Gender and Sexuality Commons^™

Where Does Sexual Orientation Come From? Essentialism, Social Constructivism, And The Limits Of Existing Epigenetic Research, Matt Klepfer

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

No abstract provided.

Medicating Gender, Emma Hahn

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

No abstract provided.

The Silent Victims: Hiv In The Deaf Community, Hali Kohls

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

No abstract provided.

The Complex Intersections Of Being A Latina Immigrant Survivor: How Multiple Systems Of Oppression Enable Intimate Partner Violence, Zulema Aleman

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

The realm of intimate partner violence education, prevention and awareness is one that is currently growing. Even though there are improvements happening, there are communities being left out of both the movement and body of research. This paper aims at connecting the stories of undocumented Latinas who are survivors of intimate partner violence in the central coast of California with the current body of research on immigrant survivors. In doing so, it seeks to explore the areas where the body of research matches the stories of these women in the central coast of California and where there is a lack …

Revolutionizing Space: A Case Study On Accessibility And Comfort, Jennifer Macmartin

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Influenced by a dynamic and revolutionary crip theory, this piece seeks to operationalize the combination of crip theory/disability studies and intersectional feminist praxis. Dis/ability is consistently disregarded as a central social identity, as the world has been literally built and maintained by (temporarily) able-bodied people with the intent to accommodate able-bodied people’s needs and comfort. DeafSpace, a revolutionary project prioritizing deaf people’s needs and comfort, serves as a case study for potential revolutionary architectural projects that focus on dis/ability accommodation, accessibility, and comfort. However, in seeking additional solutions to this issue, we must be conscious of tokenizing the experiences of …

Enriching The Story: Asexuality And Aromanticism In Literature, Adrienne Whisman

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This paper examines the role of asexual and aromantic coding within Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights and Virginia Woolf’s novel To the Lighthouse. Both books utilize relationships and sexuality in order to portray arguments within the book. Brontë portrays Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship as transcending physicality, both as a way to portray them as soulmates but also to foreshadow events. Woolf utilizes Lily’s disinterest in sex and marriage as a way to contrast her to other women in the novel. Both characterizations can be read as asexual, or in Lily’s case also aromantic. This queer reading allows insight into the …

Ambiguous Identities: Gesturing Towards An Intersectional Conception Of Freedom, Shaun Soman

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Writing in The Ethics of Ambiguity (1948), existential philosopher and feminist theorist Simone de Beauvoir declared that each individual’s freedom depends upon that of others. This claim was meant to motivate others to not remain complicit in the oppression of others; however, when considering the xenophobic rhetoric within Western feminists’ rhetoric about “liberating” Muslim women, one realizes that this demand warrants further scrutiny. In this paper, I apply Alia Al-Saji’s work on Western feminists’ approaches to liberating “other” women to de Beauvoir’s “we” in order to strengthen this latter concept. Overall, my aim with this work is to demonstrate that …

Misrepresentation Of Women Of Color In Western Media, Nicole C. Schutte

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This paper delves into the misrepresentation of women of color in western media. From the perspective of bell hooks (1992), the commodification of the Other serves sinister societal “needs” in order to uphold the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Patricia Hill Collins (2000) and Judith Williamson (1986) interpret this as keeping the western racial hierarchy, gender dichotomy, and capitalist markets intact. A vast majority of people believe that any form of representation in the media is a sense of inclusion when in fact misrepresentation is counterproductive and problematic. Catherine A. Lutz and Jane L. Collins (1993) would agree that inaccurate portrayals …

Exploiting Non-Western Women In Media Representations, Gabrielle Miller

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Media representations and advertisements serve as visual mediums through which cultural values are projected and reinforced. Western capitalism relies on Eurocentric media representations that exploit perceived differences of non-white and non-western cultures to sell western products. This paper analyzes recent advertisements from Kellogg’s and Suit Supply as examples of media representations that employ Eurocentric perspectives of non-western cultures to uphold white masculinist and colonial power structures. Therefore, I suggest that the non- western cultures in the Kellogg’s and Suit Supply advertisements exist within a western capitalist vacuum. This way of consuming and representing serves to reinforce western ways of knowing …

Standing Under A Sign To Which One Does Not Belong: Desire And (Dis)Identification In Catherine Opie’S Self-Portrait Series, Jenna June

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This paper will take a closer look at Catherine Opie’s Self-Portrait series. Spanning a decade, from 1993 to 2004, each self-portrait is both reflective of an important time in Opie’s life, and are emblematic of a particular period in the LGBTQ movement. Traditional interpretations of these images have read them as independent of one another. When read together however, they present a subtle yet powerful statement on identity and desire. Using José Muñoz’ disidentification theory as a critical lens, I plan to unpack these images and offer new insights that will bring them in line with contemporary queer theory. While …

Creative Submission: I Return To The Place I Ran From, Ian Gillespie

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

No abstract provided.

Lgbtq People Of Color And Digital Spaces Of Empowerment, Eden Bonjo

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

In recent history, the internet has been considered a place where disembodied users can escape the limitations of their corporeal bodies. But in the contemporary moment, the digital and the physical worlds have become mutually constitutive. What happens when a politics of race, sexuality, and gender is centered in an analysis of digital activity? LGBTQ people of color use strategies to navigate marginalizing social dynamics of power both offline and online. This negotiation is important because of how integral the internet has become to everyday life. In the age of social media, cultural production has become the business of the …

La Negra Tiene Tumbao: Multimodal Resistance Strategies Of Afro-Latinxs And Other Queer Constructions, Kassandra Colón Cisneros

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

The importance of sound in Afro- diasporic communities hearkens back to the slave cry on the plantation field, a sound that showed there is social life within social death. These survival and resistance strategies still exist today, and are not limited to music; they can also be traced through aesthetics, as well as routes and history that connect Afro-Latinxs to the diaspora. The deployment of diasporic resistance through what Juan Flores calls “baggage,” show the possibility and radical potential for survival in white spaces. Recognizing the necessity to dismantle white heteronormative spaces, my research will analyze how Afro-Latinxs—especially those who …

A Pre-Medical Student’S Reconciliation Of Feminist Narratives Regarding Women’S Health: A Consideration Of Perspectives On Childbirth In The U.S., Laura Clayton

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Many feminists argue that one major negative aspect of reproductive healthcare in the U.S. is the common over-medicalization of women during childbirth, including potentially unnecessary procedures such as cesarean-section and episiotomy. As a solution, they advocate for increased involvement of midwives in childbirth practices, as midwives allow women to give birth at home with minimal medical intervention. This paper analyzes the benefits of midwifery as well as the current increased risk associated with homebirth in the U.S. Additionally, it questions the damaging stigma associated with assumptions of cesarean-section as a suboptimal outcome. A false dichotomy has developed in our culture …

Shame And The Struggle Of Sexual Identity, Brooke English

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

This paper examines the development and use of language in minority communities within the queer community from the beginning of the 20th century through today. The pre-Stonewall era is explored through two literary works, Quentin Crisp’s The Naked Civil Servant (1997/1968) and Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness (1990/1928), and the post- Stonewall era looks at two 21st century groups, the undocuqueer movement and the group of queer people who use Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP), otherwise known as Truvada Whores. Drawing on analysis of the modern groups found in Hinda Seif’s Coming out of the Shadows and undocuqueer and Tim Dean’s …

Creative Submission: For The Androgynous, Elias Fulmer

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

No abstract provided.

Gender & Sexuality Services Newsletter, September 2023, University Of Northern Iowa. Gender & Sexuality Services.

Gender & Sexuality Services Newsletter

In This Issue:

--- Meet the Staff
--- Safe Zone Ally
--- LGBTea Time
--- Harvest Conference
--- 24/7 Mental Health& Wellbeing Support
--- Upcoming Events

Evocative Visualization Of Void And Fluidity, Tomiko Karino

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the last few years alone, we have seen a significant increase in a demand for inclusion and diversity in every sector in our society. While there are numerous data visualization projects that point out and raise concerns about the lack of diversity, they often merely illustrate the disparity. By using the permanent collection data of the Museum of Modern Art, this capstone project explores ways to creatively visualize gender disparity among the artists in the museum’s collection and questions what makes evocative visualizations that make an impression on the audience. It examines how to create visualizations that not only …

A Blackgirl Artivisionary Mosaic: Art-Based Participatory Refusals To School Punishment, Tyese A. Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The study participants were co-research partners and engaged in a Project Based Learning six-week summer project in an urban northeastern metropolis community-based non-profit where they received stipends for participation. This dissertation explored how Blackgirls (aged 14 -21) express their experiences with disparate school punishment through community-based participatory artmaking. We called the photos, poems, collages, sculptures, storyboards, digital art, visual art, songs, spoken word, and videos Artivisions (art I vision). In the Jam Sessions, a subset of the partners we called curators discussed the pieces, shared their experiences, and offered insight into Blackgirls’ responses, coping skills, and decision-making regarding school punishment. …

"Sissy That Walk”: The Queer Kinaesthetics Of Mobility-Through-Difference, Orlando Woods

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This article advances the idea of ‘queer kinaesthetics’ to show how moving through difference can enable disaggregated individuals to realize a new sense of becoming. Doing so involves rejecting the categories of identity that lead to disaggregation in the first place, and reorienting the self by developing a distinctly and radically (dis) embodied subject position. I illustrate these ideas by exploring the queer kinaesthetics of drag. Drag is most commonly associated with queer, cisgender males embodying otherness in order to come to terms with the disaggregation that many experience in heteronormative society, and through the heterological norms of representation. By …