Women of color who are also sexual minorities face an interesting position of being marginalized on multiple dimensions of their identity. Psychological health and well being can be negatively impacted by having a minority status, so it is imperative that psychologists are aware of cultural differences and are competent in addressing them (APA, 2002). For persons with marginalized racial, gender, and sexual identities, identity is crafted in ways that create meaning for the individual despite experiences of racism, sexism, or homophobia. The purpose of this study was to give voice to the lived experiences of African American women who are sexual minorities. Ten interviews were conducted using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) and used frameworks of Queer Theory and intersectionality to study the experience of having multiple marginalized identities (i.e., racial, sexual, and gender identities), in addition to the meaning that individuals derive from the experience of their identity. Eight Emergent Themes were identified: (1) Dichotomy of Identity, (2) (Dis)Comfort in Communities, (3) Cultural Expectations, (4) Power and Oppression, (5) Movement between Categories, (6) Congruence, (7) Challenges to Identity, and (8) Expression and Performance of Self.

This study investigates ‘how men knitting functions as a queer pedagogy’. In the doing it recognizes that a man knitting elbows his way into long-held contrived conventions of (domestic) femininity, queering space and generally causing embarrassment and a sense of cultural unease through his performance. As a work of educational research (situated within a Society, Culture, and Literacies profile) it is intent on troubling lingering gender-based notions of in/appropriate educational research and what remains academically out-of-bounds: knitting as domestic diversion has largely been neglected by scholars with the few academic sources focusing almost exclusively (and unapologetically) on female knitters. As such, the pedagogical meaning(s) of men knitting are essentially absent from the educational literature. This research project seeks to address that gap. Taking the form of three journal articles, this work reads the everyday performance of men knitting as queer pedagogy, learning which ‘minces’ and troubles not only masculinity but traditional constructions of educational discourse limiting pedagogy to classrooms and accredited educators. Using personal narrative and a methodology which brings together document analysis and queer theory, this study interrogates photographic and other artifacts through a queer lens, destabilizing meaning(s) and problematizing gender. It recognizes that leisure activities like knitting, as with other human activities, are by-products of the culture where they’re re/produced and a reflection of broader societal boundaries. ‘Men knitting as a queer pedagogy,’ is about gendered desires, anxieties, and places where critical dissatisfactions with culture gets performed in other/ed ways.

This phenomenological research study examined the perceived experiences of K-12 queer school leaders in school workplaces. This study discussed events, state laws, workplace polices, and related repeated studies that demonstrate that K-12 queer school leaders experience challenges in school spaces because of their sexual and/or gender identities. The sample population for this study consisted of 10 participants. The data collection consisted of a recruitment survey, individual interviews, and document review of state laws and policies. The analysis of data included survey data, transcribed interviews, and document reviews. The data were coded and triangulated for reliability and the analysis was guided by queer theory, script theory, and Foucault’s work on perspectives on power-knowledge. There were three key findings that emerged: queer school leaders’ suitability, queer negotiations in school spaces, and institutionalized homophobia and gender-based prejudices in the school spaces. The results contemporaneously indicate that policy, procedures, practices, and hegemonic power constitute the producers and pushers of an institutionalize cis/hetero-patriarchy narrative. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2020. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

"Coming out" is a unique experience for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority individuals (LGB+), yet it remains ill-defined within scholarship and is individually focused. This study investigates how same-gender couples negotiate relationship visibility and what motivates them to come out to others. A queer theoretical framework was used to explore how partners do outness. To address the needs of the literature, constructivist grounded theory methods were employed in analyzing the data. These findings showed that the majority of couples believed they had a "mutual understanding" of the rules and boundaries in place for relational visibility. In addition, the ways in which different individuals felt compelled to come out or stay in was impacted by their connection to the historical context of the Gay Rights movement. Clinical implications to help clinicians between in assessment and conceptualization in their work with members of the population were determined. / Ph. D.

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Submitted in partial fulfilment of the degree Master of Community-Based Counselling in Psychology at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, July 2018 / Polyamory is a relationship practice rooted in the belief that it is possible to pursue meaningful romantic, sexual, and/or emotional partnerships with more than one person simultaneously. This research sought to explore how South African psychologists construct polyamory, as international research suggests polyamory is produced as problematic within mental health contexts. Six Gauteng-based psychologists were recruited using purposive sampling. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews. Interview transcripts were analysed using Foucauldian informed critical discourse analysis. Findings reveal that a discourse of damage informs psychologists’ constructions of polyamory: Polyamorists are presented as pathological, primitive and infantile individuals. Their relationships are constructed as risky, complicated arrangements which oppress women and break up homes. These constructions justify the need for intervention and reproduce Western, Christian, cisgender and heterosexual monogamy as the pinnacle of ‘healthy’ and ‘real’ love. These findings form part of an initial critical engagement with polyamory in the South African context. / XL2019

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Disney movies are a vehicle for American culture; however, Disney has lagged behind in representing queer people in their films as protagonists. For this reason, critical scholarship is necessary to understand Disney's role in building, replicating or changing culture. Although some critical work on Disney has focused on gender or race, queer theory is underutilized to understand Disney films, especially in the field of communication. Though much research exists on movies from the Disney Renaissance, relatively few have examined the films released in the past decade in a systematic way, focusing on how the movies may be relatable to queer experiences. This analysis combines a queer theory lens and a grounded theory approach to examine where queer people can find their experiences reflected in the most recent Disney movies, even without openly queer protagonists. The study resulted in the formation of six categories that describe instances of queering and queerness in Disney movies: queering of Disney logic, queering of "appropriate" through mature themes, queering of power and violence, villainous queerness, heroic queerness and queer acceptance. Previous literature and the new categories from this study as a whole suggest that the Walt Disney Company is taking small steps to offer more diverse narratives and subvert expectations in ways that allow queer people to read their experiences in the characters on screen. / Master of Arts / Disney movies are a multi-billion dollar industry (Vary, 2020), and the company has taken steps in recent years to feature more diverse storylines and characters in their animated movies. Despite this, there is yet to be an openly queer protagonist in a Disney animated film. With this fact in mind, this study seeks to find places where queer people can still see themselves and their experiences reflected in the Disney films release in the last decade. These instances range from ambiguity that allows audiences to read a character as similar to themselves to moments that question the power structures that push certain people to the margins of society in the first place. Six categories were created after analysis to describe these moments: the queering of Disney logic, the queering of "appropriate" through mature themes, the queering of power and violence, villainous queerness, heroic queerness and queer acceptance. Taken together, these findings and the previous research on Disney suggests the company is slowly moving to open up storylines to allow more people to see their experiences reflected in the movies.

Cette analyse a pour but de dénoncer les mythes créateurs du féminin et du masculin hérités des politiques culturelles sexuelles érigées au creuset de la rencontre coloniale. L’étude de A Married Woman (Manju Kapur), Babyji (Abha Dawesar), Indian Tango (Ananda Devi), trois romans présentant le lesbianisme comme une stratégie féministe d’émancipation, permet de mettre au jour diverses dynamiques discursives, d’exploiter le concept de représentation, et d’interroger les catégories préexistantes. Ces trois romans sont en effet écrits par des femmes participant à la culture indo-hindoue, et proposent des héroïnes à la similarité troublante : brahmines, habitant Delhi et insatisfaites de l’immobilisme liberticide de leur genre. Le préjudice hétéropatriarcal gaine les individus plaqués à l’intersection de leurs appartenances identitaires diverses et superposées : le genre, la culture, la sexualité… Le chemin de ces héroïnes suit ainsi une évolution interrogeant les inventions patriarcales de l’identité de la femme indo-hindoue. Au-delà de la dénonciation des dérives de son essentialisation, c’est sa transgression qui est éblouissante, parce qu’elle est sexuelle et lesbienne, engageant ainsi les possibilités d’une altérité, d’une alternative, d’un devenir différent. Ces textes questionnent alors la poésie et l’efficacité d’une esthétique lesbienne, la validité démiurge d’une utopie lesbienne, et le symbolisme d’un motif qui unit femmes de papier et autrices de chair au sein d’un positionnement récusant la subalternité implicite de catégories oppressives et obsolètes. En s’emparant de l’ipséité, ces narrations introduisent une poétique queer défiant déterminismes, cristallisations, normes et hiérarchies. Elles ouvrent à des possibilités radicales et multiples d’existences, de créations, signalant la matérialité de marginalités subversives qui problématisent la notion même d’individu, envisagée dans sa perspective hypermoderne. / This analysis aims at denouncing the original myths of the feminine and the masculine, inherited of the sexual cultural politics uprighted in the crucible of the colonial encounter. The study of A Married Woman (Manju Kapur), Babyji (Abha Dawesar), Indian Tango (Ananda Devi), three novels presenting lesbianism as a feminist strategy of emancipation, allows to excavate various discursive dynamics, to exploit the concept of representation, and to interrogate the preexisting categories. These three novels are indeed written by women belonging to the Indo-Hindu culture, and offer heroines with troubling similarities: Brahmines, Delhiites and dissatisfied with the repressions and inertia of their gender. The heteropatriarcal prejudice suffocates the individuals tackled at the intersection of their several and overlapping identity belongings: gender, culture, sexuality… These heroines’ paths hence follow an evolution interrogating the patriarchal inventions of the Indo-Hindu woman’s identity. Beyond the exposition and accusation of its essentialization’s deviations, it is its transgression which is dazzling, because it is sexual and lesbian, introducing the possibilities of an alterity, an alternative, a different becoming. These texts thus question the poetry and efficiency of a lesbian aesthetic, the demiurge validity of a lesbian utopia, and the symbolism of a pattern unifying the paper women and the women writers in a positioning rejecting the implicit subalternity of oppressive and obsolete categories. By getting a hold of ipseity, these narrations introduce a queer poetic defying determinisms, crystallizations, norms and hierarchies. They open to radical and multiple possibilities of living and creating, indicating the materiality of subversive marginalities which problematize the very notion of individual, envisioned in its hypermodern perspective.