Videogames are becoming an important means of expression for marginalized communities. Despite the growing body of research in queer game studies, transgender identity remains under-researched and lacking in empirical data. By using an experimental approach coupled with grounded theory and informed by current game and queer theory, this study aims to illuminate how transgender- identifying persons approach autobiographical videogame depiction of transgender experience. Ten participants were asked to play influential independent videogame Dys4ia, which depicts the author's hormonal replacement therapy, and semi-structured interviews were conducted. Their responses were coded, and a preliminary model of how Dys4ia works in the context of transgender media ecology was constructed. The term Procedural-autobiographic multimodality is introduced to describe an assemblage of interactive affordances, distinctive aesthetics and situatedness of Dys4ia in structures of minority media while considering video game-specific theories. This study attempts to empirically ground transgender queer game studies, suggesting avenues for future research and proposing a model of how videogames as procedural artefacts work alongside vlogs and other expressive means within transgender mediascape.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Scholarly research in the genre of blogging has to date been minimal. This study examines part of that genre, specifically blogging by gay males between the ages of 18 and 25, and explores how these bloggers use specific textual and visual markers to publicly identify as gay.

Online fandom communities exist as a hub of subcultural construction for people across the globe. For queer people, fandom represents a space to safely converge over mutual interests. Previous research has focused on queer fans and popular music fans independently, often taking a pathological approach. This study qualitatively examines queer participants in the Katy Perry fandom through surveys and one-on-one interviews. The theoretical backbone of the study is built around uses and gratifications theory, seeking to understand motivations for fandom participation. The concepts of the heteronormative matrix and queer resistance are additionally incorporated to analyze how LGBTQ+ fans combat societal norms. This research found seven motivations for queer fans to participate in online fandom, providing insight into an understudied community.

This thesis is an exploration of queer domesticity, queer possibility and intuitionin historic house museums. It develops a methodological framework intended to intervene in archival, research, interpretive and institutional practices at these sites. Using the Elfreth’s Alley Museum’s podcast The Alley Cast as a case study, I examine how utilizing a framework that understands queerness to be just as possible as straightness; that uses intuition to guide research; and queer and trans theory to denaturalize categories of sexuality and gender can uncover queer domestic patterns that unsettle and disrupt the public’s hetero- and cisnormative assumptions about the past. I argue that this is a framework that can be adopted by historic house museums in order to engage with queer history when evidence may be lacking or whose historical subjects’ gender or sexuality resists easy classification. Finally, I argue that implementing such a framework can only be done successfully if it is engaged as part of a larger institution-wide commitment to creating a socially just and responsive museum that understands the importance of sharing complicated and difficult history with its public and dismantling its own position of power and authority. / History

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This paper examines the caring experiences of 7 LGBT older adults in Southwestern Ontario. Up to 2 90-minute interviews were conducted with 7 participants which were then transcribed and analyzed using interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA). Participants described life histories of discrimination and isolation, as well as contemporary experiences of medical discrimination. As a result, participants were highly skeptical of the formal care system, with only one indicating they would be willing to enter long term care. Analysis was conducted according to four themes that were identified while engaging in the interpretive phenomenological process. The research was influenced by life course theory and cultural scripts: specifically, that the current cohort of LGBT+ older adults is perhaps the first to age openly in their identity and as a result lack cultural scripts as to what they should do as they age. Questions were open-ended and asked participants about their experiences giving or receiving care, life histories of discrimination, and how their care experiences influence their plans for the future. Although no questions were directly asked about the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the legacy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic on contemporary LGBT older adults became a major theme of this paper. Other themes identified include the role that stigma and concerns about autonomy play in their plans for the future, the importance of political advocacy and community caregiving for LGBT older adults, and how LGBT older adults have developed resiliency and the practice of holding loved ones in personhood in order to cope with medical issues and death. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / This paper examines the experiences of LGBT older adults giving and receiving informal care for physical or mental health conditions. It highlights themes of stigma and autonomy, the relationship between community caregiving and political advocacy, the legacy of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and how LGBT older adults hold each other and the dead in personhood. Seven LGBT older adults from Southern Ontario were interviewed about their experiences with care, and the relationship between social structures and discrimination and their personal experiences with the medical system.

Through a series of in-depth qualitative interviews and a discourse analysis of academic publications this study explores the definition of indie video games, relationships between queer players and indie video games that they play, and ways in which queer players relate to games in general. The comparison of definitions between academic publications and player interviews shows that “indie” is a vague term that is too broad to define, either relying upon modes of production or becoming impossibly narrow in attempts to describe indie game trends. Instead, a more productive point of discussion seems to be located around affect typical for genres and categories of games, with modes of production being an important but not defining part of the conversation. / Media Studies & Production

This thesis draws on queer theory, media representation, intersectionality and news values to conduct a combined queerfeminist visual and critical discourse analysis examining how representation of same-sex attraction and queer relationships in British teen television—and the media’s reaction to them—has changed between 1994 and 2019.  The queerfeminist visual analysis compares two scenes featuring same-sex attraction between male teenagers in two TV shows: Byker Grove (1989-2006), which featured a chaste but angrily rejected kiss in 1994 and Sex Education (2019-2023), which featured an unseen but implicitly enjoyed blow job in 2019. The Byker Grove scene was the first gay kiss on British children’s television. Sex Education has been praised for its diverse LGBTQ+ cast and storylines. Two series are thus valuable bookends for this quarter-century-spanning but limited comparative study. Supported by a brief content analysis of national and local press coverage of Byker Grove from 1994 and online coverage of Sex Education on the selected newspapers’ websites, the queerfeminist critical discourse analysis compares four news items reporting on each TV show in contrasting British newspapers: populist “red top” The Sun and liberal “quality” paper The Guardian.  The combined study finds that 1) there are visual similarities in the framing of each scene but significant differences in narratives and messaging, especially when decoded by different audiences, and 2) the social discourse has shifted significantly from one of outright opposition to invisibilisation on the political right and from silence to praise on the left.  The thesis fills a gap in queer television studies scholarship that has mostly overlooked British teen/children’s television in favour of American TV shows and makes recommendations for further research, particularly in the fields of audience studies and social sexual script theory with a focus on LGBTQ+ teen and adult viewers.

This dissertation examines the contributions of Quakers, specifically from the liberal tradition of the Religious Society of Friends, to the advancement of lesbian, gay, and bisexual rights in the United States between 1946-1973. In this period, Quakers established the first social service organization for gay people in the United States, wrote the first public and positive evaluation of homosexuality from a religious perspective, and composed the first public statement in support of bisexuality from a religious assembly. A critical study of Quaker pamphlets, periodicals, lectures, business minutes, and personal papers from this era reveals that Quaker support of gay liberation was exercised through experiments in criminal justice reform, challenges to Christian moral codes, and advocacy for change within the Religious Society of Friends. The findings presented in this project seek to broaden our understanding of gay rights history by showing that Quakers played a pivotal role in the emergence and development of the gay rights movement in the United States. / Religion

Cette thèse explore les masculinités comme un terrain pluridisciplinaire pour penser les rapportsde pouvoir. A partir d’un rapprochement entre les films musicaux et les mélodrames réalisés parJacques Demy et Vincente Minnelli, ce travail examine les performances masculines dans lecontexte de l’après-guerre. Cette période de transformations sociales voit l’avènementd’une culture filmique transatlantique qui interroge et remet en cause les normes liées au genreet à la sexualité. Articulant approches esthétique et actorale, l’étude de la mise en scène met aujour la production de discours genrés ambivalents, historicisés en fonction des spécificités socio-culturelles propres aux cadres de production hollywoodien et français. Le film musical et lemélodrame, dans leur esthétique camp, se révèlent des lieux de négociations identitaires où seconstruit un rapport inédit au politique. On montre ici que les deux cinéastes, réunis par leur stylemélodramatique analogue, imaginent et rêvent des modèles de masculinités alternatives fondéessur des valeurs empathiques. Devant la caméra, la vulnérabilité, les émotions et les grandssentiments deviennent des armes politiques pour refonder et réinventer la communauté. / This thesis explores masculinities as a multidisciplinary field for thinking power relations. By connecting musical films and melodramas by Jacques Demy and Vincente Minnelli, this work examines male performances in the post-war context. This period of social transformations has given rise to the emergence of a transatlantic film culture that questions and challenges normsrelated to gender and sexuality. Articulating aesthetic and cultural studies approaches, the study of mise en scène brings to light the production of ambivalent gendered discourses, historicized according to the specific socio-cultural aspect of Hollywood and French film production environments. Musical films and melodramas, through their camp aesthetics, reveal themselvesas spaces of identity negotiation where an unprecedented rapport with politics is constructed. Both filmmakers, united by their similar melodramatic style, imagine and dream about models of alternative masculinities based on empathic values. In front of the camera, vulnerability, emotions and strong feelings become political weapons to refound and reinvent the community.