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

You Are Cordially (Un)Invited: My Korean Femme Strategy And Aspiration For Survival And Queer Futures, Nahyun Kim

Masters Theses

You are cordially (un)invited: My Korean Femme Strategy and Aspiration for Survival and Queer Futures documents a series of ceremonies dedicated to the years I have survived. This book has branched from a project of the same name that consists of a durational installation, performance, and series of events. The project and book are an aspirational gesture to send off the part of myself–that had to compromise, comply, and negotiate with institutions–for a rebirth to live a life beyond survival.

As a book and project, You are cordially (un)invited is a culmination of my experiences as a Korean femme, using …

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 …

A Presence Of P____ And W__Th, Riley Wilson

Masters Theses

This body of work examines the involvement of association as it relates to our cultural interpretations of natural phenomena. Flowers and animals, both real and imagined, have been used as symbols for human morality since the beginning of human history. Two sources with which I drew inspiration from are medieval bestiaries and the Victorian practice of flower language. By combining elements from these references, I aim to pair this idea about the human need for classification with my own considerations about my identity. In combination, I also aim to highlight the responsibility that is intrinsic to curiosity. When faced with …

Lg Ms 079 Steven G. Bull Papers, Jill Piekut Roy, Jeremy Rundstrom

Search the Manuscript Collection (Finding Aids)

Description:

Papers include correspondence, photographs, publications, and ephemera documenting the beginning of the gay liberation movement in Maine and Steve Bull's participation in the movement both in Maine and nationally, especially through his involvement with the founding of the Wilde-Stein Club at University of Maine Orono in 1973 and his chairmanship of the first Maine Gay Symposium in 1974. Letters received by Bull and his friends, both personally and as Wilde-Stein Club officials, are evidence of the attitudes of both supporters of gay liberation and its opponents in the 1970s. Bull's research papers document the University of Maine's reaction to …

The Queer Ecology Of Clouds In Nineteenth-Century British Poetics, Lucien Darjeun Meadows

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Throughout the nineteenth century, British writers were interested in the emergent science of meteorology, and their lyrical writing (their “poetics”), from poetry to creative and scientific prose, often turns to clouds as both meteorological formations and as material metaphors for human-environment interactions. These writers frequently invoke clouds to disrupt or “queer” depictions of human-environment relationships built on human domination of environmental beings. Clouds, in poetic writing, help writers (and readers) instead experience subject-subject relationships of reciprocity—a collaborative, non-hierarchical way of existing with and learning from our ecological relatives.

Dwelling in the confluence of literary studies, queer studies, and ecology, The …

Fluidity And Inconstancy: Australian Bush Tomatoes As An Exemplar Of Non-Normative Sex Expression, Christopher T. Martine

Faculty Journal Articles

Solanum, a genus of ~1500 global species, is one of the more interesting plant groups in which to study reproductive biology and ecology. Overwhelmingly, species in this group express full cosexuality, where individual plants have flowers containing both fully-functioning “male” (staminate) and “female” (carpellate) organs. However, there have been multiple and widespread evolutionary transitions within the genus to non-normative variations on this ancestral condition. Australian bush tomatoes (ca. 40 species) are especially diverse in this regard, with uncommon variation and combinations of unisexuality and cosexuality -- including, most notably, two sexual systems known as dioecy (unisexual male or female …

The Personal And The Planetal: Essaying The Ecological, Eric Dean Wilson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“The Personal and the Planetal: Essaying the Ecological” investigates contemporary American personal essays in an environmental mode in order to illuminate the boundaries between “self” and “planet.” It does so with an eye toward ecological devastation—namely, the violent effects of global warming—because I sense that thinking about the essay can help us better understand the ethical problems of climate change. Part of our climate crisis is a failure to recognize the boundaries of the personal and what I call the “planetal” (in an attempt to defamiliarize it from the more common “planetary”). Using a method that I call “the ecological …

Gaps Of Speculation: Refusing Representation In Queer And Postcolonial Fiction, Sarah Schwartz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how queer and postcolonial novels respond to the archive as a determiner of what stories we can and cannot tell through formal experimentation that omits expected elements. Focusing on the subject- and object-making power and the tekhne of inclusion and exclusion that shape the modern archive, I analyze how novels spanning the late nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century refuse to mimetically reproduce bodies that were traditionally made the object of that knowledge in ways legible to the familiar archival forms. Instead, these novels turn the exclusion of the archive back on itself by manifesting lacunae …

Bi Erasure And Bi Invisibility In Media And Medicine: Moving Beyond, Lacy M. Telles

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project examines the bisexual erasure and invisibility that is found in film, television, literature, and in the field of reproduction. Even though bisexual people make up a large portion of the LGBTQ community, because of bi invisibility, they tend to get lost in the cause. This website offers information about bi invisibility, highlights obstacles faced by bisexuals, provides resources for bisexuals, and includes some fun topics for bisexual people. It also has a page of bisexual testimonies: real bi people with real bi stories. There is evidence of erasure and invisibility, especially in children’s books and the field of …

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 …

Sartorial Representations Of Trans Men In The Post-Frontier West: A Case Study In Gender, Class, And Concepts Of Societal Degeneration, Rose Caughie

University Honors Theses

Clothing is communication. How it is perceived reveals a society's values and anxieties. In the post-frontier American west, moralistic laws against cross-dressing combined with fears of societal degeneration, resulting in the formation and enforcement of normative visions of gendered dress. When trans men Harry Allen and Milton Matson were arrested, images of them were published in newspapers across the nation. Allen's working class wear and close criminal contact with racial minorities reflects one perceived source of degeneration while Matson's high class look and British immigrant status reflects the other. This essay will consider how these men's clothing and bodies were …

Woman Flytrap, Brianna Jo Hobson

Student Theses and Dissertations

Woman FlyTrap is a short story zine collection that explores the topic of sexual violence through the perpetrator and victim relationship with an explicit lens. Replete with cultural and entomological themes and motifs, Woman Flytrap seeks to remind survivors that we are not alone. In our bodies or in our lives. Neither in the world. There are over a million insects to every human, proving that there is strength in numbers. All five stories in the collection present different abstracts: revenge, transformation, justice, healing, body image, self-harm, mourning, etc. There is also a playlist and a section about the author. …

Queer Not: Medieval Romance's Toll On Queerness, Kyle Gaydo

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

How does a contemporary audience handle medieval queerness? What, exactly, constitutes medieval queerness, and how does the medieval literary genre of romance impact it? This thesis attempts to grapple with these questions, and many more, utilizing the 13th-century Old French romance Le Roman de Silence by Heldris de Cornuälle. Medieval romances are particularly fruitful for this analysis because, on one hand, the genre consistently re/turns to cisheteronormativity, and, on the other, because scholarship generally has not applied queer theory to the study of romance. Silence follows Silence, a young Englishwoman who is raised as a boy to protect her family’s …

Disrupting Cisheteronormativity In Stem Through Humanism, Meg C. Jones, Desiree Forsythe, Rachel Friedensen, Annemarie Vaccaro, Ryan A. Miller, Ezekiel Kimball, Rachael Forester

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Cisheteronormativity is prevalent throughout college STEM discourses and classrooms. In this paper, we present findings from a U.S. based study focused on the experiences of collegiate STEM students with minoritized identities of sexuality and gender (MIoSG) as the backdrop for discussing how current harmful ideologies in STEM perpetuate cisheteronormativity through discursive practice. We propose that humanistic classrooms and pedagogy can work to dismantle cisheteronormative D/discourses in STEM and create MIoSG inclusive STEM classrooms and programs. Our findings highlight the ways participants experienced cisheteronormative D/discourses in their collegiate STEM contexts. We discuss how these experiences might be mitigated through humanistic educational …

Dirt Circus: Queering Sports And Home Through Filth, Hannah Patteson

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This monograph accompanies the MFA Thesis Exhibition, “Dirt Circus”. I outline the history of circus and carnival culture and the ways in which queer identities are expressed through these artistic modes. I describe the nonconforming expressions of gender in these arenas through bearded ladies, aerialists, clowns, and the freak show. I then explore various groups from the 70’s to present day, including Bread and Puppet Theater, The Cockettes, and Split Britches, who utilize performance to further their ideologies of gender freedom, anti-capitalism, and sexual liberation. I compare our differing uses of cheap art and public engagement within the realm of …

Smokebox: Writing Into Embarrassment, Julia Storch

Theatre & Dance ETDs

Engaging with theoretical concepts and dramaturgical tools, this essay follows my journey through The Dramatic Writing MFA program at the University of New Mexico, focusing on the production of my thesis play, Smokebox. In Part I, I give the background and development of my journey as a playwright, exploring the obstacles I faced and overcame through my engagement with coursework and staged readings. I map out the development of Smokebox, from its humble beginnings as a class assignment, to its transformation through workshop, and finally its realization through an intense rehearsal and production process. In Part II, I …

How Art Therapy Can Be Used To Teach Queer Inclusive Sex Education To Queer Youth: A Literature Review, Olivia Souza

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This literature review examines the potential of art-making as a tool to educate and inform queer youth about queer sexual experiences. Many queer individuals lack information about safe and healthy sex due to the exclusion of queer experiences in sex education programs. Current sex programs solely focus on abstinence and heterosexual experiences, leaving queer youth in the dark about what to expect from future sexual experiences they may have and how to practice safe queer sex. Through a search of the literature, it was discovered that there is a gap in research using art therapy in this specific context. Through …

Playing With Policy: What Insights Arise From Transgender Adults After Participating In A Legislative Theatre Exercise, Skylar A. Stratemeyer

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

The transgender community is underrepresented in the current body of academic research, underserved in the current clinical model of healthcare services, and legislatively oppressed on a state and federal level in the United States. As of March 2023, more than 400 anti-LGBTQI laws have been introduced on a state level in 2023 alone (ACLU, 2023). In response to the hostile Western sociopolitical climate, this thesis will focus on what insights arise from transgender adults and cisgender allies (N = 12) after participating in a dramatherapeutic group therapy session that explored current anti-trans legislation and highlighted the legal needs of …

Someone Will Remember Us / I Say / Even In Another Time, Paul Anagnostopoulos

Theses and Dissertations

Paul Anagnostopoulos’s paintings and vases use mythological melodrama in a contemporary context to portray vivid images of queer life in the wake of homophobic erasure and tragic loss. “someone will remember us / I say / even in another time” traces his aggregate interests in Greco-Roman cultures and art history.

For What Is A Man?: Towards Languaging Contemporary Dance In A Black, Queer, Male-Presenting Body, Thomas Ford

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines Queering Blackness: Solo on a Theme of Reconciliation, a performance event that invokes movement, spoken text, projections and sound to explore the mechanisms of identity. Engaging performance, Black, queer and dance studies, the paper contextualizes cultural identity markers, towards an understanding of what it means to be Black, queer and male-assigned in Black spaces.

Spit Brimming With Futures, Penny Molesso

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

SPIT BRIMMING WITH FUTURES is an immersive video and audio installation that uses ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response) to investigate the intersection of transgender and neurodivergent identity, expressing an urgent need to imagine stories about transgender, autistic people that affirm our agency and autonomy amidst a political climate that weaponizes neurodivergence to delegitimize trans experiences. The American political right’s vilification of transgender people is used to uphold structures of white supremacy and heteropatriarchy that become destabilized when rigid binary gender categories are challenged. The political right has a vested interest in keeping trans people out of public view, thus weaponizing …

Transcendence: Exploring The Connections Between Transgender/Gender Non-Conforming Identities And Experiences Of Nature Through Art, Mc Jackson

Undergraduate Theses

“Transcendence: Exploring the connections between transgender/gender non-conforming identities and experiences of nature through art” is the written portion of a creative thesis revolving around an immersive art installation and short film. Transcendence, the installation, was created to promote connection by exploring the overlap between transgender and gender non-conforming (GNC) experiences and experiences of nature. Part of this installation is a short film of interviews conducted with transgender and GNC individuals about nature, their gender experiences, and the transcendent nature of the two. The written thesis analyzes existing literature on nature as a restorative, therapeutic, spiritual setting, offers insight into …

Lovecraftian Queerness: Weird And Queer Temporalities In Lovecraft Country And Detransition, Baby, Eurydice Dye

English (MA) Theses

By analyzing H. P. Lovecraft’s work through the lens of queer temporality, I offer a queer perspective on Lovecraft, reading the monstrous outside in his work as a queer figure and casting the temporal conflict common to Lovecraftian horror as a conflict between dominant time and outside time. I argue that, by placing queerly-temporal protagonists in conflict with dominant temporalities, queer fiction is essentially an inversion of Lovecraftian horror. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of the chronotope of the novel, I develop a theory of the queer chronotope in fiction to align with the queer temporalities that queer characters inhabit. …

Minority Stress Through Time: Sexual Minority Stress & Suicidality Across Generations, Jenessa Canen

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Research suggests that sexual minority populations are at a much higher risk for suicide than their heterosexual peers. The primary explanation for this disparity is minority stress theory. The theory of minority stress proposes that in addition to everyday stressors experienced by most people, sexual minorities experience additional unique stressors related to their sexual minority identity. Since minority stress theory was proposed in 2003, much has changed about how the United States understands and views sexual minorities. Theoretically, this should impact the way minority stress is being experienced, which may be seen by examining minority stress across sexual minorities of …

Development & Validation Of A Scale Of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, Alexander Davy

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are important to organizations and their employees. However, confusion in conceptualization and operationalization hinders the development of DEI research and application. The purpose of this study was twofold. First, I conceptualized DEI as a composite construct of three interrelated but differentiated components, that is, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Possible relationships among the three constructs were discussed. Second, I developed a three-dimensional scale to measure diversity, equity, and inclusion as separate constructs. The scale showed acceptable reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha levels for the overall scale and subscales range from .81 to .94. Convergent and divergent validity …

How Lgbtqia+ Citizenship Transcends The Nation- State Paradigm: An Argument For Supranational Queer Citizenship, Marcus Cantrell

Political Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Current conceptions of citizenship, which are heteronormative and tie citizenship to membership in a nation-state, do not account for the quotidian experiences of LGBTQ people across the globe. Seeing as the queer community is a relatively small one, many queer people feel a sense of shared fate with LGBTQ people across the diaspora and feel helpless when they see their queer siblings being persecuted in egregious ways. Thus, the need for a new type of uniquely queer citizenship becomes salient. This thesis posits that a supranational queer citizenship would be the most effective conception of citizenship for queer people because …

Algorithms And The Alphabet Mafia: How Tiktok Influenced Gender, Sexuality, And The Lgbtq+ Community During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Hope Smith

Honors Theses

A massive surge in popularity of the social media app TikTok coincided with the first major surge of COVID-19 cases in the United States. As U.S. Americans began leaving their houses again and the U.S. approaches a semblance of a “post-pandemic” era, many LGBTQ+ social media users, particularly TikTok users, have mentioned the influence social media had on understanding their queer identity. This study seeks to contribute to a larger field of research into how social media is affecting identity development in adolescents and young adults. This study employs an anonymous online survey to ask undergraduate students at the University …

Espacio, Edgar Perez Peña, Edgar Perez Peña

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Edgar Perez Peña (He, Him, His) is a Queer, Chicanx contemporary figurative painter, who lives and works in the Los Angeles County. A native of Los Angeles, California, his paintings, and assemblages are a strong combination of process, materials, and content that displays his fascination on how physical/psychological space (from where he resides), reflects on the Queer Brown body and its comfort/discomfort in relation to public and private space.

Peña looks at his artistic practice as an opportunity to explore the human condition from the Queer and Brown perspective as well the beginning of healing through the meditative process of …

Stories Of A Queer Femme, Parker Jones

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

“Stories of a Queer Femme” is a collection of poems about my experience being queer and non-binary while still presenting very feminine. The poems explore growing up, experiencing love, and accepting my life while outside of the gender binary. This collections reveals the course theme of hidden histories: We have always been here. We will always be here. Our lives and our stories matter.

Ga(Y)Zing Backward: Queer Desire In Ovid, Shakespeare, And Scaimma, Falynn Blayre Brickler

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As Ovidian myth is a central influence on queer stories throughout time, I am interested in how the female/sapphic gaze impacts the retellings of these narratives. In this thesis, I analyze the action of the gaze as an expression of desire and discuss its multiple meanings in both text and performance. Through tracing the gaze within the queer/sapphic narratives of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I show that the gaze is an intersecting act through which non-normative desire is conveyed. In constructing the gaze as an ephemeral action of queer desire in practice, I …