Gender and Sexuality Commons^™

Productive Paddles And Productive Power: An Exploration Of Transgender Individuals' Negotiation Of Identity Through Bdsm Practices, Riley Zahn

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Productive Paddles and Productive Power: An Exploration of Transgender Individuals' Negotiation of Identity through BDSM Practices is a thesis submitted in fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in Communication Studies from Minnesota State University, Mankato in April of 2018. It explores the ways in which transgender individuals negotiate their identities through BDSM practices. To collect data, eight semi-structured, qualitative interviews were conducted revealing four key themes: BDSM as identity negotiation, BDSM as power enactment, embodied confirmation, and BDSM as trauma survivorship. The study concludes with a discussion of the implications, limitations and future avenues of …

Motivations, Expectations And Experiences Of Genital Piercings In The Transgender Community: An Exploratory Study, Haley Peterson

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Purpose. Motivations and experiences of people who have body modifications has been studied over the past several decades. However, the majority of these studies may include, but do not exclusively, study the motivations and experiences of genital piercings in the transgender community. This study uses a qualitative design to explore the motivations, expectations, and experiences of getting a genital piercing within the transgender community, as well as how genital piercings relate to transgender identities. Methods. Participants were required to be at least 18, have a genital piercing, and identify as transgender. Recruitment was conducted through Facebook and a professional piercer. …

A Profile Of Policy Discussions Regarding Gender-Inclusive Housing Amongst Four-Year Public Institutions In The Midwest: A Qualitative Approach, Alexis Hill

Masters Theses

This study utilized a qualitative approach to analyze gender-inclusive policies amongst four-year public institutions in the Midwest. This study focused primarily on residence life administrators, who are responsible for the creation and implementation of such policies on their campuses. 40 institutions completed a survey inquiring about their policies or practices, and four institutions were interviewed as a follow-up. Several themes emerged from the study, which included: 1) even if an institution did not have a policy, they more than likely have a practice; 2) change in trends are inevitable and professionals must be willing to change with them; and 3) …

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 …

Queer People Navigating Experiences With Health Care Providers And Contraception, Dana Lavergne

Master's Theses

Contemporary views of contraception have intrinsically linked birth control to heterosexual sex and pregnancy prevention. As such, contraception is culturally understood to be exclusively for heterosexual women. Despite this, the little work that has been done on queer people1 and contraception use demonstrates they are also accessing birth control (Chrisler, Gorman, Manion, Murgo, Adams-Clark, Newton and McGrath 2015). This schism between the cultural understanding of contraception as a manifestation of heterosexual womanhood and the everyday use of contraception by both queer and heterosexual people takes root in the medical system. Based in heteronormative ideologies, the medical system fails to take …

Inclusive Work Practices: Turnover Intentions Among Lgbt Employees Of The U.S. Federal Government, Meghna Sabharwal, Helisse Levine, Maria J. D’Agostino, Tiffany Nguyen

Publications and Research

The federal government lags behind in progressive civil rights policies in regard to universal workplace antidiscrimination laws for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans. The slow progress matters to inclusionary workplace practices and the theory and practice of public administration generally, as recognition of LGBT rights and protection are constitutive of representative bureaucracy and promoting social equity. This study examines the turnover intention rates of self-identified LGBT employees in the U.S. federal government. Using the Office of Personnel Management’s inclusion quotient (IQ), and 2015 Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey (FEVS), we identify links in the relationships between workplace inclusion and …

Immigrating While Trans: The Disproportionate Impact Of The Prostitution Ground Of Inadmissibility And Other Provisions Of The Immigration And Nationality Act On Transgender Women, Luis Medina

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Intersexion, Cynthia Davis

English Theses & Dissertations

A combination of memoir, reportage, and opinion writing, Intersexion explores the realities of growing up intersex while also examining the conservative mindset that caused the narrator—a happily married suburban mother—to lose a tenure-track position at a Christian university for being unwilling to label Danny’s intersex condition as “repugnant” and “offensive to God.”

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 Analysis Of The Attitudes Of Undergraduate Theology Majors Towards Members Of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, And Transgender Community, Jephet Williams

Master's Theses

Problem and Purpose

Research has identified students’ attitudes towards the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community as being determined partly by the students’ understanding of gender identity, and partly by a further mixture of variables that include religiosity, gender, and ethnicity. Most of this previous research has been undertaken in either secular or non-Adventist settings. This present study examines attitudes of undergraduate theology majors at two Adventist universities in North America and the Caribbean.

Method

A Likert Scale was constructed consisting of eight questions geared to elicit attitudes across a number of areas. Sixty-three students completed the questionnaire. Participating students …

Bye Bye Binary: Exploring Non-Binary Youths' Experiences Of Mental Health, Discrimination, And Community Belongingness, Ellis Furman

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In recent years, there has been an increase in research focusing on the impacts of social exclusion and discrimination on the mental health of transgender populations. Despite this, few studies have focused on the experiences of gender non-conforming, or “non-binary” individuals. This community-based participatory research (CBPR) study (N = 10) used the arts-informed method of body mapping, individual interviews, and group discussions to examine non-binary young peoples’ experiences of discrimination in relation to mental health. Participants consisted young people (ages 16-25) living in Waterloo, Ontario. A visual analysis, thematic analysis, and member-checking session were employed to analyze collected data. …

Student Attitudes Toward The Transgender Community Following Restroom Reassignment, Kelly L. Duggins

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The problem of this study was to investigate the effect recent changes to gender specific restrooms had on students’ attitudes toward the transgender community at a public research university in the southeastern United States. To determine if further education and/or inclusion actions should be implemented by university communities, an invitation to complete an electronic survey was sent by email to students at Old Dominion University’s main campus in Norfolk, VA. Participants responded to seventeen statements, each designed to collect data relating to one of the four research objectives of this study. The findings of this study may be used to …

Understanding Transgender Community: Locating Support And Resiliency Using The Minority Stress Model, Rosalind D. Kichler

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The minority stress model (Meyer 2003) predicts stigmatized minorities, like transgender persons, suffer worse mental health due to exposure to discrimination. However support from similarly stigmatized others can ameliorate the effect of discrimination stress. Although gender and sexual minorities are often assumed to have access to and support from “the” LGBTQ community or “the” transgender community, many may not understand themselves as members of this community nor feel supported by it. Therefore it is essential to interrogate what community means to LGBTQ persons, particularly to transgender people for whom a paucity of literature exists. Based on in-depth interviews with 10 …

Transgressing Gender Normativity Through Gender Identity Development: Exploring Transgender, Non-Conforming, And Non-Binary Identities Of College Students, Enrique Tejada Iii

Department of Educational Administration: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study situates current gender social constructions as harmful, inhibitive, and problematic, especially for those that transgress gender boundaries and do not align with their gender assigned at birth. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to critically challenge and deconstruct the social construct of gender and its norms both within and outside of a college campus. This study works to achieve this purpose and answer research questions through careful analysis of the different gender journeys of three separate gender-diverse individuals. These participants’ stories are shared in a case-study format to recognize how each individual uniquely and personally formed their …

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 …

Fearless Friday: Kaiden Krueger, Christina L. Bassler

SURGE

In this week’s Fearless Friday, we would like to spotlight Kaiden Krueger ’16!

Gettysburg College has been Kaiden’s home for the last few years. Kaiden, now a senior, knew from the start that his time at college would be transformative. He decided he was officially going to come out as a man and live the life he knew was right for him. [excerpt]

The Social Costs Of Gender Nonconformity For Transgender Adults: Implications For Discrimination And Health, Lisa R. Miller, Eric Anthony Grollman

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Research suggests that transgender people face high levels of discrimination in society, which may contribute to their disproportionate risk for poor health. However, little is known about whether gender nonconformity, as a visible marker of one’s stigmatized status as a transgender individual, heightens trans people’s experiences with discrimination and, in turn, their health. Using data from the largest survey of transgender adults in the United States, the National Transgender Discrimination Survey (N = 4,115), we examine the associations among gender nonconformity, transphobic discrimination, and health-harming behaviors (i.e., attempted suicide, drug/alcohol abuse, and smoking). The results suggest that gender nonconforming trans …

Performing Genders: A Study Of Gender Fluidity, Nicholas Jkmk Coney

Senior Theses

The subjective quality of identity and the relativistic nature of gender bemuse and attract social scientists. In this study I combine both topics by examining gender fluidity – an inconsistent gender identity – within the framework of Western ontology. Within my informants’ narratives I identify what I term feelings of gender as feelings that influence how people perceive and interact with their bodies. Gender fluidity entails a constant yet inconsistent fluctuation of those feelings. Furthermore, I found other important elements that may have influenced my informants' understanding of their gender identities and bodies: upbringing, previous relationships and interactions, communities, and …

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 …

Safe Zone: 101 Training Manual, Todd K. Herriott, Casey M. Halcro

Office of Diversity and Equity

Goals of the DUOC Safe Zone Program:

• To increase the overall campus community’s understanding and awareness of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues

• To provide a greater sense of safety for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender student community

• To offer information to straight allies in positions where they may be in contact with lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people (as classmates, roommates, friends, residents, students, staff, faculty, etc.)

• To act as a resource of information regarding homophobia, heterosexism, transphobia and LGBTQ issues on the DUOC campus.

Assessing Transgender Attitudes Toward Health Care: Can These Attitudes Help Predict Health Outcomes?, Sara M. Shane

PCOM Psychology Dissertations

Research has identified the fact that race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, education level, geographic location, help seeking behaviors, and experiences of discrimination are associated with health outcomes. In addition, attitudes towards providers can also help determine health outcomes. The transgender community experiences barriers to health care services and therefore their overall health is affected. There is not a sufficient amount of literature that assesses, using standardized measure, the attitudes of the transgender community and their health. The present study will assess the attitudes of the transgender community toward health care (mental and medical health) and, using standardized measures, …

Original Plumbing: Performing Gender Variance Through Relational Self-Determination, Raechel Tiffe

Communication and Media Faculty Publications

In 2009, Amos Mac and Rocco Kayiatos, two transgender men, created Original Plumbing (OP) magazine, in an effort to “[document] diversity within trans male lifestyles through photographic portraits, essays, personal narratives and interviews.” In this essay, I argue that OP becomes a platform from which to understand the relational performance of transmale life. The magazine provides a foundation for transmen to take ownership of self-determination by constructing identity through a non-heteronormative framework, made possible through the queer worldmaking practices of an exclusively FTM (female- to-male) space. Throughout this essay, I critique what the magazine elects to value as “diversity,” tackling …

Growing Up Trans: Socialization And The Gender Binary [Abstract], Michelle Dietert, Dianne Dentice

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Examining Research Issues Of Power And Privilege Within A Gender-Marginalized Community, Stacee L. Reicherzer, Sherece Shavel, Jason Patton

Journal of Social, Behavioral, and Health Sciences

This research practice article presents the ethical dilemmas and decision-making of a White transgender researcher (Author A), who conducted a qualitative case study of resiliency among three transsexual women of Mexican origin who worked as entertainers in south and central Texas. The study, conducted within a community in which both the researcher and participants were a part and in which they had all experienced varying degrees of marginalization, presented a number of unique characteristics from the onset that became more embedded as the study developed and concluded. In the absence of a guiding body of literature from her own profession, …

Forgotten Victims: A Qualitative Study Of Familial And Intimate Partner Abuse Of Male-To-Female Transgender Individuals In Central Kentucky, Allison Brooke Willingham

Online Theses and Dissertations

Previous research on intimate partner and familial abuse has focused on easily identifiable social institutions, such as "homosexual couple" or "mother/daughter." However, transgender individuals do not always fit into the binary social definitions ascribed to family relationships. Little research has provided insight into cycles of familial and intimate partner verbal or physical abuse in the lives of transgender individuals. The efforts that have been made have shocking results and demonstrate a need for further and more in-depth research. The primary purpose of this research is to gain a rich understanding of the social dynamics affecting the lives of transgender individuals …

Intimate Allies: Identity, Community, And Everyday Activism Among Cisgender People With Trans-Identified Partners, Avery Brooks Tompkins

Sociology - Dissertations

This dissertation blends traditional ethnographic data from interviews and observations with digital ethnographic data from blogs and YouTube videos to present stories of identity, community, and activist-oriented experiences from white cisgender women who are partnered with trans-identified people on the FTM spectrum. The project addresses the following broad questions: How does being the cisgender partner of a trans person inform complexities around the ability to articulate sexual identity? How are cisgender partners finding community and organizing themselves into new forms of community when they often lack language with which to describe their relationships? In what ways are cisgender people allies …

Uncovering Medical And Mental Health Professionals' Decision-Making In The Treatment Of Trans-Variant Patients, Jodie M. Dewey

Dissertations

This project is a study of medical and mental health professionals who treat trans-variant patients. Using in-depth interviews, I show how providers describe the process by which they make decisions with patients who desire, through formal means, to hormonally and/or surgically transition from one gender to the other. This work uncovers the ways professionals make decisions in the absence or limitation of formal knowledge while simulaneously attemping to ground their work in this same knoweldge to obtain respect and legitimacy. Professionals must also acknowledge that they relinquesh some power to patients to make decisions which involve high risk for them. …

Denying Queer Realities: Scripting The Normative Homo., Porscha Rae Yount

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Queer theorists and sociologists have argued that the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement further marginalizes some queer individuals in the pursuit of legitimacy from the dominant heterosexist culture. This study uses qualitative content analysis to examine the Web sites of four social movement organizations that claim to work for the LGBT community (Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal Defense Fund, National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force). In this thesis, I argue that these organizations participate in scripting the normative homo ideal while distancing themselves from problematic identities that challenge normative, natural frameworks …

Prostitution, Hustling, And Sex Work Law And Policy, Polly Thistlethwaite

Publications and Research

Prostitution, hustling, and sex work are forms of labor, not erotic preferences or identities as are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, but sex workers and queers alike are stigmatized and criminalized for consensual sexual activity. The state – federal, state, and local law enforcement – routinely interferes with certain types of sexual activity. Enforcement of laws regulating sex behavior often varies given the discretion of local police. In her 1989 essay “Thinking Sex,” Gayle Rubin positions sex-for-money, prostitution, with pornography, promiscuous sex, pornography, and homosexual sex in the low status “outer limits” of the contemporary American sex hierarchy; while heterosexual, …

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.