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Several studies explore new technology and social media usage, especially in the global North. This study set out to investigate what kind of experiences and opinions youth in La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia, had of their internet and communication technology usage, through semi-structural interviews, at the same time comparing the possible differences in this between LGBT and non-LGBT youth. That way I am trying to add a perspective and voice in the new media discourse, as well as adding to the knowledge of my partner organization, Svalorna Latinamerika. I decided to focus on three main online activities; security issues, relationship building and information management, and the nine informants were encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences as well as information about their general ICT usage. The results showed that the youth’s internet usage was depending more on their interest in the different media and platforms, rather than on their sexual orientation or gender. The LGBT informants however had more experiences of discrimination and threat online. Also, all of the informant’s seemed to create new relations not only to other users online, but also to the platforms and media itself, this depending on how much they were using the platforms. Finally I could see that the informants could satisfy many different needs with their ICT and social media use, depending on their interests, resources and time spent online.

"Authenticity, Citizenship and Accommodation: LGBT Rights in a Red State" examines the discourse around volunteerism, exceptionalism, and queer citizenship that emerged within the context of a statewide (anti-gay) ballot initiative campaign in the American Southwest. I argue that the ways in which local volunteers and activists define themselves and their attempts to defeat the ballot initiative is tied to the struggle over the authority to represent local LGBT organizational culture and an emergent New West identity. In such a way, local debates over authentic western lifestyles that divide regional communities intertwine with intergenerational debates over gay liberation and rights frameworks, and the polarized discourse on blue and red states which have dominated the U.S. political climate of the past decade. While statewide campaign leaders with a base in Phoenix (the state capital) focused on polling data and messaging in order to stop the passage of the amendment, many Tucson activists and organizational leaders tied to the LGBT community center sought to strategize a long-term grassroots approach to change hearts and minds. Within this debate over campaign strategy and internal decision-making, both groups drew attention to the differences between the metropolitan areas. This regional example speaks to the ways in which established theoretical frameworks anthropologists utilize to understand social movements may prove insufficient for understanding the diversity that exists within the everyday processes of collective action. The internal messaging war that spilled outside of the confines of the campaign steering committee meetings into the pages of the statewide gossip and newspaper editorial sections also speaks to the ways in which official declarations of ideological stance should not be taken as the actual intent of those seeking change. One may shape one's personal story to be on message, choose to defy those constraints, or use the rhetorical strategy of the message without actually committing to the underlying premise. The broader national concerns are localized symbolically in the notion of blue and red counties, but also take on a regional flavor in the satirical call to statehood for the Southern Arizona. Here issues of authenticity emerge not only within the context of the campaign disputes around messaging, and by extension, who has the right to speak for and about the LGBT organizational community, but also in the realm of derisive banter that travels back and forth between the two major metropolitan areas over what it means to live an authentic western lifestyle. Within the southern metropolis, this discourse is framed by the notion that the western desert is a different sort of place, with a different sort of people and way of life that is threatened by snowbirds, retirees, Midwestern lifestyles and corporate interests. Often Phoenix to the north is seen as a representation of all these negative influences. In addition, Center-based activists and volunteers, describe their southern city in idealistic terms as an oasis for LGBT community, artists, activists, migrants, refugees, and all manner of progressive politics. Memory enacted through the telling of one's story at a Coming Out Day testimonial, political rallies and in dialogue with an anthropologist are shaped by these notions of difference. These notions of difference also emerge as a pattern in the narrative construction of space, violence and memory within activist life histories. These life histories in turn reveal a fragment of local LGBT organizational culture, in which the process of professionalization transforms the meaning of community, and the act of representation transforms the role of activist into that of the citizen volunteer. The community center in this sense is a memorialization of community and movement culture, and by idealizing what came before it masks material conditions at the same time that it offers up the potential of a more radical present/future. While the community center, Tucson and Pima County are coded as oases of safety, this image is continually disrupted by counter narratives, including the state-wide campaign to stop the marriage amendment; local support for the Protect Marriage and anti-immigrant amendments; and evidence of on-going violence directed against racial, ethnic and religious minorities and those who transgress hetero and gender normative expectations. These disruptions however appear to be cyclical in that they allow both professionals and concerned community members (citizen volunteers) to rally together in a show of strength and solidarity and in so doing represent the authentic, legitimate community. However, these disruptions may also allow for counter narratives to enter into public discourse, thereby offering up a more radical envisioning of community beyond the limits of LGBT organizational culture. / Anthropology

För hbtq-personer kan vägarna till föräldraskap se mycket olika ut. För homosexuella män, som både enskilt och i par saknar biologiska förutsättningar att bli gravida på egen hand, är möjligheterna till familjebildning särskilt begränsade. Tidigare forskning på området visar även att gruppen möter tydliga utmaningar och hinder i sin strävan efter att bli föräldrar. Syftet med studien var att genom åtta semistrukturerade intervjuer undersöka hur homosexuella män i samkönade par motiverar sin önskan om att skaffa barn, diskuterar och fattar beslut kring möjliga sätt att bilda familj, samt utforska erfarenheter av möjligheter och hinder på vägen mot att bli föräldrar till ett gemensamt barn. Studien motiveras av att forskning kring homosexuella mäns föräldraskap är knapphändig, särskilt i svensk kontext. Intervjuerna har analyserats med hjälp av tematisk analys och utmynnade i tre huvudteman och tio underteman. Resultaten visar att det finns en tydlig barnlängtan bland de deltagande paren men att normativa, ekonomiska, praktiska, juridiska och sociala hinder är vanligt förekommande i deras strävan efter att bilda familj. Med hjälp av ett queerteoretiskt ramverk synliggörs att homosexuella mäns familjebildning påverkas av heteronormativitet, kärnfamiljsideal och normer inom gaycommunityt. Deras erfarenheter synliggör ett dubbelt utanförskap i relation till dessa motstridiga normsystem. Avsaknaden av en tydlig väg att gå resulterar i osäkerhet, komplexa överväganden och en känsla av att vara utelämnad till sitt eget öde. Resultaten och tidigare forskning pekar mot behovet av samhälleliga och normativa förändringar, ökad tillgång till information, positiva rollmodeller och lämpligt stöd längsmed vägen mot ett tänkt föräldraskap. Det kan på sikt främja och underlätta homosexuella mäns möjligheter till familjebildning bortom heteronormens snäva ramar. / For LGBTQ individuals, the paths to parenthood can look very different. For gay men, who lack the biological ability to become pregnant on their own, the options to becoming parents are particularly limited. Previous research also shows that gay men face many challenges and obstacles in their pursuit of parenthood. By analyzing eight semi-structured interviews, the purpose of this study was to investigate how gay men in same-sex relationships motivate their desire to have children, how they discuss and make decisions regarding their family formation, and to explore opportunities and obstacles on their path to parenthood. The study is motivated by the fact that research on gay men's parenthood is scarce, especially in a Swedish context. The interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis and resulted in three main themes and ten subthemes. The results show that the participating couples are longing to have children, but normative, economic, practical, legal, and social obstacles are common in their pursuits to start a family. With the help of a queer theoretical framework, the results show that gay men's family formation is influenced by heteronormativity, ideals regarding the nuclear family, and norms within the gay community. Their experiences highlight a double exclusion in relation to these conflicting normative systems. The lack of a clear path forward results in uncertainty, complex decision making, and a sense of being left to their own devices. The results from this study and previous research point to the need for societal and normative changes, increased access to information, positive role models, and appropriate support along the challenging path towards parenthood. This could, in turn, promote and facilitate gay men's opportunities for family formation beyond the narrow confinements of heteronormativity.

Syftet med denna examensuppsats var att kvalitativt undersöka upplevelsen av minoritetsstress samt dess påverkan och hantering hos homosexuella i Sverige. Detta gjordes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med tio personer i åldern 22 till 44 år, vars berättelser analyserades med hjälp av en tematisk analys. Resultatet visar på en utbredd upplevelse av minoritetsstress inom flera områden i samhället och livet. Minoritetsstressen berodde på alltifrån hat och avståndstagande, diskriminering, utanförskap, heteronormativt bemötande, exotifiering och internaliserad homofobi till problem vid kontakt med myndigheter, vård och juridik. Minoritetsstressen upplevdes ge en sämre psykisk hälsa, ge upphov till komplexa negativa känslor, begränsa livsutrymmet, dränera energi samt ge upphov till en förhöjd rädsla och vaksamhet för potentiellt ofarliga situationer. Strategier för hantering av minoritetsstressen omfattade allt från socialt stöd, arbete med sin självbild och gränssättning till engagemang för hbtq+- frågor. Informanternas vittnesmål gick i linje med internationell forskning på samma område och kunde vidare förstås när de ställdes bredvid tidigare fynd och teorier kring minoritetsstress och hanteringsstrategier. Vittnesmålen visade även på minoritetsstressens komplexa verkan och genes. Resultatet indikerar ett stort behov av kunskap om homosexuellas utsatthet och livsvillkor inom samhällets alla arenor. Vidare forskning rörande minoritetsstressens omfattning, intersektion med andra minoritetspositioner samt fördjupning kring de olika delområden denna examensuppsats har berört bedöms nödvändig i framtiden. / Minoritetsstress hos hbtqi-personer: Upplevelser och coping

Several discussions rose in western media when Swedish high-jumper Emma Green Tregaro competed with her nails painted in the colors of the rainbow during the athletic world championship in Moscow, in August 2013. This was meant to show her support for the gay movement, but was viewed as a protest against the new Russian law which forbids gay propaganda.  Western media critizised Russian media for failing to report the incident to their readers and that is where we got interested in making this research. We got the idea of comparing a Swedish newspaper with a Russian one, to observe differences in how they chose to report the event.  Due to lack of knowledge of the Russian language and the kyrillic alphabet we had to turn to an English-speaking newspaper based in Russia: The Moscow Times.  We compared the Moscow Times with the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, to see their differences in terms of: How they chose to cover the event, from a gender perspective; what structures of power can be found, how Emma Green Tregaro and Yelena Isinbayeva are portrayed and what meaning the protest is given by the narrators. We achieved our results through narrative analysis, a qualitative method. We applied theories such as gender theory and media logic in order to obtain answers to our questions.   We came to the conclusion that there are great differences in how much attention the protest achieved in the two newspapers. From the Swedish perspective, more focus were put on Emma Green Tregaro where she is a brave messenger of love, while in the Russian, more emphasis lays on Yelena Isinbayeva as a defender of the Russian stance. While Dagens Nyheter has put resources into sending journalists to Moscow, The Moscow Times has used a lot of material from news bureaus such as Reuters and The Associated Press instead of covering the event themselves.  Another interesting fact is that the institutions presented in the news flow such as the IAAF, IOC and the Swedish Sports Confederation are only represented by men, and through the power structural dimension of gender theory we can see tendencies of control or influence over the female sports profiles’ actions.

The following study examines the process behind the legalization of homosexual acts in Sweden between the years of 1933-1944. This is done through Michel Foucault’s thoughts about bio-power and episteme. The study also relies on the definition of heteronormativity found in Tiina Rosenbergs book Queerfeministisk agenda. I have made use of public Swedish government publications in the form of Statens offentliga utredningar (loosely translated to public investigations by the government) and motions, propositions and protocol from the Swedish parliament between the investigated period (1933-1944). The goal of the study was to identify the most influential episteme which in turn was analysed to see, if it in any way, influenced the discourse against homosexuals in a positive or negative way. Results from the study confirms that the contemporary episteme named after Emil Kraeplin which concludes that homosexual behaviour was seen in the light of being something socially constructed and could therefore be spread between individuals in the means of homosexual manipulations. This lead the episteme to influence the discourse against homosexuals to be viewed as a disease and a mental illness. By looking at homosexuality from the outlook of the Kraeplin episteme the Swedish law was formed in a way to protect the Swedish youth from being able to be manipulated into spreading the homosexual acts.

On April 30, 1997, for the first time in television history, an actress on a popular television sitcom announced to the world that both se and the character she played were lesbians. This study offers an interpretation of the significance of Ellen DeGeneres' coming through a cultural studies analysis of the April 14, 1997 Time magazine article in which DeGeneres comes out and the April 30, 1997 "Ellen" television episode in which DeGeneres brings her character, Ellen Morgan, out. The study revealed sites of ideological differences between the two texts that could point to a struggle over the meaning of gayness in modern American society. The results suggest that mainstream attitudes and beliefs could be in the process of shifting toward a more normalized view of homosexuality.