<p> The historic 2015 Supreme Court ruling in the case of <i>Obergefell v. Hodges</i>&mdash;which extended marriage equality to every state nationwide&mdash;coupled with an increase in the number of reported same-sex parent households in America (Gates, 2013) has resulted in greater social, political, and academic visibility for same-sex families in recent years (Breshears &amp; Braithwaite, 2014). Despite this increased cultural visibility, because gay parent families (GPFs) fall outside the parameters of the traditional family model (i.e., a married heterosexual husband and wife couple raising biological children) (Baxter, 2014a), they necessarily rely more heavily on discourse to manage their nontraditional family identity (Galvin, 2006; 2014). To date, little is known about how married gay male parents discursively create and sustain family identity and how they position their families in relation to the dominant heteronormative discourses of traditional marriage, family, and fatherhood. Framed by Baxter&rsquo;s (2011) relational dialectics theory&mdash;a heuristic communication theory useful for investigating the meaning-making process&mdash;this study explored the meaning(s) of marriage, family, and fatherhood in married gay fathers&rsquo; relational talk. I interviewed 13 married gay parent dyads twice to collect data from the couples across time as well as member check initial results during secondary interviews. Using contrapuntal analysis, I identified the following discourses at the three sites of meaning-making in the data: the discourses of marriage as symbolic and marriage as practical ; the discourses of traditional family structure and nontraditional family structure ; and the discourses of gay culture and gay fatherhood in addition to the discourses of heteronormative fatherhood and co-parenting. I argue that the couples&rsquo; talk reflected discursive struggles and, in one case, transformation, to generate relational meanings for their family identities. </p><p>

<p> A global entertainment powerhouse with millions of fans, WWE produces and archives thousands of hours of content every year that is often dismissed as low brow, incomprehensible, base, and/or harmless. However, WWE content is guilty of propitiating heteronormativity, binary gender construction, and the exploitation, repression, and erasure of LGBTQ+ culture. </p><p> I argue that the pro wrestling personae that perform in the fictional WWE universe are perfect embodiments of Judith Butler&rsquo;s theory of performativity, as evidenced in how the gender and sexuality of these often fluid and paradoxical personae are discursively constructed. This thesis also analyzes ironic and transcendent counterhegemonic performances by personae that can be read as rupturing WWE&rsquo;s repressive, heteronormative hegemony, as informed by Kenneth Burke. This thesis is an analysis of the counterhegemonic personae Nia Jax, Tyler Breeze, Bayley, and Chris Jericho based on their appearances in primary WWE content between 2 January, 2017 and 25 April, 2017.</p><p>

<p> What is community? What defines it, and what creates it? What&mdash;or who&mdash;is the gay community? Is the gay community the same as it was ten, twenty, or even thirty years ago? Those are some of the questions I will be answering as I explore the creation, expansion, and subsequent integration of the physical gay community into one that embraces an online, fragmented community. I will explore the creation and evolution of the gay community, examining its early years and the challenges it faced as a marginalized group. To help define community, I will use the concept of identity theory by incorporating the theory of play and weaving the idea of claiming public space into my argument to show how the physical, economic, social creation of the gay community is dependent upon a geographic and virtual community. Those examples will set up my argument that the idea of community has changed in part to the commonality of technology and social applications. I argue that the idea of the traditional gay and lesbian community, which relied heavily on where you lived, has become fragmented and disjointed because of the reliance of an online, virtual community which, in turn, has led to a lack of interpersonal connections among individuals of this marginalized group.</p>