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School counselors are in a unique position to support LGBTQ-identified youth. However, the school setting may not provide a welcoming atmosphere for the level of support needed. How can school counselors overcome systemic challenges in order to best serve youth who are at increased risk of low academic performance, depression, selfharm, substance abuse, and suicide? This presentation will build upon skill competencies necessary for school counselors and open dialogue about how to work with challenges faced in the school system.

Counselors are legally and ethically beholden to provide affirming services to LGBTQQIA individuals. Recent laws place importance on counselor values over those of the client, impact safety of clients, and are in direct conflict with counseling ethical codes. This presentation will discuss recent laws, reactions, information, and resources

This thesis focuses on various topics related to transgender identity and culture. Through a combination of ethnographic and secondary research, I studied transgender coming out narratives, trans media representation, transgender performance and identity, and conceptualizations of group and chosen family in a community of trans students, the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group. The three chapters of my thesis address some of the traditional milestones of a trans person’s acculturation: coming out, constructing one’s newly discovered trans identity, and finding community. Chapter 1 explores coming out as transgender, and the way in in which coming out is valued and discussed within trans communities. Chapter 2 discusses transgender representation, and how gender presentation is contested and complicated by transfolk. Chapter 2 also addresses trans media representation, and the way in which transfolk create their own media representation in the absence of adequate and accurate trans representation in popular culture. Chapter 3 provides an in-depth analysis of the WKU Transgender and Non-Binary Student Group, discusses how the group functions as a chosen family, and explores the way in which group membership helps group members mitigate stigma and deal with trauma.

This collection of personal essays explores the use of symmetry as a metaphor of normality in contemporary American culture. These essays use formalistic exploration to enter into a conversation with the reader regarding the body, sexuality, gender, and mental illness. Each piece aims to dismantle and explode the metaphorical significations of symmetry through the use of interdisciplinary research combined with memoir.

This dissertation investigates the place-making practices of African American lesbians in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1990 to 2010. For this project, I ask how African American lesbians claim space to examine how race, sexuality, and class shape their place-making practices. The study is situated in the city before and following the 1996 Olympic Games, which was a period of rapid social, economic, and political growth. The primary question posed in this study is as follows: How do African American lesbians claim space in Atlanta? This dissertation posits three arguments. First, African American queer spaces are transitory, reflecting the shrinking boundaries of black neighborhoods within the contemporary city. Second, these spaces are informed and forged by the sexual, racial, and classed identities of participants. Third, through their place-making practices, struggles, and contestations over public space, African Americans have transformed sites in the city into black queer cartographies. In this empirically informed study, I employ ethnographic research methods, participant observation, archival research, oral histories, and in-depth interviews. By positioning black queer cartographies within the larger schematic of African American life, this work extends current understandings of queer space and builds on the growing subarea of black queer geographies (McBride 2007; Bailey 2011; Eaves 2017). Multiple sites that reflect the transitory and clandestine nature of locating queer space are mentioned in the work. Within Atlanta’s neighborhoods of Midtown, Southwest Atlanta, and Westside, African American lesbians curated spaces that validated their identities and provided a sense of belonging during the period studied.

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This study was designed to determine the degree of homophobia, expressed lesbian sexual preference behavior, and attitudes toward lesbianism among the female team sport college athlete and the female team sport recreational player. It was hypothesized that the female team sport college athlete would be less homophobic, would express greater lesbian sexual preference behavior, and would possess more positive attitudes toward lesbianism than the female team sport recreational player. There were 32 female team sport college athletes representing four Utah university/college campuses and one Oregon university/college campus; 37 female team sport recreational players representing four Utah recreational team and two Oregon recreational teams. Data were collected during the months of March through June, 1983. All subjects participating were volunteers. The subjects' ages ranged from 18-35, the mean age being 23.5 years. The instruments used in this study were: 1) Index of Attitudes Toward Lesbians (Guthrie, 1982), 2) Demographic/Social Variable Data (Guthrie, 1982). The research administered the instruments individually to each volunteer, therefore there was a 100% return. Chi-Square Analyses were used and the major results indicated that there were no significant differences in the degree of homophobia, lesbian sexual preference behavior, and positive attitudes toward lesbianism between the two groups. Post hoc analyses of data were performed to determine whether age was a factor in degree of homophobia, the expression of lesbian sexual preference behavior, and the expression of positive attitudes toward lesbianism. These analyses revealed a large percentage of those individuals in the age group 20-24 years expressed non-homophobia, lesbian sexual preference behavior, and positive attitudes towards lesbianism. Since this age group (20-24 years) encompasses a great proportion of the college age women who participate in athletics, it is hypothesized that exposure, involvement, and attitudes concerning lesbianism are noticeably prevalent in the college athletic environment.

This thesis examines the development and evolution of the gay movement. It raises the questions as to why the gay movement was not organized prior to the 1960's. The study starts in the 1940's and ends in 1970. It employs qualitative research methods for the collection and analysis of primary and secondary data sources. Blumer's description of general and specific social movements and Resource Mobilization Theory were used as theoretical frames of reference. The former explained the developmental stages in the career of the movement and the latter focused on the behavior of movement organizations.

This dissertation explored the experience lesbian, gay, bisexual and queer students of col-or. Influenced by the Queer of Color theoretical framework, this dissertation employed multiple methodological traditions (namely qualitative and Scholarly Personal Narrative), to deepen the exploration and unlock multiple dimensions of experience of queer college students of color. Analysis of the student interviews produced 29 themes. The results are, framed by four categories of campus climate (behavioral, socio-historical, psychological, and structural or compo-sitional (Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pedersen, & Allen, 1998).), and offer a glimpse into the inter-locking dynamics of racism and homophobia that the queer students of color navigate in their efforts to make meaning of their identities as queer people of color. Reviewing the results of this study college faculty, staff, and administrators can begin to understand the unique experiences of queer college students of color. This dissertation also may contribute to theory and practice around appropriate and accurate ways to deal with complexity when measuring the campus climate for diversity.