Coming out as a sexual minority can be a challenging process (D’amico, Julien, Tremblay, & Chartrand, 2015) and having supportive allies and advocates within the family makes that process less strenuous (Luke & Goodrich, 2015). The sibling relationship has been shown to play a significant supportive role in the lives of LGB people while coming out as sexual minorities (Haxhe, Cerezo, Bergfeld, & Walloch, 2017). Scholars have found that when a second child within the family system comes out as LGB, it gives the parents a chance to improve aspects of their parenting compared to the first child who came out to them. However, there is still little known about LGB sibling’s shared experience with both being sexual minorities. Chapter 2 in this dissertation is a systemic review on the topic of multiple LGB sibling families. Results indicating that these families exist but are not properly represented in literature. With LGB individuals having an increased risks of negative mental health outcomes (Russell & Fish, 2016), Chapter three explores the lived experiences of LGB individuals with LGB siblings. The purpose of the present study is twofold: 1) to examine if coming out to an LGB sibling increases the chances of an ally/advocate within the family and 2) helps lower negative mental health outcomes. Results from this qualitive study include significant differences of lived experiences based on order the siblings came out with family dynamic changes to improve family cohesion. Participants also reported viewing their siblings as allies which played a role in helping with negative mental health symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. Finally, this study utilized feminist family theory and found a less likely chance in power projection once both siblings were out. Clinical implications and future research directions will be discussed at length.

Several studies have shown that religious involvement has positive effects on human life. It creates a sense of belonging and hope for the future in the life of youths, it improves married life and prevents loneliness in the lives of older adults. However for LGBTQ people the effect of religious involvement is often the complete opposite experience. The majority of the religious groups in United States of America believe homosexuality is a sin and religious involvement for LGBTQ people results in being faced with oppression, internalized homophobia, anxiety, loneliness and depression. This study, through qualitative interviews, research shows how religious homophobia and transphobia have affected the participants' mental and emotional health and how it has affected their religious life.

abstract: Teachers represent important agents of gender socialization in schools and play a critical role in the lived experiences of transgender students. What remains less clear, however, is whether the gender of the teacher impacts their response to transgender bullying and specifically how threats to gender identity might influence men who teach to respond negatively. The current study used a 2 (gender) x 3 (gender identity threat, no gender identity threat, and control) experimental design to assess whether the masculine overcompensation theory helps explain how men who teach respond to transgender victimization experiences. It was hypothesized that men in the gender identity threat condition would endorse more anti-trans attitudes (e.g., higher transphobic attitudes, lower allophilia [feelings of liking] toward transgender individuals, more traditional gender roles, less supportive responses to a vignette about transgender bullying, less support for school practices that support transgender students, and less likelihood of signing a petition supporting transgender youth rights) compared to the other conditions. It was also expected that they would endorse more negative affect but higher feelings of self-assurance. Women in the study served as a comparison group as no overcompensation effect is expected for them. Participants (N = 301) were nationally recruited through word of mouth, social media, and personal networks. Results from the current study did not support the theory of masculine overcompensation as there was no effect of threatening feedback. There were a number of significant gender differences. Men reported lower transgender allophilia, higher transphobia, more traditional gender role beliefs, less likelihood of signing the petition supporting transgender youth rights, and more self-assurance than women. No gender effect was found for negative affect or support for school practices supporting transgender students. There were also no observable differences in participant responses to the vignette by gender or condition. The implications and limitations of the current study were discussed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Counseling Psychology 2020

This paper aims to summarise what current research says about how “life questions” is used in Swedish religious education and what criteria LGBTQ questions need to meet in order to be used in teaching. It does this by systematically searching and assessing academic sources found in four different databases. The research shows that there are two main ways educators use life questions in classrooms, as discussion starters and as thematic interdisciplinary teaching. The research also shows that two general hurdles need to be maneuvered to teach about LGBTQ in classrooms. First one being structural, such as syllabus and knowledge hurdles. Second being social, as other teachers, administrators, students and parents might cause problems for the teacher. This work can and should be seen in the tradition of critical pedagogy more than in the tradition of “life questions”. Even though this paper does not systematically gather new data nor create new knowledge, it is critical of the lack of research on religious LGBTQ students, the lack of research on student perception about LGBTQ questions in the classroom and the lack of research on the concrete results of education pushes by Skolverket, MUCF and RFSL. Keywords: LGBTQ, Queer, GSM, Religious education, High school, Sweden, Livsfrågor, Queer, HBTQ, Religionskunskap, Gymnasiet.

The purpose of this master thesis is to contribute to the research on bibliotherapy used to support and strengthen LGBTQ youth. The study also investigates the use of bibliotherapy in a school context. The basis of this study is a five week long bibliotherapeutic project with focus on LGBTQ literature, where the participants all identified as LGBTQ. In the reading group the participants read and discussed novels, short stories, comics books and lyrics. The bibliotherapeutic reading group had an interactive and developing purpose, according to the definition by Arleen McCarty Hynes and Mary Hynes-Berry. The theoretical framework consists of critical literacy, affection and emotion theory and empowerment.  The empirical analysis is based on recordings from the bibliotherapeutic sessions and from interviews with school librarians. Through the reading group the participants identified with characters, discovered new texts and discussed LGBTQ issues. The results indicate that the activity of reading and discussing LGBTQ literature can have a supportive and strengthening effect on LGBTQ youth. The social interaction and the feeling of solidarity with the group are important factors that help the participants to reach empowerment and self-reliance. To be able to use bibliotherapy in a school context the staff needs to find a suitable method to use and potentially also involve the student health.  This is a two years masters thesis in Library and information science.

No description available.

Bakgrund: HBTQ-personer har en förhöjd risk för ohälsa jämfört med befolkningen i övrigt. En teori som ibland används som förklaring till ojämlikheten är minoritetsstress, en ökad stress till följd av fördomar, stigmatisering och diskriminering. Det finns brister i kunskap om HBTQ-personer hos personal i samhällsverksamheter, vilket bland annat leder till sämre bemötande. Därför har region Gotland gjort en informationskampanj för att öka kunskapen om HBTQ-frågor.  Syfte: Att ta reda på huruvida personer som jobbar inom samhällsverksamheter i region Gotland tycker att de har nytta av informationsmaterial om HBTQ-frågor i deras dagliga arbete. Metod: En onlineenkät med 13 frågor, med fasta svarsalternativ, en skattningsskala och frågor med öppna svar skickades ut till anställda inom region Gotland. Deskriptiv statistisk gjordes för att bearbeta den kvantitativa datan, de öppna svaren sammanställdes till ett resultat.  Resultat: 1402 svar erhölls (26 % svarsfrekvens). Drygt hälften, 56 % av respondenterna angav att de känner till informationsmaterialet. Det finns inga större skillnader i kännedom av materialet baserat på könsidentitet. Färre av de yngre respondenterna känner till materialet. De flesta fick reda på materialet genom sin arbetsplats. 77 % av respondenterna anser att kunskaper inom HBTQ+ är viktigt för bemötandet av människor. Informationen ansågs vara av värde för kunskap, för att bli bekant med begrepp och benämningar. En ökad medvetenhet om HBTQ-personers situation lyftes som värdefullt. Mer praktiska exempel på bra bemötande önskades. Slutsats: Resultaten i den här studien tyder på att informationsmaterialet har nått ut och bidragit till en bättre förståelse för och bättre bemötandet av HBTQ-personer, och också identifierat önskemål om praktiska exempel på bra bemötande. / Background: Lack of knowledge and awareness for LGBTQ-issues among social services personnel may lead to unprofessional attitude and services. This may cause minority stress and increased risk for health disparities of LGBTQ-people. Region Gotland identified the need for improved LGBTQ-knowledge in its social services in an interview study with LGBTQ-people. Therefore, region Gotland launched an information campaign to educate social service personnel on LGBTQ-issues. Aim: This study investigated whether increased knowledge about LGBTQ-issues benefits social service workers in Gotland in their daily work. Method: An online survey with 13 questions with fixed alternatives, rating scale or open answers was sent to employees of region Gotland. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the quantitative data and the open answers were collected to summarize a result. Results: 1402 answers were collected (26 % response rate) obtained. About half of the respondents (56 %) were aware of the information campaign. Knowledge of the campaign did not differ by gender identity. Less of the younger respondents were familiar with the campaign. Most respondents received information about the campaign through their workplace. Seventy-seven percent considered knowledge about LGBTQ-topics important for the treatment of LGBTQ-people. The main learnings from the information campaign were LGBTQ-topics knowledge and terminology as well as increased awareness of the life situation of LGBTQ-people. Participants expressed need for more best-practice guidance on meeting LGBTQ-individuals. Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that the provided information material improved understanding for and attitudes towards LGBTQ-people and identified the need for further best-practice guidance.

This thesis builds on the findings of my previous study, which established that queer South Asian women (QSAW) feel invisibilized in Toronto’s LGBTQ+ community (see Patel, 2019). The present study critically investigates the operation and cultural reproduction of power in organizational practices that invisibilize QSAW within Pride Toronto™, as a means of diagnosing the problem in mainstream LGBTQ+ organizations more broadly. The following research question is explored: How do the cultural underpinnings of Pride Toronto™ contribute to the invisibilization of queer South Asian women in the broader LGBTQ+ community? This critical ethnography substantiates the invisibilization of QSAW in the LGBTQ+ community as an institutionalized form of identity-based violence. This study rejects the argument that invisibility is exclusively felt by QSAW. Instead, this thesis demonstrates that QSAW are invisibilized by the willful negligence of dominant actors in knowledge practices, as well as assimilationist politics that mandate outness, which invalidate and exclude QSAW. This study further finds that QSAW remain invisibilized in the broader LGBTQ+ community as a result of Pride organizations branding as diverse and inclusive, while simultaneously advancing colonial knowledge about queer identities and ideologies that re-write the narratives of QSAW in mainstream LGBTQ+ discourse.

This is a comparative study between Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan that explores the differences of each society's values and politics to understand their current gay rights record. In light of Taiwan's legalization of marriage equality in 2019, this study compares all three countries to find the differences that possibly caused this progression of gay rights in Taiwan, but not in South Korea and Japan, which are notorious for their apathy toward the LGBTQ community.

abstract: This dissertation project examines the cultural labor of the drag queen in the United States (US). I explore how the drag queen can be understood as a heuristic to understand the stakes and limits of belonging and exceptionalism. Inclusion in our social and national belonging in the US allows for legibility and safety, however, when exceptional or token figures become the path towards achieving belonging, it can leave out those who are unable to conform, which are often the most vulnerable folks. I argue that attending to the drag queen’s trajectory, we can trace the ways that multiply-marginalized bodies navigate attempts to include, subsume, and erase their existence by the nation-state while simultaneously celebrating and consuming them in the realm of media and consumer culture. In the first chapter I introduce the project, the context and the stakes involved. Chapter two examines representations of drag queens in films to unpack how these representations have layered over time for American audiences, and positions these films as necessary building blocks for queer semiosis for viewers to return to and engage with. Chapter three analyzes RuPaul and RuPaul’s Drag Race to outline RuPaul labor as an exceptional subject, focusing on his investment in homonormative politics and labor supporting homonationalist projects. Chapter four centers questions of trans* identity and race, specifically Blackness to analyze how Drag Race renders certain bodies and performances legitimate and legible, constructing proper drag citizens. Chapter five utilizes ethnographic methods to center local drag communities, focusing on The Rock and drag performers in Phoenix, Arizona to analyze how performers navigate shifting media discourses of drag and construct a queer performance space all their own. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Gender Studies 2020