<p> The purpose of this project was to partner with a host agency, LA Gay &amp; Lesbian Center, locate a potential funding source, California Community Foundation, and write a grant proposal to obtain funding for an independent living skills group that can address the special needs of the LGBT homeless youth population. A literature review was conducted to examine best practice in working with the population and to examine current policies and programs that work to address the needs of this population. The independent living skills group will better prepare the target population for living on their own. It will increase their level of support and encourage higher and longer rates of employment, better wages, higher educational attainment, less returns to the streets and better psychosocial outcomes. The actual submission or funding of this grant was not a requirement for the successful completion of the project.</p>

abstract: Gays identity is usually cast in generics--statements about an indeterminate number of members in a given category. Sometimes these generic statements often get built up into folk definitions, vague and imprecise ways to talk about objects. Other times generics get co-opted into authentic definitions, definitions that pick out a few traits and assert that real members of the class have these traits and members that do not are simply members by a technicality. I assess how we adopt these generic traits into our language and what are the ramifications of using generic traits as a social identity. I analyze the use of authentic definitions in Queer Theory, particularly Michael Warner's use of authentic traits to define a normative Queer identity. I do not just simply focus on what are the effects, but how these folk or authentic definitions gain currency and, furthermore, how can they be changed. I conclude with an analytic account of what it means to be gay and argue that such an account will undercut many of the problems associated with folk or authentic definitions about being gay. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Philosophy 2012

Abstract not available.

This thesis is an exploration of expressions and representations of heteronormalized gender and sexuality discourses constructed by a group of students and educators involved in a pilot program at an eastern Ontario vocational high school. These performances of stereotyped queer identities or experiences overpower and silence the performances of identities outside the norm. Moreover, by defining what queerness is through a heterosexual frame, mainstream curricula defines what is acceptable (in education), and what is perceived as unwanted deviant queerness. Within this study I will reiterate the students' and educators' responses, reactions and opinions on a range of queer issues, and through autoethnography and currere methodologies, I will analyse my past and present reactions to queerness within the classroom in order to inform pedagogical strategies that one could possibly approach issues of heteronormalization in the future.

No description available.

<p> My dissertation, <i>Performing Politics: Visibility, Identity, and Meaning-Making in Docudrama,</i> challenges scholars' privileging of documentary theatre, which relies solely on primary source material such as trial transcripts, over docudrama, which allows a blending of primary sources with fiction. I focus on contemporary docudrama theatre practitioners in the United States, and specifically on productions that address issues of gender and sexuality. My work argues for the feminist potential of docudrama to disrupt hierarchies of knowledge and destabilize the primacy of the primary source. I demonstrate in Chapter One that in a docudrama like Paula Kamen's <i> Jane: Abortion and the Underground,</i> "reality" operates alongside the imaginative potential of fiction, thus providing practitioners and audiences a unique realm in which to tackle difficult and politically charged issues. My second chapter argues that the interdisciplinarity of documentary theatre can be a feminist ethnographic model for scholar-artists to employ ethical research methods for artistic engagement. Through a critical examination of E. Patrick Johnson's <i>Sweet Tea,</i> I argue that reflexivity and the post-show talkback are promising tools for foregrounding the practitioner's positionality and raising public consciousness. Finally, I challenge implications that documentary theatre is inherently pedagogical. Through an analysis of Dustin Lance Black's 8, I question the ways in which parroting primary source material reifies dominant ideologies, further entrenching cultural hierarchies. I conclude by considering other promising feminist attributes of docudrama, specifically the symbiotic potential of dialoging documentary scholarship with scholarship on queer temporalities.</p>

<p> This thesis seeks to expand understandings of resistance, particularly in the context of everyday actions and social institutions. It achieves this by tracing the development of a gay community that became increasingly visible in Lafayette, Louisiana, from the late 1960s through the late 1980s. By crafting their own social mores and spaces, religious institutions, Mardi Gras associations, AIDS service organization, and political association, gay men resisted and contested efforts to marginalize or denigrate their identities and desires. Relying on oral histories and periodicals distributed within gay bars, this work highlights the importance of primarily non-political institutions in affirming gay identity, same-sex desire, and gender nonconformity. It finds agency within a group that has a largely undocumented history in Louisiana, outside of New Orleans. Previous scholarship on gay communities has focused too broadly on entire states or too exclusively on major metropolitan areas. This thesis, then, also brings to light the experiences of gay men in a small southern city, tracking the development of various means of resistance within that community.</p>

<p> Three dances, <i>On This Day, Panties and Pathologies </i>, and <i>Naked Spotlight Silver</i> were choreographed and performed in fulfillment of the requirements to complete an M.F.A. degree in dance. The performances took place at the Martha B. Knoebel Dance Theater located on the campus of California State University, Long Beach. <i> On This Day</i> premiered October 2012, <i>Panties and Pathologies </i> premiered March 2013, and Naked Spotlight Silver premiered October 2013. </p><p> This thesis examines how each project investigates choreographic approaches used in concert dance to communicate issues of gender and sexuality as well as participate in a discourse on identity politics. The three dance pieces attempted to confront themes of marriage equality, representation and the marketing of femininity, and queer identity representations in performance. Each piece was unique in its methodologies and served as an explorative approach to political communication and artistic development.</p>

This research project attempted to identify and describe the essence of the experience of being an out lesbian in elite coaching. Through the use of a feminist epistemology, a phenomenological methodology, and in-depth interviews with eight high performance coaches who identify as lesbian, it was possible to identify and describe the essence of their experiences being out lesbians in elite coaching. The data were analyzed using an inductive phenomenological analysis procedure. The six themes that emerged from the data were: sexism, lesbophobia, the old boys' club, acknowledgement and positive reinforcement, the supportive feminist network, and the nature of the job. Sport was identified as a domain rife with sexism, lesbophobia, and dominated by the old boys' club all of which negatively impacted the lesbian coaches' experiences and career advancement. However, with positive reinforcement of their lesbian identity and the supportive feminist network, the participants nevertheless experienced great personal and professional success.

The counseling profession requires its professionals to be ethically aware, culturally aware, and personally aware. Counselor Education departments strive to create environments that foster multicultural interactions and environments that provide sufficient safety for persons to be self-expressive and self-reflective. Such environments support the personal growth required to be effective counselors and agents of change. The purpose of this research was to measure the climate for sexual minorities in Counselor Education programs. Using the Climate for Sexual Minorities in Counselor Education Programs Survey (CSMCEPS) to collect information from faculty and graduate students, this research attempted to describe the level of acceptance across Counselor Education programs in North America. In addition, this research looked for (a) differences in responses based on geographic regions; (b) differences between the perceptions of sexual minority individuals and heterosexual individuals; and, (c) differences between faculty members? perceptions of the climate and graduate students? perceptions. In general, the results of this study showed that the climate for sexual minorities in counselor education programs was positive. The stance of the counseling profession would dictate that the outcome should have been positive and, as mentioned previously, there is evidence that self-selection biased the sample. Given the professions ethical stance and the bias of the sample, the results should have been overwhelmingly supportive and affirming of sexual minorities and this was not the case. The data indicated that the environment could only be considered mildly accepting, but should not be considered affirming. To answer the research questions around differences in responses based on demographic data there were several ANOVA completed. There were differences found between student and faculty responses and between institutions that are not funded by religious affiliation and those that are. There were no significant differences found between respondents who identified as sexual minorities and those who identified as non-sexual minorities. There were no significant differences based on regional differences nor were there differences based on CACREP accreditation. The lack of differences may be indicative of sample bias.