogel

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

The past decade (2015-2025) of American politics has been marked by a sharp rise in anti-trans politics. Indeed, during this period, anti-trans rhetoric and legislation have become central to American conservative politics more broadly. As the Republican party under Donald Trump works daily to remake the federal government in its image, studying the recent past of Republican-controlled states like Oklahoma offers a window into the future of anti-trans politics at the national scale. This thesis uses a mix of discourse analysis of anti-trans media and participant observation at 2SLGBTQ+ Pride events to analyze the ideological underpinnings of the present-day anti-trans …

19.3 Ceus, Albright Aaron, Peighton Corley, Yusuf Barburoglu, Jeff Moe

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Navigating the Complexities in Gender-Diverse Counseling: Understanding the Interplay of Gender Identity, Racial Inequities, Economic Marginalization, and Aging

1. Which counseling approach discussed in the article explicitly weaves systemic oppression into cognitive restructuring for transgender clients?

A. Narrative Therapy

B. Gestalt Therapy

C. Intersectional Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

D. Dialectical Behavior Therapy

2. According to the article, identity-integrated support networks are valuable because they:

A. Provide financial assistance for medical transition only

B. Affirm multiple intersecting identities, offering validation and belonging

C. Limit social interaction to reduce microaggressions

D. Operate exclusively in online spaces

From The Editor, Jeff Moe

Counseling & Human Services Faculty Publications

[Introduction] Welcome to issue 19(4) of the Journal of LGBTQ Issues in Counseling. The mission and purpose of this journal is to illuminate the lived experiences of people who are sexual, affectional, intersex, and gender-expansive diverse and how these experiences relate to counseling, counselor education, mental health, and social justice. Throughout the nearly 20-year history of the journal research on affirming care best practice, scholarship that centers the stories of LGBTGEQIAP + individuals, groups and communities, and innovative research on multiple-minority communities have all been regular features. In addition to the focus of the published scholarship, which includes over …

Directing The Temperamentals: Exploring Identity, Activism, And Historical Resonance In Lgbtq+ Theater, Eric E. Parrish

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This thesis presents an in-depth analysis and directorial approach to Jon Marans' play, The Temperamentals, which dramatizes the early struggles of the LGBTQ+ rights movement in 1950s America. The production focuses on the personal and political dynamics surrounding the formation of the Mattachine Society, one of the first sustained gay rights organizations in the United States, through the lives of its co-founders, Harry Hay and Rudi Gernreich. This analysis explores the relevance of the plays' themes in the contemporary socio-political landscape by exploring the interaction of personal identity, societal repression, and collective activism depicted in the play. These chapters detail …

Queer Life In Nineteenth-Century America: A Historical Literature Review, Vivian Wright

SURF Posters 2025

In recent political discourses, queerness has often been treated as a modern phenomenon, and many people tend to think of queerness as a twentieth-century invention. Historians, however, have shown this to be false; an extensive amount of historical work details the lives of those who did not conform to sexual or gender norms in nineteenth-century America. This review surveys such works, analyzing nearly twenty different works spanning the course of nearly fifty years. By examining these works chronologically, the development of the field of queer history can be understood in the context of social and political developments occurring in the …

“Windows For Witness: Dan Fishback’S Radical Access”, Alexandra Juhasz

Publications and Research

Dan Fishback’s Jewish crip aesthetic – art made within a framework of integrated access – is rooted in the human (or Jewish!) capacity to be generous and so much more. He expands our understandings of who is in the room, who is in the world, who is in our community, who lives at the same time as us but in a different way. This connection in his show between chronic illness and Palestine is not only about alienation it is about identification and solidarity.

Fangs And Phantasms: Vampire Fiction's Role In Shaping Victorian Gender And Sexual Ideals, Michele White

All Master's Theses

This thesis examines how Christabel (1816), Carmilla (1872), and Dracula (1897), three quintessential texts in the vampire literary genre, speak to the Victorian proliferation of sexual and gender discourses. These texts use the metaphor of the vampire to contradict and sustain 19th-century regulatory dialogues encompassing sexuality, gender, and desire. By investigating these vampire narratives by means of theories of sexuality and gender enumerated in Michel Foucault's The History of Sexuality and Judith Butler's Gender Trouble, such as the ideas of “biopower” and “gender performativity,” I contend that these works do more than simply reproduce contemporary outlooks. Instead, these Gothic …

Queer In & Out Of Montana: Oral Histories Of The Lgbtq+ Exodus From Montana, Erin T. Heaton

Undergraduate Theses, Professional Papers, and Capstone Artifacts

This project will summarize findings from six oral histories of LGBTQ+ people who lived in Montana, but have left or are leaving in the near future. This project will explore the questions: Why are queer and transgender people leaving Montana? What are common experiences for LGBTQ+ people living in Montana? The answer to these questions will be derived from the stories of the Narrators who provided their oral histories. The questions utilized in the oral histories covered topics of identity, “coming out,” living history, cultural observations, community experiences and perceptions, well-being, healthcare, laws, and reasons for leaving. Thematic Analysis was …

Debbie Alicen Reclaimed Her Voice And Started The Human Rights Campaign In Lincoln, Nebraska, Morgan Grey, Debbie Alicen, Moni Usasz

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A story about Debbie Alicen's efforts in the early 1980s to have an amendment added to Lincoln, Nebraska's Human Rights Ordinance that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual preference.

Voicing The Violence: Carmen Maria Machado's Contribution To A Queer Archive, Audrey C. Bryant

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This project analyzes In the Dream House (2019) alongside “The Husband Stitch” and “Eight Bites” from the collection Her Body and Other Parties (2017) by Carmen Maria Machado. The first, a memoir, details Machado’s personal experience with domestic abuse between partners who share a female gender identity; the latter is a collection of short stories outlining everyday violations made against women. Scholars have discussed these works with specifications including female domestic horror, Machado’s use of retellings, and domestic violence and abuse. This project fills a gap in the discourse by intersecting and connecting queer theory with archival studies to support …

Coming Out To My Christian Loved Ones: Online Workshop Effectiveness For Increasing Lgbtq+ Individuals And Lgbtq+ Ally Communication Efficacy And Impacts On Personal-Enacted Identity Gaps, Samantha Renee Leggett-Bradley

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

It is not uncommon for passages from the Christian Bible to produce schisms in families, friendships, mentorships, workplace relationships, individual churches, and denominations. These challenging conversations are often around LGBTQ+ topics. Many marginalized LGBTQ+ individuals and allies in these spaces become outgroup members who feel insecure and less confident enacting aspects of their own identities or identities they support. A lack of communication efficacy for how to navigate LGBTQ+ related conversations with Christian loved ones may lead to detrimental physical, mental, and emotional outcomes.

This study surveyed 134 LGBTQ+ individuals and allies as well as conducted semi structured interviews with …

A Monstrous [Un]-Becoming: Defining The Final Boy, Rhys Crumpton

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Through an exploration of horror theory, monster theory, queer theory, and disabilities studies, this thesis defines a 21st century archetype within the serial horror narrative, known as “the Final Boy.” This character is a manifestation of a queer, often neurodivergent man in peril at the hands of a monstrous society. This harmful socionormativity is narratively represented by a monster wearing the face of a man, one whom the Final Boy must subdue and overcome if he wishes to survive. The seven tenets found in this project highlight the fluctuating morality the Final Boy is forced to engage in per the …

Theatre As Sanctuary: Queer Identity, Religious Trauma, And The Path To Healing, Casey Worley

Theses and Dissertations

Growing up as a queer individual in a deeply religious Southern Baptist community, I learned early that faith and identity could feel like irreconcilable forces. I sat in the pews, surrounded by voices that preached love but often excluded people like me. For years, I struggled with the question: Can I be both queer and faithful? This tension—between belief and belonging, between the church I was raised in and the identity I could no longer deny—became the foundation of my journey, my artistic practice, and this thesis.

Through this research, I explore the intersections of queer identity, religious trauma, and …

Post Opera, Suzy Lykins

Theses and Dissertations

Post Opera is a spell and work of embodied research which explores medicalization, desire, labor, and belief. Through methods of performance, sound, text and installation, I facilitate encounters of trans-femininity, spiritual power and connectivity. An opening wound, a set of psychic scalpels, sutures and bandages prepare this text for your consumption, take care to digest her well.

Feeling Foreign / Foreign Feeling: Affect In Southeast Asian Diasporic Short Story Collections, Francys Aerin Fortes

Theses and Dissertations

Affect studies have long been saturated with scholarship investigating the fluidity of emotions, though a larger turn in the field now prioritizes the felt experiences of marginalized peoples. Sianne Ngai’s work is one part of this turn that seeks to unpack the effects of oppressive systemic forces on Black, Brown, and queer bodies. Sianne Ngai reexamined the nature of emotions in her seminal text Ugly Feelings (2005), particularly concerned with how negative feelings are disproportionately felt by marginalized bodies as a result of conditions of obstructed agency, systems of power, and wage labor capitalism. Drawing from Ngai’s writing, this thesis …

Queer-Keying: Performing Video Processes As [Trans]Gressive Resistance, Wren Tiffany

Theses and Dissertations

As part of the 2025 VCUarts MFA Thesis Exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), I transformed the 'Sponge' gallery on the top floor of The Anderson, VCU’s historic thesis exhibition home, into The Green Room, a neon green, immersive video and performance space featuring mirrors, disco lights, a foam tile dance floor, makeup stations, and a functioning green-screen editing suite. This hybrid drag rehearsal and ‘Chroma-key’ green video production room deepened both my understandings of Queer performance art and process-based art making during the Spring of 2025, through two public performance activation …

“Some Vague Utopia”: Searching For Urania, Moira L. Neve

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the global pendulum swing of gender trouble marked by the United States’ President’s declaration that there are only two sexes, activists have been rejecting assimilation (ie. defining equality as gay marriage or queer people in the military) within queer studies long before 2025. In the first half of the 20th century, a journal by the name of Urania (1916-1940), privately published and circulated to their home base in the United Kingdom and beyond, five editors (Esther Roper, Eva Gore-Booth, Jessey Wade, Dorothy Cornish, and Irene Clyde/Thomas Baty), challenged the gender binary and the resulting assumptions of heterosexual marriage. This …

Liner Notes On Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music As A Praxis Of Self-Fashioning, Shawn J. Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Liner Notes on Black Trans Girlhood: Afrofuturist Affect & Black Popular Music as a Praxis of Self-Fashioning interprets Black musical performance in identity-making, with a focus on how music and Black trans identity intersect and informs Black trans girlhood. As such, Black trans girls render ourselves legible, i.e. understood without shame or judgment, by constructing our identities through the music by Black women we listen and dance to, or watch and sing. These musical connections affirm the possibilities of Black femme expression. This expression of Black femininity is due to what I call an Afrofuturist affect, by which I refer …

No More Pinkwashing At The Pink Pony Club: A Feminist Media Analysis Of The Potential Shift In Queer Popular Culture To Decenter Homonationalism And Pinkwashing, Taylor G. Maki

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Previous research on queer popular culture highlights the influence popular culture has had on the United States’ legal and political protections for queer people—specifically cisgender gay men and cisgender lesbians with the legalization of same-sex marriage and the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” However, some scholars and queer activists critique the homonationalist and pinkwashing agendas deployed by LGBTQ popular culture activists. This research examines whether or not there has been a shift in dominant queer popular culture that decenters homonationalism and pinkwashing. Using a feminist media analysis, this research examines contemporary queer musicians’ activism against the United States’ involvement …

Living With Flying Colors: Associations Among Lgbtq+ Identity, Religiosity, Spirituality, Community, And Overall Well-Being Among Lgbtq+ Older Adults, Madison T. Diomede

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

Experiences of discrimination and prejudice place LGBTQ+ individuals in older adulthood (i.e., 55 years old and older) at risk for poor overall well-being. This risk can be especially salient in the Southern and Midwestern U.S., where LGBTQ+ individuals enjoy fewer legal protections than in the Northeast and Western regions of the U.S. In defiance of these odds, LGBTQ+ individuals in older adulthood cultivate overall well-being through psychological-level constructs, like LGBTQ+ identity affirmation, and community-level constructs, LGBTQ+ community connection. Yet, little research has examined these avenues of strength among LGBTQ+ individuals in older adulthood. Guided by Iridescent Life Course Theory and …

The Perceived Internalized Sexual Stigma Measure (Prissm): A New Sexual Stigma Measure For Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Individuals, Miguel A. Padilla, Lacey M. Schlappi, Evelyn S. Chiang

Psychology Faculty Publications

Society has long held negative beliefs and attitudes, in the form of sexual stigma, towards sexual minorities (e.g., lesbian, gay, and bisexual; LGB). Sexual stigma can be adopted and internalized by LGB individuals as their own beliefs and attitudes. In LGB individuals, internalized sexual stigma can result in psychological distress such as low self-esteem, depression, shame, and feelings of rejection. However, an instrument to assess internalized sexual stigma specifically developed for LGB individuals is lacking. The present study focuses on the development of a new instrument, the Perceived Internalized Sexual Stigma Measure (PrISSM), that is inclusive of LGB individuals who …

Clinical Implications For Helping Professionals Learned From The Pastoral Care Of Lgbtq+ Youth, John Willis Ward, Heather Deal, Gaynor Yancey

Funded Scholarship

This qualitative article is informed by queer theory, and more specifically queer theology, and explores how youth ministers in various denominations care for LGBTQ+ teenagers in their congregations. Seven youth pastors from three major denominational groups were interviewed from the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF), Alliance of Baptists, and Presbyterian Church, USA (PC-USA). Participants had to identify as LGBTQ+ affirming, though their congregations could be in various states of affirmation. Thematic analysis found the following significant categories: confidentiality, implications of whole church engagement, student-led engagement, theology/image of God, and degree of support for identity development.

A Phenomenological Study Of The Lived Experience Of Gay White Men In Mid-Level Student Affairs Leadership Roles, S. Craig Mourton

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate the lived experience of mid-level student affairs leaders who identify as cisgender, gay, White, and male in order to further understand the multidimensionality of embodying both privileged as well as marginalized identities. Four participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide and the resulting transcripts were analyzed utilizing the Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) perspective. Experiential themes that emerged from the analysis of the individual cases as well as across the cases include unintended pathways into the field of student affairs, experiences of challenging heterosexual male supervisors and the preference for women supervisors, …

Loving-Learning-Leading-Living: A Scholarly Personal Narrative Of A Black Gay Father, Russell E. Thornhill

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation examines the roles, challenges, and contributions of a Black Gay father, a demographic largely absent from academic discourse. While literature explores themes of the church, LGBTQ+ identities, and social justice, there remains a critical gap addressing the lived experiences of a Black Gay father. This study fills that void by elevating narratives as community activists, family leaders, and clergy members, acknowledging their transformative impact within familial and societal structures. The methodology used is the Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN). It allows for in-depth, reflective engagement with personal experiences in conversation with scholars while situating them within broader sociocultural, theological, …

A New Normal: An Autoethnographic Analysis Of Gender Complexities In Los Angeles Social Justice Theatre Storytelling, Sue Hamilton

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This study uses autoethnography to examine the role gender plays in Los Angeles social justice theatre storytelling. Chronicling my autoethnography as a queer, nonbinary artist and social justice theatre practitioner, I will examine gender through the context of my social justice theatre company, Artists Rise Up Los Angeles (ARULA), by analyzing selections of its original, politically focused, professional stage plays performed from 2017 to 2019, utilizing ARULA’s emerging themes of gender expression and inclusion. ARULA was born out of a determination to create original social justice theatre storytelling to understand and transform reality by bringing theatrical expression to the environment …

Navigating The Complexities In Gender-Diverse Counseling: Understanding The Interplay Of Gender Identity, Racial Inequities, Economic Marginalization, And Aging, C. Gerwe

Department of Medicine Faculty Publications

Gender-diverse individuals continue to face unique challenges in daily life, with intersecting identities related to race, socioeconomic status (SES), and age further compounding these barriers. These overlapping factors profoundly impact mental health and wellbeing, especially within environments that may lack inclusive or responsive frameworks. Despite increasing awareness, limited guidance exists for counselors on implementing practices that validate intersecting identities while addressing the cumulative effects of marginalization (Canvin et al., 2022). This article synthesizes current research and case examples to illuminate these challenges and offers insights for fostering more inclusive and supportive counseling approaches.