Doctor of Education / Department of Educational Leadership / Donna Augustine-Shaw / Much of the research on gays and lesbians in education has focused on their experiences as a marginalized group. There has been much progress in the understanding of gays and lesbians as a whole and the research shows that indeed this group has shown great contributions to the field. However, a close examination of the history of gays and lesbians also presents considerable evidence that the civil rights of gays and lesbians can indeed influence their professional lives regardless of occupation. This qualitative multiple case study examined the life experiences of the gay or lesbian educator in light of civil rights legislation that continues to influence our lives. Tenured educators were interviewed regarding their lived experiences early in life, during their education and growth in the profession, and currently as educators. The research used reputational snow ball sampling to discover these educators. The concepts behind Queer Theory and Queer Legal Theory were used in examining data in the context of civil rights involving gay and lesbian teachers. This study adds to the body of literature regarding sensitivity and tolerance for gays and lesbians as well as materials designed to enlighten teacher training in sensitivity, and awareness of gay, and lesbian teachers and administrators.

Applying a queer Muslim feminists lens, this thesis interrogates ways in which a heterosexual world-view appropriates the domain of sexuality within two specific Muslim contexts. The study focuses on, is informed and enriched by the experiences of Queer Muslim women who navigate within the contextual spaces they inhabit, multiple sites which ultimately propel them to question and contest the heterosexual norms that they are expected to repeatedly perform in the name of religion. Through their questioning, they name the various challenges they experience and the strategies they employ in navigating realms of family, state and society, as well their relationship with the Divine. This study, both foregrounds and contributes to understanding Muslim queer women's subjectivity in the production of religious meaning. More succinctly, this thesis contributes to appreciating how Queer Muslim women understand their existence in the face of religious and societal criticism, and how their experiences can serve as the threshold from which to formulate ethically and theologically enriched considerations deeply rooted in the Qur'ān. By looking at two specific contexts, namely Malaysia and Lebanon, this thesis carefully uncovers multiple sites of oppression, layer by layer. The purpose is to lay bear the political personality of states, which often employ religion to coerce those it deems different and thus a threat, in this case to standards of sexual morality. In direct tension with the two nation-states in question, are alternative fringe actors who occupy contested middle spaces. It is from these crucial middles spaces i.e. spaces of potential friction and tension that subliminal spaces for dialogue and discussion then arise. Finally, remaining within an Islamic frame of reference, this thesis takes a nuanced route via Queer Theology, to argue that alternative queer sexual subcultures need not be a source of fear, or threat, or condemnation, but can quite possibly and realistically live alongside a diverse range of sexual subjectivities, ethically and conscientiously, no more, no less than anyone who defines or sees themselves as Muslim.

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The purpose of this study was to examine factors influencing the decision of lesbian victims of domestic violence to call or not to call the police.

The contemporary field �lesbian health� was shaped by a range of social and political changes in the last third of the twentieth century, as well as by discourses originating in the historical regulation of lesbianism. In discourse, lesbians have been produced as invisible, passive victims of heterosexist and potentially homophobic health-care providers. This project sought to understand how lesbians produce and manage their own health, and their interactions with doctors and other health-care providers. The research questions asked how discourses about lesbianism and the construction of the lesbian health field influence the ways in which lesbians construct and manage their own health, and how lesbians position themselves as they negotiate clinical spaces. Using semi-structured interviews, 19 women, aged between 22 and 64 years, who identified as lesbian, gay, same-sex-attracted and queer were interviewed. Interview data were analysed using discourse and content analysis. When they engaged with the health-care system, some participants produced their lesbianism as a social matter of no relevance to health; while for others their lesbianism was central to their health. An analysis of power relations revealed the complexity of ways the participants used agency to speak or remain silent about their sexual orientation. This was motivated by complex embodied understandings about the potential for emotional, physical or ontological harm involved in coming out in clinical spaces. Some chose to remain silent all, or some of the time, others to assertively identify themselves as lesbian. This depended on a range of contemporaneous factors including safety concerns, past experience and personal judgement. Whether to come out or not in the medical encounter was not necessarily a conscious decision, but was shaped by the individual�s embodied �sense for the game�. While the health-care system had frequently provided less than optimum care, these women were not passive, but used agency to decide whether or not their sexual orientation was relevant to the medical encounter.

<p>This Bachelor thesis deals with the sexual identity of Egyptian women who love and have relationships with other women. I theoretically study the state of existing literature on homosexuality in the Middle East, and I do this from a gender perspective. By looking closer at four recent books on this topic I derive two main, and contradictory, theories. The first is put forth by Joseph A Massad in his book Desiring Arabs, where he rejects the existence of homosexuality in the Middle East, declaring that same sex acts in this region don’t constitute identities, as in the West. The second theory, best represented in Samar Habib’s work Female homosexuality in the Middle East, sees past and present histories of same sex love as representations of homosexuality. The empirical basis for my analysis is five in-depth interviews with Egyptian women having sexual relationships with women. Examining my material I find a negation of Massad’s theory and a confirmation of Habib’s, the women indeed describe sexual identities. I look into these descriptions and see how the women have reached this point of realizing – or coming to terms. I also study their narratives of passing, as heterosexual women, in order to avoid repression. The women’s knowledge of society’s prejudice gives the explanation for their choices of passing, but at the same time the women’s stories show a will to challenge the view on lesbian women and resist the compulsory heterosexuality.</p>

A female athlete who identifies as lesbian possesses multiple identities that exist within a heterosexist and homonegative climate. The primary objective of this research was to provide a voice to a marginalized group by describing and to understand the experiences of athletes who identify as lesbian. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with 11 women who identified as athletes and lesbian. An overall thematic structure containing a ground and three figural themes, supported by participant quotations, was developed to represent the lesbian athletes’ experiences. The ground was my own process. The three figural themes that emerged were support, homophobia, and emotions. Further research on athletes who identify as lesbian, and each theme presented in the present study, is necessary to combat the heterosexist and homonegative climate of sport. Furthermore, psychologists, coaches, athletic trainers, sport psychology consultants, and others working with athletes who identify as lesbian may utilize this information to enhance their understanding of the experiences of lesbian athletes. Continued professional and personal dialogue, research, and practical recommendations regarding lesbian athletes are encouraged to promote change.

This Bachelor thesis deals with the sexual identity of Egyptian women who love and have relationships with other women. I theoretically study the state of existing literature on homosexuality in the Middle East, and I do this from a gender perspective. By looking closer at four recent books on this topic I derive two main, and contradictory, theories. The first is put forth by Joseph A Massad in his book Desiring Arabs, where he rejects the existence of homosexuality in the Middle East, declaring that same sex acts in this region don’t constitute identities, as in the West. The second theory, best represented in Samar Habib’s work Female homosexuality in the Middle East, sees past and present histories of same sex love as representations of homosexuality. The empirical basis for my analysis is five in-depth interviews with Egyptian women having sexual relationships with women. Examining my material I find a negation of Massad’s theory and a confirmation of Habib’s, the women indeed describe sexual identities. I look into these descriptions and see how the women have reached this point of realizing – or coming to terms. I also study their narratives of passing, as heterosexual women, in order to avoid repression. The women’s knowledge of society’s prejudice gives the explanation for their choices of passing, but at the same time the women’s stories show a will to challenge the view on lesbian women and resist the compulsory heterosexuality.

Objective To investigate symptoms of anxiety and depression in lesbian couples undergoing assisted reproductive treatment (ART), and to study the relationship of demographic data, pregnancy outcome and future reproductive plans with symptoms of anxiety and depression. Design Descriptive, a part of the prospective longitudinal ‘Swedish study on gamete donation’. Setting All university clinics in Sweden performing gamete donation. Population A consecutive sample of 214 lesbian couples requesting assisted reproduction, 165 of whom participated. Methods Participants individually completed three study-specific questionnaires and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS): time point 1 (T1), at commencement of ART; time point 2 (T2), approximately 2 months after treatment; and time point 3 (T3), 2–5 years after first treatment. Main outcome measures Anxiety and depression (HADS), pregnancy outcome and future reproductive plans. Results The vast majority of lesbian women undergoing assisted reproduction reported no symptoms of anxiety and depression at the three assessment points. A higher percentage of the treated women, compared with the partners, reported symptoms of anxiety at T2 (14% versus 5%, P = 0.011) and T3 (10% versus 4%, P = 0.018), as well as symptoms of depression at T2 (4% versus 0%, P = 0.03) and T3 (3% versus 0%, P = 0.035). The overall pregnancy outcome was high; almost three-quarters of lesbian couples gave birth 2–5 years after sperm donation treatments. Open-ended comments illustrated joy and satisfaction about family building. Conclusion Lesbian women in Sweden reported good psychological health before and after treatment with donated sperm. / <p>Funding Agencies|Merck Serono||Uppsala/Orebro Regional Research Council||Medical Research Council of Southeast Sweden||Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation||</p>

In A White Wedding? The Racial Politics of Same-Sex Marriage, I examine the inter-locking relations of power that constitute the lesbian/gay subject recognized by the Canadian nation-state as deserving of access to civil marriage. Through analysis of legal documents, Parliamentary and Senate debates, and interviews with lawyers, I argue that this lesbian/gay subject achieves intelligibility in the law by trading in on and shoring up the terms of racialized neo-liberal citizenship. I also argue that the victory of same-sex marriage is implicated in reproducing and securing a racialized Canadian national identity as well as a racialized civilizational logic, where “gay rights” are the newest manifestation of the modernity of the “West” in a post-9/11 historical context. By centring a critical race/queer conceptual framework, this research project follows the discursive practices of respectability, freedom and civility that circulate both widely and deeply in this legal struggle. I contend that in order to successfully shed its historical markers of degeneracy, the lesbian/gay subject must be constituted not as a sexed citizen but rather as a neoliberal citizen, one who is intimately tied to notions of privacy, property, autonomy and freedom of choice, and hence one who is racialized as white. The critical race/queer analytic also attends to the temporal and spatial registers framing this legal struggle that re-install various troubling racial hierarchies in a “gay rights” project often lauded as progressive. This analysis of the discursive terrain of same-sex marriage reveals the race shadow that lies at the heart of this equality-rights struggle. The conclusion of this thesis provides reflections for developing an ethics of activism that dislodges and resists the (re)production of racialized relations of power in lesbian and gay equality rights activism. In so doing, I seek to provoke, question and re-draw the landscape of our thinking, not only about same-sex marriage but also about the terms with which we conceive, articulate and practice racial and sexual justice.