This report summarizes the process of developing, writing, directing, and editing SKUNK, a short narrative film. The film was produced as my graduate thesis film in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin in partial fulfillment of a Master of Fine Arts in Film Production. This report contextualizes the making of SKUNK, within my background as a youth worker, interest in community-based narratives, and development as an artist and filmmaker. / text

This study examines the coming out process for transgendered individuals using the framework of Austin's speech act: the locutionary force, the illocutionary force, and the perlocutionary force. A grounded theory analysis of 43 letters in two different Internet databases revealed similarities and differences in the coming out process for transgendered individuals, compared to what we know about the process for gay and lesbian people. Similarities were found in all three acts: labels and scripts are used in the locutionary act; confession, education, affirmation and remorse are used as framing strategies in the illocutionary act; and rejection and acknowledgement are addressed in the perlocutionary act. Unique aspects of the coming out process for transgendered individuals include the importance of and reliance on labels in the locutionary act, education in the illocutionary act, and the visualization and cooperation of others in the perlocutionary act. These findings have a number of important practical and theoretical implications for interpersonal relationships and scholarship. / Department of Communication Studies

No description available.

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.

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2008.

Thesis (M.S.)--Virginia Commonwealth University, 2003. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Mar. 27, 2005). Includes bibliographical reference (p. 92-96).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toledo, 2004. / Typescript. "A dissertation [submitted] as partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Doctor of Philosophy degree in Higher Education." Bibliography: leaves 188-197.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Deborah Taub; submitted to the Dept. of Teacher Education and Higher Education. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jun. 7, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-109).

Thesis (M.A.)--Miami University, Dept. of Communication, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF document. Includes bibliographical references (p. 43-45).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toledo, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 188-197).