This paper explores the reality of a queer individuals life and the reality of a mother of a queer individual, where the author himself and his mother are the subjects. The paper seeks to explore these person's experiences/realities using both an autoethnographic approach and a life history approach. Coming from a postmodern and feminist position the author delves into such issues as power, oppression, social construction, personal voice, and identity. Personal narratives and academic literature within this paper are going to display queer realities and the broad range of oppression (such as heterosexism, homophobia and gendering) that they face (in educational, familial, and religious settings) and the experiences of a mother who has a queer child (such as emotional reactions, lack of resources/information). / The methodologies used within this paper also seek to explore and expand the use of alternative forms of academic research, focusing on the autoethnographic approach. Personal narratives, emotions and experiences take center stage within the body of this paper and seek to represent the realities of queer youth and their families to the reader, and hopefully, expose the need for more queer awareness, education, and advocacy.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of California, San Diego, 2008. / Title from first page of PDF file (viewed July 18, 2008). Available via ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Includes bibliographical references (p. 88-94).

For the past decade, the leisure and recreation literature has sought to develop and support a discourse of queer youth at-risk in order to call attention to the need to help these youth function normally in society (Grossman, 1992; Grossman, 1995; Kivel, 1997). As a solution, creating safe spaces for queer youth has been advocated, without necessarily considering how the identity of practitioners might affect these spaces, or what types of norms these spaces might simultaneously reinforce. This research study drew on queer, feminist, and spatial analysis theories, to investigate how heteronormativity functioned in queer youth spaces within two different municipal recreation contexts. I focused specifically on the physical and discursive boundaries of the spaces, as well as the influence of the youth workers' identities and practices. The research methods included observations, document analysis, and semistructured interviews. The findings demonstrated that the youth workers' identities were highly influential in both spaces, as they affected the negotiation of spatial boundaries and systemic discourses in very different ways. The spilling over of queer bodies out of the spaces worked to expose the boundary between queer and normal space as discursive, rather than natural or real. Furthermore, the central focus of both spaces on a queer identity re-created certain norms around race (read as whiteness) and gender (read as binary categories); however, this occurred in different ways in each space. Finally, systemic discourses of risk, support, and safety worked to both disrupt and reinforce notions of heteronormativity. By calling attention to an existing silence about queer youth, they were simultaneously constructed as helpless and in need of saving. Those who theorize about and work with queer youth might want to consider how certain discourses support notions of an idealized subject that can be further marginalizing. In addition, although queer youth spaces can be enabling for some youth, they are constraining for others. Research and practice that advocates for queer youth spaces as the solution, might want to deliberate the ways in which this approach can fail to trouble normalcy, and potentially reinforce the value of certain ways of being queer. / Education, Faculty of / Kinesiology, School of / Graduate

No description available.

This study examined the relationships between parents' and their gay and lesbian children from the parents' perspective. Forty-seven questionnaires containing thirty-two questions were distributed and completed. This study sought to identify barriers parents experienced and the levels of acceptance prior to and after their child's disclosure, in order to assist families during the coming out process.

Sexual minority youth are coming out about their same-sex attractions earlier in recent years. Such youth and their families may experience a range of potential problems and concerns, suggesting that the child welfare system may need to do more to respond to the unique needs of this population. By employing a qualitative research design, this study, using face-to-face interviews with ten child welfare workers, examined child welfare agencies' ability to adequately render services to sexual minority youth and their families.

An important need exists to build a baseline understanding of the phenomenon of formal mentoring relationships involving adults and youth from the gay community. During the formative years when gay adolescents navigate through the process of understanding, defining, accepting, and sharing their identity as a sexual minority, they are often faced with high levels of environmental risks, including victimization, stress, and negative social sanctions by others. Formal mentoring has been recommended as a potential strategy to offer unique one-to-one support to gay youth that can help to foster resilience and a range of positive outcomes, including strengthening processes involved in identity development; yet, no previous studies have captured insights about these relationships. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this study investigated the following research questions: (a) What are the most important characteristics of long-term formal mentoring relationships between gay adults and gay youth from the perspectives of the participants? (b) How, if at all, do mentors and mentees perceive potential benefits and limitations for gay youth participating in long-term formal mentoring relationships with gay adults? (c) How, if at all, do mentors and mentees perceive their mentoring relationship uniquely contributing to sexual-minority identity development in gay youth? After a 2-year search for participants, a purposeful sample of one mentoring dyad was chosen. Semi-structured in-person interviews were conducted with the match at the 17-month and 22-month mark of their relationship. This study contained four assertions based on this study's findings: (a) This long-term mentoring relationship between an adult and a youth from the gay community shared numerous similarities with other high quality mentoring relationships; (b) This mentoring relationship offered insight into how to create individualized and long-term support for sexual-minority identity development in youth; (c) This mentoring relationship represented an important but unrealized type of support that can potentially be used to complement existing peers, internet, and community-based resources for gay youth; and (d) Complexity continues to exist in using language and self-labeling to define, inquire, and provide support to individuals from the gay community--especially youth. Recommendations for programming, policy, and future research are provided.

Adolescence is a challenging life period in which young people have to deal with both physical and mental changes. For gay, bisexual and questioning (BGQ) youth, the challenges in their adolescents could be tougher. Previous research has demonstrated the unique psychosocial and sexual health needs of this vulnerable sub-group of the youth population. However, most of these studies were conducted in the West. Local data has been far from enough for us to understand the lives and health needs of Hong Kong GBQ youth, who have been affected by a different set of cultural values and social situations. This study adopted a qualitative approach to explore the lives of and the factors affecting the health of GBQ youth in Hong Kong. Both focus groups and individual interviews were used. Data analysis was guided by the principle of grounded theory. Twenty sexual minority male youth aged between 15 and 21 were recruited in the study. It appeared that the discovery of sexual identities for Hong Kong GBQ youth usually began in the early adolescence and was usually followed by a stage of struggle and denial of same-sex attraction. Traditional Chinese family values and mainstream Christianity doctrine heavily influenced on the informants’ and others’ acceptance towards homosexuality. GBQ youth also encountered different forms of prejudicial events in practically all social situations which in turn affected their psychosocial wellbeing and sexual health. Furthermore, parents, school professionals and healthcare workers seemed to lack appropriate skills and attitudes to promote GBQ youth’s health. / published_or_final_version / Public Health / Master / Master of Public Health

Thesis (D. Min.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 2007. / Abstract and vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 270-274).