This thesis examines the evolution of feminist praxis within the riot grrrl movement, focusing on two specific riot grrrl demographics - founding riot grrrls in the early 1990s and currently active riot grrrls in southern California. This thesis argues that riot grrrl activism is still thriving but in diverse, strategically modified ways. Using José Muñoz’s concept of “disidentification,” it analyzes how contemporary riot grrrls have appropriated and adapted the original movement’s tenets to allow for greater accessibility and diversity.

The purpose of this study was to identify school-based practices that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth endorse as ways for high schools to provide social, emotional, and academic support to LGBTQ youth. A diverse sample of LGBTQ high school students (N = 18) from one large urban school district in a southeastern state participated in individual semi-structured interviews and/or small group brainstorming sessions. Eleven individual interviews were conducted to gather detailed accounts of a) supportive behaviors and policies that youth had experienced in their schools, as well as b) supportive behaviors and policies that were suggested as desired supports that had not actually been experienced. Participants' sentiments were coded based on the source of support (i.e., teachers, school mental health providers, administrators, policies, resources), nature of support (i.e., proactive, reactive), and social context of the support (i.e., impacting single students through one-on-one setting, impacting more than one student or groups of students). Three brainstorming sessions that included a total of 13 students were conducted to gather additional ideas from youth on ways for schools and school staff to provide support. Frequency counts of individual interview data indicated that teachers provided more experienced and desired supports than any other school-based source of support. Of the desired supports that participants had not actually experienced, Proactive Supports Impacting Groups were the most frequently described Support Type for teachers, school mental health providers, and administrators. Content Themes emerged within Support Types (e.g., Proactive Support Impacting Individuals, Reactive Support Impacting Groups) capture sentiments that were shared across multiple participants' responses. Data from interviews and brainstorming sessions were also analyzed together through a constant-comparative reduction process, resulting in 162 Specific Educator Behaviors/Policies corresponding to 8 Big Ideas of school-based supports for LGBTQ high school students: (1) Using Respectful Language and Interactions with Students; (2) Providing Comfort, Assistance, and Advice Matched to Student Needs; (3) Facilitating Connections with Community Supports; (4) Providing LGBTQ-Related Materials and Information; (5) Allowing and Supporting School-Based GSA and Pride Activities; (6) Addressing Professional Development, Human Resources, and School Culture Related Issues; (7) Implementing Policies that Address Bullying and Harassment of LGBTQ Students; and (8) Implementing Policies that Respectfully Account for Students' Diversity.) Pragmatic implications for teachers, school mental health providers, and administrators are discussed.

This non-experimental, quantitative study explored the effects of the Buddhist-derived practices of mindfulness and loving-kindness meditations on the wellness of lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people. LGB people are at higher risk of mental illness and increased social isolation due to minority stress; Buddhist-derived mindfulness practices mediate these effects in other groups. Lazarus and Folkman's transactional model of stress and coping was the theoretical model explaining how positive cognitive appraisal induced by meditation can mediate effects of stress. This study examined whether mental health scores on the Emotional Symptoms Checklist (ESC), social attitudes measured on the Unjust World Views Scale, and self-perception measured by the Remoralization Scale improved individually and collectively after LGB participants engaged in 1 of 3 meditation conditions: mindfulness practice, loving-kindness practice, or a relaxation control group. ANOVA analyses revealed no significant improvements in participants' scores on the 3 measures as a result of either one of the meditation conditions or the control group. An unexpected finding emerged between participants who reported a history of depression and those who did not; ESC scores among those with depression significantly improved after the meditation or relaxation interlude regardless of group assignment, possibly due to disruption of ruminative thought processes. Future studies could build upon this study by training participants to meditate using more interactive means than online videos used here. The mental health needs of LGB people remain urgent, and further explorations of promising techniques such as mindfulness are the foundation of future social change.

Stereotypes about Appalachia abound through dubious and reductive representations of the ‘hillbilly’ icon. Sexuality and how it functions in Appalachia is usually cast from the outside as wild, violent, bestial, incestuous and generally base. Movies such as Deliverance and television shows such as The Beverly Hillbillies and The Dukes of Hazard render images of Appalachian sexuality as hyper-sexual, both naive and violent. These images of Appalachian sexual ignorance and violence that permeate popular culture have had problematic and reductive implications for rural gay/trans Appalachian folk. Mainstream gay culture has often used the perceived meanings of these images to circumscribe and foreclose upon the possibility of rural queer life, rendering the rural as monolithically homophobic and impenetrable. This research attempts to destabilize this perspective and critique the impulse for mainstream gay culture to further marginalize rural gay/trans folk in Appalachia. The project reveals the possibility for rural queer life to exist in Appalachia to show not only its presence, but also its varying forms of visibility. To do this, experimental methodologies are employed, drawing on autoethnography that have located my body as an active participant and research object in one particular Appalachian queer geography. By actively participating in a rural queer network, the possibility for Appalachian queer geographies to exist in ways that surpass popular representations emerge in a way that force us to renegotiate our understandings of homophobia and what sets its conditions. This project begins to uncover and theorize the ways in which kinship as a ‘social technology’ mitigates social strangeness and operates as a means for social protection and intimacy within rural queer populations. This research is presented in a way that neither dismisses nor emphasizes homophobic violence, but rather argues the imperative for strong political advocacy that recognizes both the struggles and accomplishments of rural gay/trans folk. Three interlinked approaches are used to highlight these possibilities and foreclosures: the exterior representation of Appalachian sexuality in American metropolitan gay cultures and its politico-cultural effects on rural gay/trans folk, a more nuanced interpretation of homophobia in Appalachia, and how ‘place’ is made through the operation of rural queer networks.

Rent: Same-Sex Prostitution in Modern Britain, 1885-1957 chronicles the concept of “rent boys” and the men who purchased their services. This dissertation demonstrates how queer identity in Britain, until contemporary times, was largely regulated by class, in which middle-and-upper-class queer men often perceived of working-class bodies as fetishized consumer goods. The “rent boy” was an upper-class queer fantasy, and working-class men sometimes used this fantasy for their own agenda while others intentionally dismantled the “rent boy” trope, refusing to submit to upper-class expectations. This work also explains how the “rent boy” fantasy was eventually relegated to the periphery of queer life during the mid-century movement for decriminalization. The movement was controlled by queer elites who ostracized economic-based and public forms of sex and emphasized the bourgeois sexual mores of their heterosexual counterparts. Sex between adult men in private was decriminalized, but working-class men selling sex suffered harsher laws and more strictly enforced penalties under this new, ostensibly “progressive” legislation.

Sexual minority students’ encounters with discrimination and harassment are increasing in school settings. Per the research, the discrimination and harassment they experience partly stems from teachers’ negative attitudes toward sexual minorities and a lack of understanding of the needs of these individuals, which can negatively impact students’ psychological well-being and create an unwelcoming environment (Dessel, 2010; Mudrey & Medina-Adams, 2006; Riggs, Rosenthal, & Smith-Bonahue, 2011). Teachers are responsible for ensuring a safe environment for students that promotes mental and physical health (Larrabee & Morehead, 20’10; Mudrey & Medina-Adams, 2006; Riggs et al., 2011). Therefore, it’s vital to determine ways to reduce teachers’ negative attitudes and increase their knowledge and empathy toward sexual minorities in order to enhance students’ well-being and create a supportive school atmosphere (Maddux, 1988). Although researchers have independently tested the effectiveness of intervention strategies (e.g., workshops, courses) designed to reduce negative attitudes, a comprehensive study to determine which one may be most successful in reducing negative attitudes, while enhancing knowledge and empathy, has yet to be conducted. The current study assessed the effects of three intervention strategies designed to reduce pre-service teachers’ negative attitudes, and increase their knowledge and empathy toward sexual minorities. Due to conservative religious beliefs being a main contributor to negative attitudes toward sexual minorities, this study also examined the impact of religious beliefs on participants’ responses to the interventions. Pre- and post-data were collected from 139 pre-service teachers enrolled in undergraduate educational psychology and teacher education courses at a Southeastern University. Students participated in one of three intervention strategies, a video documentary, a workshop, or regular classroom instruction. Results demonstrated that there were no significant differences between participants in the video, workshop, and control groups on attitudes, knowledge, or empathy from pre- to post-intervention. However, within group differences were found in the video and workshop interventions on certain aspects of attitudes, empathy, and knowledge. In addition, results illustrated that religious beliefs had an impact on participants’ knowledge and empathy towards sexual minorities. Contributions to the literature and implications of the findings are discussed as well as limitations and directions for future research.

This paper is part of the academic effort to recover historical memory in post-Civil War Spain and metaphorically applies the so-called Giobert Tincture to Carmen Martín Gaite’s El cuarto de atrás (1978), Dulce Chacón’s La voz dormida (2002) and Pedro Almodóvar’s La mala educación (2004) in order show how these works reveal the ghosts of the repression exerted against the epitome of the abject/obscene by Franco’s dictatorship: the queer collective. This collective continues to suffer from marginalization as well as from the effects of repression. I argue that El cuarto de atrás reveals C.’s repressed hybrid/queer identity and sexual orientation, that La voz dormida reveals Tomasa and Reme’s homoerotic/queer relationship and that La mala educación reveals in the form of cross-dressed/hybrid bodies how gender performativity is based on the repression of generic and sexual identity. First, I analyze the historical and artistic-cultural context of the selected works. Second, I outline the methodology and poststructural theoretical concepts that frame my thesis. Although the following chapters develop an episodic structure, a comprehensive reading of the paper provides a holistic perspective of the repression of queer people and its palimpsestic-spectral representation in the works of the above-mentioned authors.

Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Mass., 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 90).

This video is a visual representation of the frustrations that I suffered from when I, a queer, gender non-conforming, person of color, went to “pasty normals” (a term defined by Jose Esteban Munoz to describe normative, non-exotic individuals) to get a definition of what Punk meant and where I fit into it. In this video, I personify the Punk music movement. Through my actions, I depart from the grainy, low-quality, amateur aesthetics of the Punk film and music genres and create a new world where the Queer Person of Color defines Punk. In the piece, Punk definitively says, “Don’t try to define me. Shut up and leave me to rest.”

This thesis examines a queer fan community for the television show Once Upon a Time (OUAT) that utilizes the social networking site Tumblr as their primary base of fan activity. The Swan Queen fan community is comprised of individuals that collectively support and celebrate a non-canon romantic relationship between two of the female lead characters of the show rather than the canonic, heterocentric relationships that occur between the two women and their respective male love interests. I answer two research questions in this study: First, how are members of the Swan Queen fan community developing counter narratives of love by engaging in meaning-making processes and interpretations of OUAT? And secondly, how do they talk about the purpose and importance of their narratives for themselves or the Swan Queen fan community? In order to answer my research questions, I consider how the Swan Queen fandom developed and how they convey their meaning-making strategies online. To do this, I have analyzed the Tumblr blog of one Swan Queen fan and have used their blog as a nexus between other Swan Queen fans that use the website for their fan activities. Swan Queen fans argue that the show runners of OUAT use subtextual codes within canonical storylines in an effort to queerbait the show’s queer audience members. Moreover, the show runners refute the notion that they are queerbating queer fans at all by arguing that the fans’ perceptions are baseless and that any perceived queering of the characters Emma Swan and Regina Mills is purely “unintentional.” This response has only served to alienate the show’s queer fan base further as it led to increased complaints that the show runners were gaslighting the entire queer fandom. Additionally, Swan Queen fans maintain that the show’s introduction of canonical storylines featuring romantic relationships between Regina and Robin Hood and Emma and Captain Hook are heterosexist and dangerous. The storylines between Emma and Captain Hook, queer fans argue, often promote rape culture, thus perpetuating violence against both queer and non-queer audiences through storylines grounded in fairytale concepts of “True Love” and “Happily Ever After”. As such, Swan Queen fans push back against and reject this violence through their own interpretations and counter narratives of “True Love”. In accordance with previous research, I have found that historically marginalized groups such as the queer community continue to experience widespread and often aggressive attacks by queerphobic individuals and hate groups that are intent on preserving traditionally heterocentric institutions in our society, including (but not limited to) mainstream media broadcasting. Furthermore, fandom has become institutionalized in the same manner and typically operates within hegemonic, heterocentric standards. Conversely, queer fandoms such as the Swan Queen fandom operate outside of these standards, and fans respond to antagonistic efforts to silence them or cast them in an inaccurate manner by creating close-knit social communities to combat these actions and provide a space wherein individuals are able to counter dominant narratives that serve to further marginalize them. This study elucidates how this effort may occur and questions the effect this membership has on those who participate within a queer fandom. It is imperative that such research takes place, as there are very few accounts of how queer fans navigate the complex intersection between fandom and queerness.