Death by suicide, and suicidal behaviors, are a significant public mental health problem, and individuals who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning (LGBTQ), may be at increased risk. Potential underlying mechanisms of this association are unknown, but may involve the impact of LGBTQ status on future orientation and mood. Our purpose was to determine the influence of sexual identity, sequentially, on cognitive and emotional functioning, and consequent relation to suicidal behavior. In a sample of 349 college students, we used serial mediation models to investigate the relation between self-identification as LGBTQ and suicidal behavior, with hope and hopelessness as first-order mediators and depression as a second order mediator. Supporting hypotheses, we found that LGBTQ status was related to less hope and greater hopelessness and, in serial fashion, to depressive symptoms and consequent suicidal behavior. Our findings may have clinical implications. Resolution of hopelessness and depression, and promotion of hopefulness, perhaps via Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy strategies, such as goal-setting, may reduce suicidal risk in LGBTQ young adults.

Although core counseling processes are necessary for working with LGBTQ individuals, they are not sufficient. Given unique concerns, needs, and experiences across the lifespan, specialized awareness, knowledge and skills are needed for effective counseling service delivery for this diverse population. Awareness of personal and societal values as well as homoprejudice will be explored. Sexual and gender identity models, ethical and systemic issues, and unique LGBTQ concerns (including within group diversity) will be discussed. Through various activities, emphasis will be on skill development of appropriate counseling and systemic intervention strategies with respect to various counselor work settings (schools, agencies, higher education).

Vatican II was one of the most seminal councils in Roman Catholic Church history, having far reaching effects on the universal institution.1 One of the most important outcomes of Vatican II was not the reforming of orthopraxy, but the dialogue that developed regarding three specific issues – the transforming of women’s roles in Church life, Catholic sexual ethics, and the Church’s relationship with LGBTQ+ individuals.2 The decades following Vatican II became a new era of religious dialogue among Catholic scholars and theologians, which established new discussions on women’s ordination, sexual ethics, and attitudes towards homosexuality in the contemporary world. This thesis examines dialogue concerning women’s ordination, as well as the dialogue that developed from Pope John Paul II’s teachings in his Theology of the Body regarding sexual ethics and the agency of queer persons in the Church. It explores the dialogue among scholars and theologians on the changing role and opinion of women in ministerial positions, the shifting understanding of sexual morality, and the changing attitudes towards queer individuals that developed because of Vatican II’s emphasis on discussion. Vatican II decisively changed the way the Church practices and performs its numerous responsibilities in our modern world. However, the result also included a deeper understanding of the individual needs, ideas, and beliefs of the laity. In 2014, the Vatican’s International Theological Commission referenced the importance of laity’s role as members of the universal Church: Putting faith into practice in the concrete reality of the existential situations in which he or she is placed by family, professional and cultural relations enriches the personal experience of the believer. It enables him or her to see more precisely the value and the limits of a given doctrine, and to propose ways of refining its formulation. That is why those who teach in the name of the Church should give full attention to the experience of believers, especially lay people, who strive to put the Church’s teaching into practice in the areas of their own specific experience and competence.3 In doing so, greater concern for discussion of these issues developed, which is documented in this thesis. 1 To maintain efficiency within the overall thesis, from this point the term “Roman Catholic Church” will be shortened to “the Church.” This in no way is meant to mean the Catholic Church is the only church but is a way to provide a shortened term for a longer name. It also is not meant to delineate the entirety of the Body of Christ within the religious tradition of Christianity to the Roman Catholic Church. 2 Orthopraxy in this case refers to the correct performance and practice of certain rituals and ritespredominantly found within the Roman Catholic Latin Rite Mass. 3 International Theological Commission, “Sensus Fidei in the Life of the Church,” (Vatican City, 2014).

The following is a collection of five short stories set in regions familiar to me: “Dewberry Park,” “YouLead,” and “The Color Violet” in Indiana; “Mens Rea” in Kentucky; and “Tory Ride” in Cambodia. Gay identity plays a role in many of these stories, and other themes explored include family, region, socioeconomics, gender, mentality, and change. These stories are concerned with people on the brink, failing and surviving all the same. Some of them are intended to weigh, and some to satirize. I hope they all nick their readers.

The purpose of this study was to explore the cultural and linguistic aspects within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) youth community. A qualitative research design with an exploratory approach was utilized in this study. An interview questionnaire was created to explore participants’ perceptions and experiences to generate an understanding on LGBTQ culture in practice. The study sample consisted of 12 youth who self‑identify as LGBTQ recruited by snowball sampling. One‑on‑one interviews were conducted, audio‑recorded, per participant consent, and transcribed for thematic analysis. Based on participant narratives, this study found there are cultural considerations that pertain specifically to the LGBTQ community, such as the importance of having family togetherness or personal identity. A key finding was LGBTQ youth sought to create families who provide them with feelings of acceptance, warmth, and belonging. Another key finding was LGBTQ youth are continuously developing and creating new ways of naming themselves to self‑identify and identify others in the community. Implications for social work practice include increasing cultural humility and awareness of the fluidity in the LGBTQ community when working with LGBTQ youth. Future research is needed to understand LGBTQ youth perceptions of cultural sensitivity and social work practice. Finally, it is recommended that researchers use feminist and queer theoretical frameworks when working with the LGBTQ youth population.

Even though America has seen an increase in the level of acceptance for people who identify as LGBTQ and/or gender non-conforming, certain aspects within society continue to hinder their rights, especially within public education. Specifically, there are insufficiencies regarding content of and attitudes toward including LGBTQ issues in teaching and leadership training programs. Add to that, the deficits in most Family Life Education (FLE) programs in elementary schools as they lack adequate coverage of developmentally appropriate teaching and learning about gender and sexuality. Taken together, it remains questionable whether the needs of LGBTQ and/or gender non-conforming children can truly be met. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine the policy discourse concerning teaching and learning gender and sexuality issues during early childhood at an elementary school in Virginia. Another purpose was to understand how educators perceive developmentally appropriate timing and content for these topics as well. A combination of critical policy analysis and critical advocacy research was utilized to compare and analyze the written policy discourse as presented within Virginia’s FLE policy to educators’ (teachers, counselors, principals) interpretation and enactment of these written discourses in their classrooms and schools. Findings revealed specific ways the written, spoken, and enacted discourses diverged and coalesced and how these similarities and differences inform future policy and practice. A critical analysis of the written discourses (and silences) suggest Virginia’s FLE curriculum and instruction maintains heteronormative undertones, while the spoken and enacted discourses indicates concern for expanding elementary students’ understanding and acceptance of LGBTQ and/or gender non-conforming children and non-normative family structures. Implications of findings include suggestions for future research and changes in policy and practice that aim to create more inclusive classrooms and schools.

Homophobia and prejudice against the lesbian community have been argued to be consequences of lack of education within academic and non-academic spaces. This study introduces a pedagogical model of gendered lesbian identity that can act as a tool for educators to understand lesbian experiences, and thus contribute to addressing issues related to homophobia and prejudices in the classrooms and beyond. Based on thematic analysis of data generated by a qualitative online survey of 29 participants, this study argues that notions of social norms, individual agency, and importance of advocacy are critical points of emphases in the proposed educational model. Although the model may be seen as a pilot study, its experiential and theoretical foundation should make it a novel and simple pedagogical tool in teaching lesbian identity.

This project is an archival case study of the multimedia artist and writer David Wojnarowicz. I discuss Wojnarowicz's legacy as a queer activist and public intellectual to explore the potential of his posthumous rhetorical agency. I define "posthumous rhetorical agency" as a process enacted by the living to facilitate the participation of the deceased in public life. I emphasize that developing a theory of posthumous rhetorical agency can fuel the "momentum of the archival turn" while also deepening a "commitment to the queer turn" in rhetorical studies (Morris and Rawson; Crichton). I establish that Wojnarowicz's archive possesses the ability to reach into the future with remarkable velocity to contribute to his posthumous agency because he drew on extant queer kinship networks and engaged multiple mediums as a visual artist, writer, musician, performance artist, and filmmaker. I extend Avery Gordon's position that haunting differs from trauma because haunting produces a "something-to-be-done" quality, which leads to an engagement with the present and a desire "to reveal and learn from subjugated knowledge." I argue that Wojnarowicz's legacy has a "something-to-be-done" quality about it. His legacy stands as an indictment of a nation lulled into apathetic indifference and cowed into fear of social difference: at a national level when the AIDS epidemic began, politicians and corporations were inexcusably slow to respond because the disease was assumed to infect only gay men and other "high risk" populations. Thus, in understanding Wojnarowicz's suffering - as an individual and, to take this line of argument further, as part of a collective of people with AIDS who died due to the US government's neglect of a public health crisis from which the "general public" was assumed to be safe - one can conceive of his posthumous legacy as a positive and needful presence that calls attention to the value of integrating a partially erased or forgotten history more fully into the nation's history. I conclude that a viable theory of posthumous rhetorical agency must attend to issues of how to responsibly and justly represent the work of those who have been systematically excluded, censored, or erased from the historical record.

This study examines the experiences of public library staff who works in an LGBTQ-profiled children’s library. The aim of the study is further to find out whether the library as an institution can challenge heteronormativity or if traditional gender identities are reproduced. I have conducted five qualitative interviews with librarians who all work in the same library, and who all work with children to some extent. The interview material is analyzed with queer theory and norm critical theories of pedagogy. These perspectives wish to critically examine heteronormativity and change what is defined as normal. The result of the study shows that the way the library works with separate rainbow shelves, where LGBTQ-themed material is gathered, is pointing out LGBTQ as something different. And although it may also shed a light on a group formerly made invisible, it is reproducing traditional gender identities and leaves heteronormativity unquestioned. By contrast, the way the librarians are working with always including LGBTQ-materials in programming as storytimes and book presentations, is challenging the dominant position of heterosexuality. It is also shown that the way the library staff has developed their written and oral communication with the patrons, including using the gender neutral pronomina ”hen” and alternatives to ”mom and dad”, is increasing the possibilities of an inclusive reception in the library. The oral communication is for various reasons not always used though. In conclusion the interviews show that the librarians are positive to working with LGBTQ-issues although they sometimes tend to forget. The study further concludes that the library’s way of working with LGBTQ-issues is both reproducing traditional gender identities, and challenging heteronormative structures. This is a two years master’s thesis in Library and Information Science.

This study investigates whether teachers working with children ages 6 – 9 are including an LGBTQ perspective in their teaching methods. The purpose is to critically examine sexuality and gender as part of the teaching methods in Swedish schools; whether teachers are working with LGBTQ questions in their classes, and if so, how. The following research questions are answered:  Are the teachers incorporating an LGBTQ perspective in their classes, and if so, in what sense? Are LGBTQ questions relevant and of interest in the education? Do teachers feel like they have gained the right tools in their pedagogical education and/or in their workplace to work with LGBTQ questions in their class room? And if so, in what way?  The method used is qualitative research in the form of interviews and observations. The conclusions reached are that in theory most teachers agree that an LGBTQ perspective is of importance in the classes; however in practice it is not that easy. Most teachers agree that is it difficult to incorporate this perspective. All teachers stress that their pedagogical education lacked in providing an LGBTQ perspective, but a couple teachers point out that they have received it from their workplace instead.