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Thesis advisor: Susan Kelly-Weeder / Background: Sexual minority youth experience many sexual health inequities compared to heterosexual youth. Research conducted over the past several decades has concluded that both parent-adolescent sex communication and school-based sex education are effective in reducing levels of sexual risk behavior in heterosexual youth. A much smaller number of studies have examined the experiences and effectiveness of sex education or PASC among sexual minority youth. Purpose: This three-manuscript dissertation seeks to extend understanding about the experiences of sexual minority and heterosexual youth with learning about sex and sexuality at school and at home and how these learning experiences affect sexual risk behavior. The purpose of this dissertation is to examine parent-adolescent sex communication from the perspective of sexual minority youth and their parents, assess the impact of different types of sex education on sexual intercourse and contraceptive behavior of sexual minority and heterosexual adolescent females, and revise and extend a scale designed to measure sexual minority youth perceptions of sexual-minority-inclusivity in sex education. Methods: In the first manuscript, we conducted an integrated review that described how parents and SGM youth perceive their sex communication experiences and synthesized findings about the associations between parent-adolescent sex communication and sexual health outcomes among SGM youth. In the second manuscript, we used National Survey of Family Growth data to describe the total sex education content received by an individual, examine the impact of different sex education types on sexual intercourse and contraceptive behavior of adolescent females, and examine differences by sexual identity. In phase one of the last study, we revised a scale to measure SMYA perceptions of sexual minority-inclusivity in school-based sex education received before the age of 18 years. Phase two involved implementing a pilot study to measure the reliability and conduct a Rasch analysis of the revised scale. Results: The integrated review results suggest that parent-adolescent sex communication was complicated by barriers to communication and was limited, heteronormative, and influenced by SGM disclosure. Parent-adolescent sex communication may improve sexual health outcomes, but adequate parental education/guidance is lacking. Secondary data analysis results suggest that compared to their heterosexual peers, sexual minorities were more likely to report no sex education and less likely to report receipt of abstinence-only education. Nearly all types of education had a statistically significant effect on sexual behavioral outcomes (intercourse in the past 12 months and type of contraceptive use) as compared to no sex education. Scale revision and psychometric analyses suggested that the new scale has strong psychometric properties, including reliability, content validity, and measurement precision. Conclusion: Overall, this dissertation has highlighted the ways that home and school-based sources of sexual health information do not currently meet the needs of SM youth. The sexual health education of SM youth is complicated by a lack of comfort, knowledge, and resources experienced by both teachers and parents. Qualitative studies suggest that both sources of sexual health information tend to be focused on heterosexual needs, leaving SMY feeling frustrated and invisible. This dissertation has also highlighted the need for quantitative measures to extend understanding of the impact of parent-adolescent sex communication and sex education on sexual minority youth. The revised scale presented in Chapter 4 provides a promising measurement tool to inform the development and evaluation of sexual minority-inclusive sex education programs. The results of this dissertation will ultimately contribute to the development of programs and interventions to support SM-inclusivity in school-based, family-based, and healthcare provider-based sexual health education. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2022. / Submitted to: Boston College. Connell School of Nursing. / Discipline: Nursing.

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Since 2013, over half of all gender-selective women's colleges in the United States have adopted admission policies that outline varying biological, social, and legal criteria for who may apply to their institution. In effect, these policies opened the gates to admission, driven by the goal to be more inclusive to transgender applicants, especially trans* women. This dissertation examines if and how these policies enact missions of social justice, diversity, and inclusion through the informal practices, production, and regulation of gender on campus. How do gender-selective women's colleges go from trans* admitting to trans* serving? Through a nine-month ethnography of trans* admission policies at two gender-selective women's colleges, including 126 interviews with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators; archival document analysis regarding trans* and queer history on campus; and participant observation of events and spaces on campus with trans* students, my objective is to describe the world that takes shape when gender and feminism become institutionalized, routine, and used as descriptions to both include and exclude. I contend that the impact of these admission policies is not limited to the application process, but rather the experiences of matriculated students are shaped by the gendered norms and discourses structured within the policies themselves. Findings suggest that despite the fact that these policies, formally, allow for transgender students to apply and enroll to gender-selective women's colleges, institutionalized commitments to inclusion obscure and even intensify existing gender inequality, particularly for students who do not fit within normative ideals of the "right way to be trans*" including those who are low-income, non-white, and trans* men. Because the feminist missions of these colleges continue to reaffirm an ideal of cisgender womanhood on campus, the extent to which these inclusion policies were able to make fundamental structural changes in how gendered power, resources, and opportunities are distributed was limited at best. As such, this dissertation is a call to think about gender as an institutional product; not simply in terms of the politics that are attached to the experiences, bodies, and identities, but in the very constitution of gender as a social category. As an ethnography of how these categories become comprehensible, admissible, and livable, this dissertation complicates our understanding of how policies work, how gender is reinforced in the women's college setting, and how to transform institutional practices through a trans* justice framework. / Doctor of Philosophy / Since my graduation from Smith College in 2013, over half of all gender-selective women's colleges in the United States have publicly adopted admission policies outlining up to fourteen different combinations of biomedical, social, and legal criteria for who may apply to their institutions. In effect, these policies define fourteen different ways to be a "woman" that honor both the experiences and identities of students as well as the histories, traditions, and missions of gender-selective women's colleges. While I am proud of my alma mater for adopting such a policy, I have been struck by the ensuing tensions and debates that occurred among students and my fellow alumni about who belonged within our community. My time at Smith equipped me with new concepts, identities, and possibilities of what community means by being with people of other sexes, genders, races, sexualities, abilities, socio-economic statuses, and mindsets. Gender in this feminist space, in other words, was about so much more than a singular common experience of biology. Hence, the trans* policy raised more questions than answers for me: How do my trans* peers experience the woman-centered atmosphere of gender-selective women's colleges? In what ways do these policies and other institutional practices support these students? Through this dissertation, I sought to understand the experiences of trans* students enrolled in two gender-selective women's colleges by mapping the implementation and impact of trans* inclusion on campus. I wanted to know how these policies—and gender-selective women's colleges more broadly—shape institutionalized feminist missions of social justice. Over the span of nine-months, I spent time at two gender-selective women's colleges, one with a policy that admits trans* women, men, and non-binary students and another that limits trans* admission to trans* women, and conducted 126 interviews with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and administrators; archival document analysis regarding trans* and queer history on campus; and participant observation of events and spaces on campus with trans* students. I found that despite the fact that these policies, formally, allow for transgender students to apply and enroll to gender-selective colleges, the institutional commitments to inclusion obscured and even intensified existing gender inequality particularly for students who do not fit within normative ideals of the "right way to be trans*" including those who are low-income, non-white, and trans* men. Because the feminist missions of these colleges continue to reaffirm an ideal of cisgender womanhood on campus, the extent to which these inclusion policies were able to make fundamental changes to support transgender students was limited at best, and violent at worst. This does not suggest that there was no hope. Rather, students found ways to navigate these formal policies, resources, and spaces to create safer environments for their community, surviving and thriving in environments that were antithetic-to-hostile to their inclusion. As a result, I conclude that the implementation of a singular policy is not an adequate solution to full inclusion. Rather, we must consider how policy and practice may limit inclusion through intersections of race, class, sexuality, ability, and other axes of identity. As such, this dissertation is a call to think about how gender-selective women's colleges can go from trans* admitting to trans* serving.

This project concerns various 20th-century rhetorical strategies for sexual liberation. First, I examine the work of Alfred C. Kinsey through the theories of Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault. In the second chapter I look at Kinsey's Female volume and argue that he uses the mid-century concern for marriage as a strategy for sexual liberation. Next, I trace the ways in which four female, post-Kinsey writers use Kinsey (explicitly or implicitly) for their own particular strategies for sexual liberation. Finally, my conclusion asks how we can develop an effective strategy for this new century. / Master of Arts

This study aimed to investigate teachers' perceptions of and pedagogical strategies in teaching about desire and pleasure, with a particular focus on emotions. The study examined which emotions teachers experience before and during teaching about desire and pleasure, which emotions are perceived as desirable, how these emotions are conceptualised and which pedagogical strategies teachers use to manage their own and the students' emotions. The study used a qualitive approach based on interpretative phenomenology. The methods used for data collection were semi-structed interviews with seven teachers working in a secondary school, an upper secondary school and an upper secondary school for students with intellectual disabilities. The methods used for analysis was interpretative phenomenological analysis. The main result of the study showed that desire and pleasure is a sensitive topic and both teachers and students felt emotions of shame, fear and discomfort. The study also showed how teachers experience emotions such as wonder and pride. The result of the study highlights the demanding emotional work of teachers when they use pedagogical strategies to manage their own and the student’s emotions. These strategies aim to create conditions for maintaining education about desire and pleasure despite those emotions that arise and to challenge and consolidate boundaries in conversations about sex and sexual practices. The result of the study indicates how sexual education about sexuality, desire and pleasure needs to address the students’ vulnerability and integrity and simultaneously needs to an open climate where students can learn about sexuality, desire and pleasure.

Hierdie studie is toegespits op die samestelling van 'n seksopvoedingsprogram vir skole in Suid-Afrika. Snelle verandering binne sosiale strukture in die samelewing en die blootstelling van die jeug aan kultuur- en godsdiensvreemde seksopvoeding. idees noodsaak die dringendheid van Seksopvoeding word vanuit verskillende waardestelsels aangebied. Die gevolgtrekking is dat beproefde waardes 'n integrale deel van die seksopvoedingsprogram moet uitmaak. Die kind moet begelei word tot seksuele volwassenheid deur gebruik te maak van opvoedkundig-verantwoordbare beginsels en metodes sodat die kind effektief weerstand kan bied teen bederwende invloede uit die samelewing. Die ouers is die aangewese bran van seksopvoeding aan hulle kinders maar weens hulle onbetrokkenheid neem die skoal die verantwoordelikheid op hom. Dit is egter belangrik dat die skoal die ouers as vennote aanvaar. Ten slotte word riglyne verskaf vir die samestelling van 'n seksopvoedingsprogram. / This dissertation considers the composition of a sex education program for schools in South Africa. Rapidly changing social structure within society and the exposure of the youth to foreign cultural and religious ideas necessitate the urgency of sex education. Sex education is presented from different value systems. The conclusion reached is that values must be an integral part of the sex education program. The child must be accompanied to responsible sexual adulthood by means of educationally accountable principles in order that he/she may be able to withstand the demoralizing influences from society effectively. The parents are the appropriate sex educators of their children but, due to their being unconcerned the school accepted this responsibility. It is however of importance that the school accepts the parents as partners. In conclusion guidelines are presented for the compiling of a sex education program. / Psychology of Education / M. Ed. (Voorligting)