z & s charts the story of Sophreen and Zehra, ostensibly two girls in love, who experience transnational migration together. Through the lens of their relationship, I explore themes of embodiment, survival, complicity, cultural erasure, and the complexity of abuse and trauma for multiply marginalized people. I use poems and visual art to portray the colliding worlds of feminized people as they navigate madness, psychosis, disability, and illness in the frame of desire.

As the Honduran presidential election of 2017 approaches, the world of 17-year-old Libertad Morazán gets louder and faster. Protests roar in every corner of Tegucigalpa. Mamí and Abuela work longer hours. Maynor, Libertad's older brother, sneaks out more than ever, carrying the dangerous secrets of a student-led movement against the government. The world only seems to slow down around Camila, Libertad's long-time friend who lately seems to hold Libi's hand and eyes two seconds too long. Libi and Cami's friendship always toed the line of something more— or did, at least, before Libertad's phone stopped working and their communication got cut to school-hours only. Libi can't help but think this is part of why Camila starts officially dating Pablo, the soccer team captain. If this isn't enough reason to desperately need her phone back, Libertad has just discovered the power of social media to speak against the conditions that keep her family— her country— in a permanent state of exhaustion and mourning. Using an anonymous Instagram account, Libertad posts short but charged poems denouncing the injustice local news outlets ignore. She finds an audience that resonates with her, but people who speak out in Honduras are rarely able to do so for long. Libertad knows this. Getting her phone back comes with a price, as both her political poetry and secret romance risk being exposed to Mamí and Abuela—the women who have sacrificed everything to raised her. The pillars of her life. In the midst of civil unrest, Libertad learns of the power and heartbreak in queerness, family, and activism. / Master of Fine Arts / Libertad is a young-adult novel.

Tras la Revolución Industrial la máquina fue adoptada como epicentro de las prácticas artísticas del siglo XX. Esta fusión con lo popular creó la ecuación arte = vida y, con ello, lo somático se transformó en una manera de reflexionar sobre las repercusiones que la técnica infligía en el cuerpo así como su papel en la sociedad. La Segunda Guerra Mundial silenció este capítulo hasta que ciertos sectores intelectuales se negaron a aceptar un contenido cultural desideologizado. A finales de la década de 1950 se reemprendió la acción corporal en la práctica artística como un lenguaje necesario para atacar la ideología burguesa. Llegamos al año 1968, fecha en la que se despertó la conciencia social contra el totalitarismo y en la que el cuerpo recuperó su categoría. La performance se transformó en el lenguaje apropiado para representar los nuevos valores. Poco a poco se consolidaba un concepto de arte sociológico que defendía la integración del cuerpo en el proceso creativo surgiendo así el Body Art. Sin embargo, algunos y algunas artistas adoptaron elementos configuradores de la corporeidad tales como vestidos, complementos y objetos de diversa naturaleza. Aquel interés que la vanguardia mostró por la tecnología se había transformado en otra de distinta naturaleza que cumplía las mismas funciones que la máquina adquirió a principios de siglo XX: la de "extensión corporal". / Albero Teijeiro, A. (2010). Extensiones corporales en el contexto del Body Art. Revolución del deseo [Tesis doctoral]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/8496

This dissertation is an analysis and critical framing of my recent compositional work, magnolias in bloom (2022) and Weavings (2023), both of which utilize ephemerality as a sonic and physical property to illustrate the content and narrative of the compositions. I give an overview of the last five years of installations, performances, and compositions and highlight ideas of grief, identity, and queerness within my recent work. I investigate how my composition magnolias in bloom uses the ephemeral nature of unfired clay and amplifies the sound it makes when immersed in water as a metaphor for loss and grief. I also look at how the unstable nature of analog modular synthesis, nonlinear modulation, and timbral fluidity contribute to themes of queer theory and identity politics. Through these works, ephemera is left behind in the form of clay and patch cables. At the end of each chapter I examine works that have both influenced and informed my practice and throughout the dissertation, I highlight the writings of José Esteban Muñoz, Pauline Oliveros, and bell hooks to relate their work to my own practice. My analysis of magnolias in bloom and Weavings through a lens of ephemerality draws a connecting thread between the two vastly different compositions.

A King Dyed Pink is Doomed to Die is a poetry collection concerned with cruelties waged against queer people—how even the most seemingly innocuous habits of cishet society proliferate a vast catalog of ongoing violence, from microaggressions to murder. Disrupting the accompanying complicity of silence (mine and others') involves not only invoking a propulsive "I" lyric (at once playful and elegiac, confessional and enraged, horny and ashamed) but also creating an unabashed mess of formal modes (theater, journalism, surrealism, visuality, 21st century technology) that, unlike heteronormativity, refuses tidy categorization. Death haunts these poems, whether it be a pigeon fatally dyed pink for a gender reveal party or a queer brutally murdered in a small Virginia town months before I moved there. As I metabolize the grief, rage, and despair resulting from past and current injustices, I turn to tender futurity: in this violent world, how can we—queers and accomplices—still cultivate pleasure and love? / Master of Fine Arts / A King Dyed Pink is Doomed to Die is a poetry collection that reckons with violence waged against queer people. How do even the most seemingly innocuous hetero habits perpetuate cruelty, whether it be big or small? At once horny and rageful, silly and elegiac, these poems draw from theater, journalism, surrealism, visuality, modern technology, and other modes to disrupt a culture of binaries and tidy categorizations. The specter of death haunts this book as much the tragedy of two actual ones: a pigeon fatally dyed pink for a gender reveal party and a queer brutally murdered in Blacksburg, Virginia, months before I moved there. Even as I reckon with nasty realities, I invoke tenderness in my hopes for the future: in this violent world, how can we—queers and accomplices—cultivate pleasure and love?

El presente estudio tuvo como objetivo describir las creencias sobre diversidad sexual en un grupo de personas LGBTIQA+ de Lima Metropolitana y su impacto en la salud mental de este grupo. Teniendo en cuenta esto, se realizaron nueve entrevistas semiestructuradas a diferentes miembros de esta comunidad a partir de un enfoque fenomenológico. A través de sus experiencias, este estudio buscó comprender cómo se presentan estas creencias en la comunidad LGBTIQA+ y cómo influyen en el bienestar emocional de sus miembros. Los resultados se organizaron en dos temas principales: a) las creencias como obstáculo para la comprensión y aceptación de la diversidad sexual en la comunidad LGBTIQA+; y b) entre el bienestar y la contradicción: los efectos de las creencias tradicionales en la salud mental de la comunidad LGBTIQA+. A modo de resultado, el estudio reveló la presencia de creencias tradicionales sobre el sexo y género que representan un obstáculo para la comprensión y aceptación de ciertas características de la diversidad sexual en la comunidad señalada. La existencia de tales creencias afectan su salud mental y bienestar, puesto que limitarían la percepción de espacios seguros, resultando en un mayor riesgo de experimentar problemas de salud mental. Se espera que este estudio contribuya a una mayor comprensión de la comunidad LGBTIQA+ de Lima Metropolitana, así como al campo de la psicología, a fin de visibilizar las consecuencias de sostener este tipo de creencias en esta comunidad.

This project is a scholarly manifesto on unplaying games by (both figuratively and literally) burning them. Building from the work of trans feminist game and media scholars and designers, this dissertation asks: how can we play in the unplayable, that we might live in the unlivable? To contend with these questions, this dissertation explores "ludoarsony"—the practice of un-playing games—as a critical design philosophy and theorical approach to play. It analyzes self-immolating and self-destructing games that burn away paper, plastic, characters, and stories and gray market games that have been ‘burned' with legal dubiousness in order to show how trans play can be found in ending the (game)world. This project builds its case for ludoarsaony across three case studies, each attending a different play practice. In the first chapter, it explores self-immolating games as examples of un-ending play. By playing with fire, we can become doombringers that (un)make worlds and games alike. In the second chapter, it contends with emulation as un-recognizing play that troubles computational ontologies. By emulating games, we can explore de/compilation of software and cultural systems. Finally, it demonstrates how un-balancing play—and flipping tables—upheaves unspoken exclusionary rhetoric and ludic traditions. Ultimately, this dissertation seeks to claim the "unplayable" as a space of trans imaginary—at once speculative and material—that emerges from the ashes of ruptured ludic and computational systems. It serves as an introductory investigation into the playful possibilities of what lies beyond the horizon of the so-called unplayable.

El presente estudio analiza las posturas adoptadas por la Corte IDH en la sentencia del Caso Azul Rojas Marín y otra vs. Perú en la determinación de categorías jurídicas, así como en la aplicación de normas jurídicas convencionales sobre las cuales se erige el SIDH. El propósito es problematizar los efectos operativos de dichas posturas en el litigio de casos similares ante el SIDH, evidenciando inconsistencias con su propia jurisprudencia. Este trabajo ofrece comentarios y aportes destinados a fortalecer una línea jurisprudencial más coherente en la protección de los derechos de las personas LGBTIQ+. Nos valdremos de la metodología de investigación basada en la teoría analítica y el enfoque crítico propuestos por Olivier Corten para examinar tres problemas jurídicos. Estos son: 1) ¿El tribunal incumplió su obligación de examinar la excepción preliminar presentada por el Perú sobre el no agotamiento de los recursos internos, así como de aplicar las excepciones previstas en el artículo 46.2(a)(b) de la CADH para justificar el examen conjunto de dichas excepciones junto con el fondo de la controversia?, 2) ¿Existe una violación al deber de motivación de las resoluciones judiciales y al debido proceso en relación con la valoración de la prueba y el estándar de prueba aplicado en el contexto y las condiciones de la detención de Azul? y 3) ¿Es la reparación transformadora la opción más adecuada para contrarrestar la violencia institucional y la violencia por prejuicio experimentadas por Azul, considerando la determinación previa de la existencia de ambos tipos de violencia, así como la categorización del caso como tortura por discriminación?

Though South Asians are one of the largest and fastest growing immigrant groups in the United States (Rico, 2023; U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2020), their experiences are understudied and often only included within the larger umbrella of Asian and Asian American research (Sandil et al., 2015). Furthermore, there is a dearth of research on the experiences of Queer South Asians as well on the experiences of South Asian immigrants and those on non-immigrant visas in the United States. The present study attempts to address this gap by exploring the experiences of South Asian bisexual+ women living in the United States with regard to the impact of their experiences of discrimination and exclusion within LGBTQ+ and South Asian communities. Using Consensual Qualitative Research (CQR), the study analyzed data from 12 bisexual+ cisgender South Asian women living in the United States. The interview investigated their experiences of discrimination within South Asia as well as the LGBTQ+ community and the general public in the United States, examined their relationship with their identity and experiences of connectedness and exclusion within these communities, and explored their use of mental health services as well as their emotional responses and coping strategies to discriminatory experiences. The results revealed that experiences of discrimination, invalidation, and invisibilization affected participants’ wellbeing by contributing to increased distress, feelings of exclusion, and a lack of belonging within these communities. The implications of the results for policy, theory, and practice are presented, and include the promotion of multicultural competence and responsiveness in mental health practitioners and increased awareness to the experiences of an understudied population.

While there are many calls to maintain Catholic values in National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) and (arch)diocesan standards for Catholic school leaders, there is still a lack of guidance on operationalized support for gender-expansive students. This lack of clarity hinders the ability of leaders of Catholic schools to support and accompany gender-expansive students in their schools. This lack of guidance results in unclear leadership, which can adversely affect the well-being of gender-expansive students in Catholic schools. This qualitative study explored the experiences of principals and presidents of Catholic high schools in the United States as they work with gender-expansive students and their families. It was conducted through semi-structured interviews of six principals and two presidents, who were asked questions about their practices working with gender-expansive students, the ways of proceeding they use or plan to use in these conversations, and the barriers they face to supporting these individuals institutionally. Findings revealed three themes: (a) cura personalis versus cura apostolica, (b) individualized approach versus institutional consistency, and (c) individual values and beliefs versus institutional values and beliefs. Findings suggested that individual school communities need to engage in thoughtful dialogue to define a way of proceeding. Overarching policies mandated from the top down will face barriers to implementation. At the same time, it is essential to proactively engage in the work of defining organizational values and beliefs when it comes to gender inclusivity. It is not enough to handle it on a case-by-case basis, relying on students and families to tell you what they need.