As many theorists have pointed out, queer history is often erased within traditional, heteronormative historiography. Consequently, historians cannot recount the gay and lesbian past by conventional techniques of evidence and documentation. Instead they recuperate and reinvent queer history using strategies normally associated with the writing of fiction. This thesis examines three works of late twentieth century lesbian historical fiction that rewrite the past in order to render visible queer intimacy, sexuality, and desire. Jeanette Winterson's The Passion (1987), Sarah Waters' Tipping the Velvet (1998), and Helen Humphreys' Leaving Earth (1997) employ spectacularly visible lesbian heroines who symbolically reverse lesbian invisibility in mainstream historical narratives by displaying themselves as public figures or stage performers. There are ongoing debates in contemporary queer theory and historiography about the extent to which it is politically useful to privilege highly visible individuals when recovering the marginalized gay and lesbian past. Winterson's, Waters', and Humphreys' novels enact this debate, and exemplify a trend in contemporary lesbian historical fiction in which lesbian heroines are empowered by their ability to control their own visibility and to ensure the perpetuation of their history.

The author explores the barriers faced by gays and lesbians in accessing relevant and non-biased counselling services. The investigation utilizes a qualitative research design that borrows procedures from a grounded theory model for research. The first goal of this study is to review the ways in which helping professionals have historically responded to homosexuality. Current obstacles to participation in counselling are then investigated through interviews with ten lesbians and gays. Respondents identify barriers to service as including concern about interventions aimed at reorientation, the client's comfort level with their own sexual identity and heterosexist bias within the therapeutic approach. Given the sense of alienation individuals describe in relation to conventional helping systems, the author reflects on the variety of alternatives to counselling that lesbians and gays may employ in addressing problems. As most participants report having had some form of contact with counselling practitioners, the researcher examines how clients determine comfort within a therapeutic setting. Assessments about suitability of service inform decisions related to 'coming out' to the helper and proceeding or terminating with participation in counselling. The study concludes with a series of recommendations about the development of a more accessible approach to clinical service. The respondents advise that practitioners commit themselves to a process of reeducation that entails challenging internalized bias and expanding their knowledge base with regard to gay and lesbian issues. It is suggested that accessibility is enhanced through the counsellor's efforts to outline agency confidentiality policies; adopt inclusive language; ensure the presence of physical indicators of a lesbian and gay clientele; and, the promotion of a visible profile within the sexual minority communities. The author argues that counselling professionals have a responsibility to advocate for the rights of those citizens who belong to the gay and lesbian minorities.

The main aim of the present study is to undertake an examination of the discourses regarding lesbianism as produced by a group of black South African lesbians.

No description available.

Lesbian-identified women are choosing to become parents in increasing numbers. This 'lesbian baby boom' has implications for midwives and their practice. The purpose of this study was to gain insight and understanding of planned pregnancy from a lesbian perspective, in order to facilitate the provision of appropriate care for lesbian mothers and their families.The methodology used for the study was radical hermeneutics informed by lesbian feminism and queer poststructuralism. Purposive sampling identified ten lesbian-identified mothers and conversational interviews with the participants yielded rich data about the phenomenon of inquiry. Thematic analysis of the data was foregrounded by a discussion of the socio-political context.A number of findings emerged from the study. Careful pre-conceptual planning reflected a highly responsible approach to parenting. The women's partners felt uncertain about their parenting role and experienced a lack of acknowledgement by the wider community. Despite legal access to assisted fertility, the participants usually sought an involved father for their child. Lesbian mothers expressed a preference for a lesbian midwife and all experienced homophobic attitudes from healthcare professionals. Queer families included mothers and their partners, fathers and their partners, children, families-of-origin, and close friends.Recommendations from the study include the provision of safe and supportive workplaces for lesbian-identified midwives, the use of inclusive language such as partner and parent, acknowledgement of the woman's partner as a co-parent, midwifery resources featuring same-sex parents and midwifery education covering diverse family forms.

The contemporary field �lesbian health� was shaped by a range of social and political changes in the last third of the twentieth century, as well as by discourses originating in the historical regulation of lesbianism. In discourse, lesbians have been produced as invisible, passive victims of heterosexist and potentially homophobic health-care providers. This project sought to understand how lesbians produce and manage their own health, and their interactions with doctors and other health-care providers. The research questions asked how discourses about lesbianism and the construction of the lesbian health field influence the ways in which lesbians construct and manage their own health, and how lesbians position themselves as they negotiate clinical spaces. Using semi-structured interviews, 19 women, aged between 22 and 64 years, who identified as lesbian, gay, same-sex-attracted and queer were interviewed. Interview data were analysed using discourse and content analysis. When they engaged with the health-care system, some participants produced their lesbianism as a social matter of no relevance to health; while for others their lesbianism was central to their health. An analysis of power relations revealed the complexity of ways the participants used agency to speak or remain silent about their sexual orientation. This was motivated by complex embodied understandings about the potential for emotional, physical or ontological harm involved in coming out in clinical spaces. Some chose to remain silent all, or some of the time, others to assertively identify themselves as lesbian. This depended on a range of contemporaneous factors including safety concerns, past experience and personal judgement. Whether to come out or not in the medical encounter was not necessarily a conscious decision, but was shaped by the individual�s embodied �sense for the game�. While the health-care system had frequently provided less than optimum care, these women were not passive, but used agency to decide whether or not their sexual orientation was relevant to the medical encounter.

No description available.

Lesbian language can be defined as a codified (Queen 1997) and/or an indexible and discursive body of knowledge (Morrish and Sauntson 2007). A large proportion of research has been conducted on the heterosexual-homosexual binary and the construction of the social relations that constitute normalcy and its discursive opposite, abnormalcy, and the various codifications that exemplify these locations. The objective of this present research is to locate the social construction of inclusion within lesbian language using the empirical research technique of memory work (Haug 1987). The data were obtained from a longitudinal group process involving six respondents identifying as lesbian. The results consist of the analysis of discursive patterns produced by the group using written narratives and discussions ensuing from the reading of the narratives. Memory work is the methodology used to obtain the data and is supported by a broad theoretical framework comprising ethnographic sociolinguistics (Berger and Luckmann 1966; Bourdieu 1980; Rampton et al 2006), critical discourse analysis (Halliday 1994), queer theory (Butler 1990-1997) as well as the newly evolving post-queer theories (Seidman 1997; McLaughlin 2003). My focus is on the richer patterns of discursive content that denote the production of textual lesbian-specific inclusion. The results were contextualised as negotiations of inclusion through the process of self-construction within the dichotomous social locations constituting society, specifically those that surround the concept of reality fantasy - and the accumulations of knowledge realised as inclusiveness. Through these three discrete modes of discursive and cultural expression as bodies of research, the memory work group participants demonstrated their discursive and cultural self construction and subsequent inclusion in lesbian language. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1988. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-05, Section: B, page: 1937. Chairperson: Allen Calvin.

Dissertation (Ph.D.) -- The Institute for Clinical Social Work, 1993. / A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Institute of Clinical Social Work in partial fulfillment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.