This thesis explores the potential of queer embodiment through the experiences of transgendered people. After discussing the importance of researching the body, often left out of academic enquiry, I engage with theoretical frames that radically reconfigure concepts of subjectivity providing the means to reveal the innovative forms of embodiment that participants embrace. Within these frameworks the mind/body division is disrupted and reconfigured to demonstrate that these are not separate entities rather the mind exists in the body as does the body in the mind. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari's version of the becoming body, I locate the body as a vibrant multiplicity of particles capable of infinite connections as opposed to a separated and contained entity. Through approaching embodiment as a never ending process of becoming I look to the way in which spatial settings such as the family have a major influence on the way in which bodies are formulated. In these spaces, I contend, bodies are directed and regulated to conform to dominant understandings of being. Such directing I argue creates 'straight' bodies/space restricting the presence of queer bodies and the disruption they embody. Extending this spatial investigation I look to the way in which open spaces are straight spaces and how the dynamics of such spaces create the queer body as hyper-visible. Exploring queer as a spatial term I suggest that the queer body exists at an angle to the normative straight line creating new and challenging ways of living. A major theme that runs throughout this thesis is the intercorporeal nature of bodies. In developing this concept I demonstrate the generosity of queer bodies and their radical disruption of the distinction between maleness and femaleness. In doing so I explore how bodies are spatially sexed according to the myth of two-sexes, disrupting such a limited view I demonstrate how queer bodies have the potential to move beyond the boundaries of recognizable identity/bodily categorizes and anatomical understandings and embrace a space of intermezzo/ in-betweeness.

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Englund, Ellen (2014) "Jag behandlar inte alla lika" – Intervjuer med dramapedagoger om att arbeta genusmedvetet, Kandidatuppsats i Dramapedagogik, Akademin för utbildning och ekonomi, Högskolan i Gävle, Sverige. Syftet var att undersöka vad det kan innebära för några dramapedagoger att arbeta genusmedvetet. Metoden var enskilda intervjuer. Frågeställningarna undersökte dramapedagogernas uppfattningar om genus betydelse, om vad genusmedvetenhet innebär för deras praktik samt om vilka svårigheter och styrkor det finns i att arbeta dramapedagogiskt med genus. Studien eftersökte utsagornas bredd. Resultatet presenterades genom dramapedagogernas enskilda utsagor. Analysen skedde genom frågeställningarna och genusteoretiska begrepp. Det framkom att informanterna hade en socialkonstruktivistisk och maktkritiskt genussyn, samt att en genusmedveten dramapedagogisk praktik kunde innebära ett integrerat arbete utifrån gruppen, se problem inte deltagarna ser, arbete med könsfrågor, undvikande av att köna verkligheten och fiktionen, verktyg för skapandet av genus/kön, bejakande av queera läckage, reflekterande över praktik och reflektion samt tankar om rätt och fel. Dramapedagogikens teaterförankring uppfattades som en styrka och en svårighet.

Broadly, this thesis is a project about queerness and its relationship to Twilight. This thesis seeks to recuperate the queer in the Twilight series. Using discourse analysis, I explore both common and uncommon representations of queerness and the popular and unpopular discourses of Twilight. While both Chapter 1 and 2 offer paranoid readings of the Twilight series and its relationship to queerness, Chapter 3 presents a reparative reading of the text. I argue that Meyer’s tame and conservative vampire, conventionally represented as being either sexually ambiguous or outside the norm, is symptomatic of a modern culture that is becoming more accepting of odd, strange, and/or queer individuals. I maintain, however, that the normalization of specific "ways of being" still comes at the expense of the constitutive “other”. Furthermore, I understand this process of normalizing a monster to be representative of a seemingly apolitical, yet violent, Faludian backlash toward queers.

Our current social climate suggests that there is greater tolerance and acceptance of lesbians than ever before. There is evidence to suggest that gays and lesbians are becoming fully integrated into mainstream culture. Gay and lesbian characters are now regular media features with entire television shows such as The L-Word constructed around “lesbian” characters. Social acceptance of same sex sexual behavior has become such that celebrities such as Madonna and Britney Spears can kiss each other on national television to the titillation and amused delight of straight viewers. Perhaps the biggest indicator of increased acceptability of gays and lesbians is Canada’s 2005 change in marriage laws, now granting marriage licenses to same sex couples. Despite these seeming advances to gay and lesbian equality, I contend that rather than cause for celebration, these developments are simply a modern spin on an old tactic – a reformulated method of assimilating and “normalizing” lesbians. The greater acceptance afforded to lesbians today is at least in part, a result of media images that commodify lesbians as reproductions of Hollywood straight women. Within this context it seems that few lesbians today, and even fewer young lesbians self identify as butch. My hypothesis is that if lesbian feminism was the old threat to butch identity, the shunning of identity and the appeal of inclusivity within the neo-liberal, capitalist paradigm is perhaps the new. Using Foucauldian discourse analysis and a feminist methodology, this thesis analyses historical and contemporary discourses related to lesbian subjectivity to explicate how butch identity is being made to disappear within North American lesbian communities. / Graduate

This paper describes a qualitative study of preschool teachers' beliefs about heteronormativity and its role in preschool. The purpose of this study was to examine preschool teachers' ideas and beliefs about heteronormativity and the ways in which it manifests itself in preschool, and to investigate how they perceive the possibility and the need to work on issues related to heteronormativity in preschool. The study is qualitative and is conducted through interviews with preschool teachers, and analysis of information letters from preschools sent to parents. The analysis of the letters was intended to critically examine how words and language could be linked to the heteronormative and also to determine which subjects was conveyed in these everyday texts. The study is based on queer theory and social constructivism. The results show that in the matter of the heterosexual norm is often a conflict between the fear of stigmatization and the risk of obscuring the norm accents. Much also indicate that a lot is very situation-bound in preschool and that talks about heteronormativity is not addressed until the norm is clearly broken by the presence of same-sex parents.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / One question that is perhaps most familiar in contemporary western societies is “is it a boy or a girl?” This question goes uncontested unless a child is born with ambiguous genitalia. The medical responses to these births have recently undergone considerable attention and criticism from within the medical profession, from parents, but most loudly from the individuals themselves. In contemporary discourses these individuals are referred to by and large as intersex. The burgeoning intersex movement has coalesced around a shared lived experience of trauma brought about in no small way by the invasive procedures of medical management in its attempts to diagnose, treat and cure. These procedures leave intersex individuals with feelings of isolation and abuse and that they have been lied to and misinformed. A ‘culture of silence’ has been created whereby not only has the incidence of intersex been vastly underestimated, but also the psychological, social and physical ramifications have been omitted from medical, patient and broader social discourses. While intersex individuals cite their own experiences as evidence of these ramifications, the medical profession has been largely unresponsive. Aside from the demand for more information, counselling and a change in the medical management of intersex, there are broader ramifications of intersex within society, notably a conceptualisation of sex, gender and sexuality. While these aspects are secondary issues for the intersex movement its presence and its significance cannot be understated. This study takes note of the significant issues pertinent to the intersex movement and employs a comparative analysis of the lived experiences of Intersex Australians and Americans. Further, this project investigates the historical and cross-cultural evidence of intersex, the way in which medical discourses dominate twentieth and twenty-first century conceptualisations and how the intersex movement itself was formed in the last decade.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Indiana University, Dept. of Communication and Culture, 2007. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-05, Section: A, page: 1705. Adviser: Joan Hawkins. "Title from dissertation homepage (viewed Jan. 14, 2008)."

This dissertation examines queer cultural identity formations in the context of globalization and postcoloniality by focusing on experiences and interactions in cyberspace. Broadly, the goal of this project is to examine how queer diasporic individuals (re)create cultural identity through lived and mediated realities, and how they use queer oriented social network sites for this purpose. In this dissertation, I also theorize the roles of globalization, postcolonial migration, and visual and cyber culture in the creation of hybrid cultural identities. The Internet and other computer- mediated communication (CMC) forms and technologies have provided a vast amount of possibilities for diasporic individuals to express and represent themselves, to connect to their home-nations and the citizens of these home nation-states, and create virtual communities among various diasporas for economic and emotional support. This study used cyber ethnography as a method to examine the presence of queer diasporic bodies on social network sites (Gay.com, Gaydar, and CamFrog) and their usage of cyber technologies. Cyber ethnography is concerned with communication in cyberspace and on the Internet. By using semi-structured interviews, webblog analysis, web page analysis, chat room analysis, Instant Message analysis, and webcam and audio webcam-based chat room analysis, I interacted with diasporic queer bodies in cyberspace-based communities and online environments between May and July 2009. Through this cyber fieldwork, I was able to gain extensive insights into their cultural identity formation processes and the reasons for their usage of cyberspace and new media technologies. This data gleaned from this study suggests that diasporic queer bodies often use social network sites and computer technologies to connect with others, to meet new people, and also to carve out a space to express aspects of their in-between fluid identities. They also use these sites to establish connections with other gay men in their diasporic communities. In addition, the findings suggest that diasporic queer bodies often use cyberspace and computer technologies to create homes-away-from-home and to communicate with gay men in their home countries. Based on these findings, I further theorize and extended the traditional meaning of home, the notion of desire, self presentation, and beauty and body image in the online-offline lives on diasporic queer bodies in the context of globalization. In this dissertation, I tried to capture the cultural, technological, and societal forces that influence identity formations of diasporic bodies. While I discuss these forces, I also attempted to illustrate dialectical tensions that shape the cultural identity formation process. Even though I celebrate the fluidity of cultural identity, in this document, I also recognize that segments of our identities are socially constructed and thus `fixed' in this sense. I also attempted to the illustrate the tension between the shapeshifting nature of diasporic queer identities and the diasporic queer experiences that are dictated and shaped by the rigid identity categories that are set and exercised by western societies, such as ethnicity, race, gender, and nationality. Clearly, these societal constructs often structures the diasporic experiences, even though diasporic queer bodies often challenge the power of these constructs.

The purpose of this Master’s thesis is to examine queer aspects of the animated television show Steven Universe (2013-present), created by Rebecca Sugar and produced by Cartoon Network. Situating Steven Universe in the context of Cartoon Network and children’s animation in general, and drawing on queer theory, as well as feminist cultural studies and kinship studies, the thesis aims to contribute to understanding of non-normative family representation in children’s entertainment. Through a close reading of the material, the thesis explores how Steven Universe queers the notion of family. It focuses on the show’s depiction of kinship, temporality and reproduction, and examines how each of these aspects subverts reproduces different modes of normativity. In Steven Universe, the family of the main character, Steven, is depicted as socially unintelligible, and as a mixture of biological and chosen kinship, highlighting the importance of both. It places great emphasis on being accepted by one’s family and community, and I discuss how this message can be both empowering and undermining. Steven’s family mostly inhabits queer time and does not give in to chrononormative structures. However, I also explore and critically evaluate parts of the series in which queer temporality is provisionally replaced by chrononormativity and striving for maturity. Finally, Steven Universe queers reproduction, by defamiliarizing the notion of (hetero)sexual reproduction and providing other alternatives for reproduction and motherhood. In general, the depiction of family on Steven Universe is characterized by transgressing multiple dichotomies and by having a complex relationship to different modes of normativity, by both resisting them and engaging in them.