My thesis is going to include three sections as follows: 1.A brief biography of Zhang Jie 张洁 (1937 - ). Zhang Jie began to publish in the post-Cultural Revolution era, and became well-known in the early 1980s for her fictional depiction of the problems of the urban intellectual women attempting to resolve conflicts between love and career, love and marriage, and ideals and reality. The main part of this section is going to be the deep influence of her eventful fatherless life experience, traditional Chinese culture, as well as that of former Russian literary masters, especially Chekhov and Tolstoy, on her literary creation, characterized by a high sense of morality, spirituality, and social responsibility as well. First, when Zhang Jie was only 100 days old, her father abandoned her and her mother. Lack of paternal love leads to her long-cherished hidden desire for an immaculate father in shining armor, characterized by a combination of integrity and benevolence, a lofty spiritual state of mind/mental outlook and high-ranking position. Moreover, the failure of her first marriage reinforced her longing and worship for father-like males, who become the ideal husband in her novels. That is why Zhang Jie prefers the marriage pattern of so-called lao-fu shao-qi 老夫少妻 [older husband, younger wife]. Second, Zhang Jie’s creation of her love-marriage stories have been extremely influenced by traditional Chinese culture. The Chinese traditional novels dealing with sensual love roughly fall into two categories. One, from the physical perspective, depicts the sensual rivalry with Jin Ping Mei 金瓶梅 as its representative; the other tend to present spiritual entanglement, such as the love between Jia Baoyu 贾宝玉 and Lin Daiyu林黛玉 in Hong-lou Meng 红楼梦. These two kinds of love have been incompatible just like fire and water. The former has been held in contempt by scholars, while the latter has been admired by them, to which the love depicted by Zhang Jie belongs. For one thing, Zhang Jie is widely read in literature; for another, she overvalues her own choices and emotions, which results in her easily being plunged into her past life experiences. Finally, Zhang Jie’s emphasis on the spiritual aspect of sensual love results from the enormous influence of the former Russian literary masters, especially Chekhov. The geographical location of Russian, which crosses the Asian-European continent, causes the Russian literature to be tinged with Asian literature, and also produces some similarities between the Russian and Chinese nations in cultural values, such as an emphasis on morality. During her childhood, Zhang Jie read many Russian literary works in Chinese. Among those Russian literary masters, Chekhov has been her spiritual mentor and leader of her literary creation. We can say that the major motif of Zhang Jie’s novels, pursuit of the all-round emancipation of human beings’ spirit, is a direct successor of the main theme of Chekhov’s works – Man is supposed to live a dignified life. 2. Zhang Jie’s changing perspectives on love, specifically, sensual love and maternal love. This section mainly focuses on the theme of love. I will examine Zhang Jie’s major writings where the dominant characters are females. They are “Love”, The Ark, Emerald (Zumulu祖母绿, 1984), Gone Is The Person Who Loved Me Most (Shijieshang zui teng wo de nage ren qu le世界上最疼我的那个人去了, 1994), and Without A Word (Wu Zi无字, 1998) – the sixth Mao Dun Literary Prize Winning (2005) masterpiece, with which Zhang Jie is most satisfied. The assemblage of the above-mentioned works thus brings into focus on Zhang Jie with her consistent view of ideal femininity and masculinity, her change of perspective on sensual love and parental love (in her case maternal love), her unbreakable and increasingly strong mother-daughter bond, as well as her own emotional and literary growth and maturity through her creation of a colorful gallery of female images. To be exact, Zhang Jie, in her love/female texts, has expressed her persistent pursuit of the holy, near religious, heterosexual love in “Love” and Emerald, her disillusionment in heterosexual love in The Ark, her despair in heterosexual love in Gone Is The Person Who Loved Me Most, and her detachment from heterosexual love in Wu Zi. Differently put, Zhang Jie’s above-mentioned works with middle-aged women intellectuals as their heroines show her view on women from a female’s perspective and demonstrate the course of her process of searching for or looking up to ideal men, to ridiculing or looking down upon men, and to objectively evaluating or looking squarely at men while dissecting the negative traits of women, including jealousy, gossipiness, and lack of solidarity among themselves. This section is going to include four subtitles, i.e., Pursuit and persistence of holy love in “Love” and Emerald, The disillusionment in love in The Ark, The despair in love in Gone Is the Person Who Loved Me Most, and The detachment from heterosexual love in Wu Zi accordingly. 3. The main part - translation of part of Vol.1 of her three-volume masterpiece entitled Wu Zi.

La prevalencia de actos relacionados a la discriminación sexual y casos de crímenes de odio en nuestro país, son alarmantes. Al respecto, se han encontrado factores influyentes en el desarrollo de posturas sobre la homosexualidad, como la forma de crianza, los medios de comunicación y el entorno social en el que se encuentra cada persona. En esta investigación se analizó la correlación entre el rol sexual de una persona heterosexual y sus actitudes frente a la homosexualidad, se tomó en cuenta una muestra de 268 adultos heterosexuales. Los resultados señalan que existe una correlación positiva (0.007) hacia la homosexualidad independientemente del rol sexual, además, se identificó una mayor identificación con el rol sexual masculino. Dichos hallazgos ponen en evidencia el cambio cultural y la aceptación que se va generando hacia la homosexualidad a raíz de interacciones y educación. Además, se pone en manifiesto las creencias socialmente construidas sobre cada rol sexual, siendo la masculinidad el rol predominante por las características relacionadas al mismo. Sin embargo, se observa un incremento en la identificación con la feminidad por la búsqueda de desarrollar nuevas competencias y habilidades blandas requeridas en los espacios sociales. / The prevalence of acts related to sexual discrimination and cases of hate crimes in our country are alarming. In this regard, influential factors have been found in the development of positions about homosexuality, such as the way of parenting, the media and the social environment. In this investigation, the correlation between the sexual role of a heterosexual person and their attitudes towards homosexuality was analyzed. A sample of 268 heterosexual adults was taken into account. The results indicate that there is a positive correlation (0.007) towards homosexuality regardless of the sexual role, in addition, a greater identification with the male sexual role was identified. These findings highlight the cultural change and the acceptance that is being generated towards homosexuality as a result of interactions and education. In addition, the socially constructed beliefs about each sexual role are revealed, with masculinity being the predominant role due to the characteristics related to it. However, an increase in the identification with femininity is observed due to the search to develop new competences and soft skills required in social spaces. / Tesis

This is a theoretical study of intersexuality and of its medical and social implications. My interest of inquiry includes both exploring, describing and explaining. One could say that this study is a form of qualitative analysis of contents. The aim of the study is to fill a gap and to raise awareness of the notion intersex. The conclusions show that social models of explanation to today’s paradigm of intervention are valid.

This study explores the (hetero)sexualized online space that is the category “Pools, Hot Tubsand Beaches” on the streaming platform Twitch.tv. The aim of the study is to gain a further understanding of how gender and sexuality is performed under the specific conditions offered by the space. Interactions between livestreamer and chat in three livestreams have been transcribed and analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis. I find that the space is characterized by the logic of the heterosexual matrix as defined by Judith Butler, as well by two foundational asymmetries that inform the way that gender and sexuality is performed in the spaces studied: the asymmetry of perspective and the asymmetry of performativity. These conditions are actively negotiated with by the subjects that interact in the space. Furthermore, relying on the work of Raewyn Connell, I find that the subjects conduct a labor of positionality with regards to notions of good and bad masculinity, basing their sense ofcommunity on the abjectification of “other men” in order to construct their own masculinity.

Jeanette Winterson’s debut novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is regarded as an epitome of feminist fiction. The novel centres around Jeanette, a young homosexual girl, and her mother Louie who does not accept her daughter’s sexuality. Just like most mothers in feminist fiction Louie is described, by other scholars, as a one-dimensional character who forces normative femininity upon her daughter and defends patriarchal structures. However, this thesis argues that subtle instances of characterisation create tensions in Louie’s character, especially in regard to gender norms and heterosexual norms. Although Winterson’s novel has been explored from several perspectives most scholars focus on Jeanette. Few scholars have attempted to examine Louie and how she is characterised. Thus, Louie’s character is largely unexplored. To analyse Louie, Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan’s narratological theories on characterisation are used, such as characterisation through direct definitions, actions, and speech. By showing that Louie is marked by tensions she is characterised as a mother who both upholds and challenges patriarchal structures. Since Louie cannot only be perceived as an agent of the patriarchy, she is consequently a complex character.

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To ensure an educational opportunity for every child that passes through America's schoolhouse doors, it is imperative that non-heterosexual students' educational needs are not ignored in the educational milieu (Zirkel, 2006). In the last decade or so, the desire of non-heterosexual students to organize Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs on high school campuses have been met with angst by school leaders (Duncan & Rogers, 2008). Despite the passage of the Equal Access Act (EAA) in 1984, school leaders have often denied non-heterosexual students the right to establish GSA clubs on campus, consequently resulting in these students utilizing the judicial system as the venue to assert their rights under the law (Essex, 2005). As it is imperative that educational leaders understand the legal rights of all students under their care, and make informed decisions in order to avoid costly litigation, this research focused on analyzing the Equal Access Act of 1984, federal case law, legal commentary, and historical documents, in order to track the developments of non-heterosexual students' ability to utilize the EAA to establish GSA clubs in the public schools in the United States. The study employed a traditional legal research methodology as described by Alder (1993) and Russo (1993), relying on electronic data bases and traditional legal finding tools to carry out the research. From the resulting legislation, case law, scholarly commentary, and other relevant documents reviewed and analyzed, an accurate historical perspective on the EAA as it relates to the formation of GSA clubs was constructed. In addition, the significant themes that arose from the findings were synthesized in order to offer guidance to educational leaders and policymakers when facing requests from students to establish GSA clubs on school property. Recommendations for school leaders when considering such requests from students to form GSA clubs under the EAA are provided. / Ed. D.

Este trabajo propone un acercamiento doble a la novela La Revuelta de Sonia Montecino, donde pensamos que tanto la teoría queer como el origen mapuche son de gran importancia en la construcción identitaria de la protagonista. Nuestro análisis consiste en un intento de relacionar la búsqueda de una identidad por parte de la protagonista, mediante una subversión del sexo, por un lado, y mediante la vuelta a los ancestros, por otro. La hipótesis principal de nuestro trabajo es que La Revuelta presenta una propuesta alternativa sobre la construcción identitaria femenina. Para abarcar nuestra investigación nos empleamos de diferentes herramientas metodológicas, como la teoría queer desarrollada por Judith Butler y la cultura mapuche sintetizada por el antropólogo Rolf Foerster. Al igual que nos detenemos en los estudios del sociólogo chileno Jorge Larraín que nos sirven para comprender el contexto en el que se sitúa la trama de la novela, asimismo como recurrimos a Genette y Greimas para llevar a cabo un estudio narratológico, dado que nuestro cuerpo de investigación ha sido un texto narrativo. / This paper proposes the use of a dual approach of queer theory and the importance of the indigenous Mapuche identity, to analyze the identity construction of the protagonist in the novel La Revuelta. The analysis is an attempt to relate the search for identity by the protagonist, through a subversion of gender on the one hand and the return to the ancestral past on the other. The main hypothesis of our work is that La Revuelta presents an alternative proposal on female identity construction. To execute our research we employ different methodological tools, such as queer theory developed by Judith Butler and the theories on Mapuche culture compiled by anthropologist Rolf Foerster. We also focus on the studies of the Chilean sociologist Jorge Larraín, which allow us to understand the context in which the plot of the novel is set, as well as referring to Genette and Greimas in order to conduct a narratological study.

The construction of an identity among lesbian women during 1950-­‐1965 is in focus in this master ́s thesis. My starting point is that identity, such as lesbian or any other identity, is formed in relation to other people and groups, as well as society. This thesis will also examine how lesbian women met and formed bonds with like-­minded, and whether these aspects changed, during the defined time period. The empirics is made up by letters written by women to Riksförbundet för sexuellt likaberättigande (a Swedish organisation for lesbian and gays) as well as an interview with two lesbian women who were born in 1938 and 1940. The theoretical approach is queer theory and phenomenology. In summary: I have found that women in this study to a great extent formed their identity in relation to prevailing scientific ideas that claimed to explicate homosexuality. Disappointments in marriage and personal failures were stressed by the women writers in order to explain their lesbian desires. Some of them also put equal weight on the relationship between a high sexual drive/nymphomania and homosexuality. Among many lesbians outside Stockholm in the 1950’s personal ads played a major role in order for them to meet with like-­minded women. The women in this study travelled long distances with the aim to visit pen friends in other parts of Sweden. Through those penfriends they were also introduced to other lesbian women, showing how lesbian networks emerged and grew.