In this dissertation, I use arts-based inquiry, performance ethnography, and spatial rhetorics to analyze the role of play and relational literacies within multimodal community performance focused on the exploration of queer youth sexuality and gender expression. I ground my study in an analysis of the effects of neoliberalism on sexuality research, noting the ways in which the erasure of cultural politics, in concert with the risk-resilience binary through which queer youth are often framed, forecloses queer youth futures. In my study, I argue that play--as a rich, complex critical thinking practice--offers a way to understand queer community performance as a moment of critique that reimagines everyday spaces outside of oppressive cultural logics. Throughout my analyses, I propose and illustrate the value of sensate engagement as an embodied, performative rhetoric and research practice that opens up an awareness of the transformative potential of everyday play in the con/texts of multimodal community performance. Specifically, I argue that an embodied, multisensory engagement with multimodal performance can make recognizable--but not singularly knowable--the value of play as a critical, everyday practice for performing provisional, queer/ed utopian spaces of youth community.

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This qualitative study reflects on my experiences as a queer pedagogue developing a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered/Transsexual, Questioning/Queer, and Ally (LGBTQA) youth theatre ensemble, Outside the Lines. Through the analysis of my pedagogy and the pedagogy of three practitioners affiliated with the Pride Youth Theatre Alliance, I explore how my queer culture, language, expression and politics influence my Applied Drama & Theatre practice within educational and community spaces. It is hoped that by inviting other practitioners and allies into my process this document will generate constructive dialogue around queer pedagogy and its fluid performance. Furthermore, this document aims to serve as a reference for future practitioners that work with queer youth and in queer spaces. / text

LGBTQ+ individuals report disproportionately high rates of depression and suicidal behaviors compared to the general populations, particularly among queer youth. Certain depressive symptoms and symptom clusters, namely hopelessness and self-blame, are predictive of suicidal behavior and outcomes. In contrast, perceived social support may act as a buffer against suicide ideation. The disparity in the rate of queer suicidality may be predicted by higher rates of hopelessness and self-blame, as well as lower rates of perceived social support among depressed queer youth in comparison to depressed non-queer youth. The current study will test this hypothesis using a sample of depressed queer and non-queer college students (n=145). Results indicate that queer students and non-queer students do not experience significantly different rates of hopelessness, self-blame, or perceived social support. Despite this finding, queer students report significantly higher rates of suicide and self-harm ideation. This suggests that differences in the suicide rate for queer individuals cannot be explained by differences in perceived social support or the manifestation of suicide-related depression symptom clusters. Additionally, depression severity was found to be a weaker predictor of suicide ideation for queer students than for non-queer students. This indicates that suicidality among queer populations may be less connected to experiences of depressive symptoms than it is for cisgender and heterosexual populations. Further research is needed to examine possible suicide predictors and risk factor differences that are unique to queer populations to explain the disparity in suicide rates.

As representations of queer and trans* youth become increasingly numerous and diverse in mainstream teen television, this thesis explores the social processes of normalization present in the elaboration of queer and trans* youth characters in the 2010-2011 seasons of Pretty Little Liars and Degrassi. The methodology involves a critical discourse analysis of racialized queer youth identities on Pretty Little Liars and white trans* youth identities on Degrassi, complemented by an analysis of their political economy of production and their circulation of discourse surrounding sexuality and gender identity in online youth communities. Drawing upon literature on homonormativity and emerging literature on transnormativity in mainstream media texts, this thesis illustrates that despite their amenability to dominant social power structures, contemporary televisual representations of queer and trans* youth identities achieve meaningful cultural work through the creation of new societal frameworks for youth to engage with non-normative sexualities and gender identities.

As representations of queer and trans* youth become increasingly numerous and diverse in mainstream teen television, this thesis explores the social processes of normalization present in the elaboration of queer and trans* youth characters in the 2010-2011 seasons of Pretty Little Liars and Degrassi. The methodology involves a critical discourse analysis of racialized queer youth identities on Pretty Little Liars and white trans* youth identities on Degrassi, complemented by an analysis of their political economy of production and their circulation of discourse surrounding sexuality and gender identity in online youth communities. Drawing upon literature on homonormativity and emerging literature on transnormativity in mainstream media texts, this thesis illustrates that despite their amenability to dominant social power structures, contemporary televisual representations of queer and trans* youth identities achieve meaningful cultural work through the creation of new societal frameworks for youth to engage with non-normative sexualities and gender identities.

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Over the last decade, education-focused research/studies on young queers (or same-sex attracted young people) have highlighted the many problems or difficulties they face growing up in a homophobic, heterosexist society. Strategies to address these issues (proposed in numerous research articles and reports) have largely focused on the school setting. I argue that these strategies are limited by heterosexual norms, which regulate and contain in advance what is possible (for queers) within the formal school system. I examine the ways in which these heterosexual norms work to constrain the queer subject in education-focused research and studies on young queers. / Within this field of study, young queers have largely been characterized as victims: of homophobic abuse and harassment, and neglect by families and schools. They’re said to be lonely and isolated, at risk of attempted suicide, unsafe sex, drug and alcohol abuse, and homelessness. I argue that these representations convey a negative portrait of young queers as wounded subjects. I illustrate how the emphasis on the wounded queer subject can work against the interests of young queers. In particular, it obscures those queer perspectives involving agency: first, queer cultures and communities; second, the knowledge and experiences of those who have gained confidence in their queerness, who have queer social and sexual lives. These (agentic) queers can offer us ways of understanding how young queers move beyond isolation and loneliness. / This study highlights the importance, for many young queers, of having opportunities and spaces where they can connect with each other. Socialization and sexualization among young queers involves a certain openness being and doing queer a practice which is unintelligible within most education-focused research/studies on young queers. This is illustrated and explored through comparative analysis of queer subjectivities in two differentiated spheres: on the one hand education-focused research and studies relating to the school context, and on the other gay/lesbian/queer studies and literature relating to queer social and sexual contexts. The key contexts and themes examined here are: early sexual experience and beats, queer cultures and communities, and queer youth support and social groups.

Theatre for social change is a term used to describe a wide range of theatre-based techniques and methods. Through implementation of performance techniques, participants are encouraged to creatively explore and communicate various ideas with the specific intention of eliciting a societal or political shift within a given community. Through this thesis, I will explore the impact of applying theatre for social change in a youth-centered environment. I will discuss my journey as creator, facilitator, and project director of interACTionZ, a queer youth theatre program in Orlando, FL formed through a partnership between Theatre UCF at the University of Central Florida and the Zebra Coalition®. I will give specific focus throughout this project to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ+) youth and straight advocates for the LGBTQ+ community.

This multi-site case study examines literacy practices across four theatre companies for young adults. The study draws upon ethnographic methods including interviews, field notes, and video data to show how composing practices situated with acts of design fostered multiple entry points through text, a multimodal stance when reading, collaboration, play, shared response, and sustained engagement in the orchestration of available modalities in the creation of characters. Drawing upon theories of multimodality, play, and masculinities, the study links literacy practices in drama with the configuration of historically subordinated, non-normative masculinities, including self-identified gay youth. These young men reported excessive self-monitoring and identity management strategies within heteronormative school contexts, but took-up a plurality of masculinities as they engaged design practices that encouraged play, risk-taking, and the appropriation of available media in their design of characters. The study cultivates an awareness of how literacy practices in drama intersected with affirming construction of non-normative gendered and sexual identities typically subordinated in school settings, but that were reportedly more aligned with informants’ sense of self. The study draws implications for how educators may help young people critique structures of heternormativity and hegemonic masculinities that often limit the identities and masculinities available in school. In addition, the study draws implications for classroom practice in the language arts that position youth as designers of multimodal texts that allow for multiple representations of the self. / text