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Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Chicago, Dept. of History, Aug. 2003. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (PhD) -- McMaster University, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 245-264). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, Nepean, 1996. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. xvii-xxiv). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 356-377). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Melbourne, Political Science Dept., Faculty of Arts, 2006. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 289-300)

In a moment when visibility and representations of LGBTTQAI+ people are proliferating in North American society, it is important to think critically about how visibility and representations function and to interrogate their meanings and a/effects. This thesis uses data produced from five semi-structured interviews conducted with lesbian identified participants living in non-urban spaces in Ontario to demonstrate the importance of a continued lesbian specificity, to draw attention to heteronormativity and heterosexism in Ontarian society, to challenge femme invisibility and complicate the notion of femme privilege, and to move beyond the urban/rural binary as a way of making sense of sexuality. The methodological framework guiding this thesis draws on interpretive phenomenological analysis as well as feminist and queer methodologies, which facilitated a responsive and reflexive research process. This thesis is grounded in ongoing debates around identity politics and representation, drawing on literature from lesbian theories, lesbian-feminist histories, queer theories, heterosexism, heteronormativity and homonormativity, lesbian-feminist histories, white privilege studies, queer and feminist geography, and LGBTTQAI+ rural studies.

Drawing on my own process of entry into local queer, lesbian and feminist public cultures, I argue that a powerful relationship between feminist and lesbian existence can be felt and that this sensibility bears influence on the way queer erotic and politicized identities emerge in relation to one another. These affective links remain frequently unacknowledged and/or are actively repudiated due to popular accounts of feminist genealogy whereby second wave lesbian-feminist positions are rendered fundamentally incompatible with contemporary queer/third wave feminist ones. I challenge this narrative by building on select early articulations of radical lesbian feminism to show that when affirmed consciously, the sense that lesbianism and feminism are interconnected constitutes a “woman-identified experience” and an opportunity to bear witness to the unrealized possibilities of second-wave radical feminism in the present. I conclude that politicized “lesbian” and/or “woman” identification remain indispensable strategic sites from which to observe and confront heteropatriarchy.

Drawing on my own process of entry into local queer, lesbian and feminist public cultures, I argue that a powerful relationship between feminist and lesbian existence can be felt and that this sensibility bears influence on the way queer erotic and politicized identities emerge in relation to one another. These affective links remain frequently unacknowledged and/or are actively repudiated due to popular accounts of feminist genealogy whereby second wave lesbian-feminist positions are rendered fundamentally incompatible with contemporary queer/third wave feminist ones. I challenge this narrative by building on select early articulations of radical lesbian feminism to show that when affirmed consciously, the sense that lesbianism and feminism are interconnected constitutes a “woman-identified experience” and an opportunity to bear witness to the unrealized possibilities of second-wave radical feminism in the present. I conclude that politicized “lesbian” and/or “woman” identification remain indispensable strategic sites from which to observe and confront heteropatriarchy.