The notion of a “feminine” style has been staunchly resisted by third-wave feminists who argue that to posit a “feminine” style is essentialist. Yet, linguists such as Norma Mendoza-Denton and Elinor Ochs discuss indexicality and shifting through salient variables, a process called entextualization. Further, French feminists such as Hélène Cixous and Julia Kristeva use the linguistic concept of intertextuality to explain certain poetic uses of language that might cause what Luce Irigaray calls “irruption of the semiotic chora”—moments within language where boundaries in the semiotic chain of signification are “blurred.” Thus, while current feminism has moved strictly away from the idea that there is an exigent “feminine” to which all women must aspire, there exists a tenuous, but salient connection between the linguistic concepts of indexicality and intertextuality on one hand, and jouissance and “irruption of the chora” on the other that can inform those styles we might term “feminine” and allow for a more productive and responsive perception of “femininity.” Amos’ lyrics illustrate these theories working together; Amos’ lyrics represent such a “feminine” style as indexed through use of salient variables; thus, Amos’ lyrics represent a sociolinguistic phenomenon wherein gender-based salient variables reform what “feminine” is and means, challenging social attitudes and the specular feminine persona within both the personal and public spheres. The implications of these theories could eventually influence perceptions of women in any particular profession or sphere, as gendered linguistic markers influence gender roles and implications, which, in turn, inform social change.

The purpose of this study was to explore the cultural and linguistic aspects within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) youth community. A qualitative research design with an exploratory approach was utilized in this study. An interview questionnaire was created to explore participants’ perceptions and experiences to generate an understanding on LGBTQ culture in practice. The study sample consisted of 12 youth who self‑identify as LGBTQ recruited by snowball sampling. One‑on‑one interviews were conducted, audio‑recorded, per participant consent, and transcribed for thematic analysis. Based on participant narratives, this study found there are cultural considerations that pertain specifically to the LGBTQ community, such as the importance of having family togetherness or personal identity. A key finding was LGBTQ youth sought to create families who provide them with feelings of acceptance, warmth, and belonging. Another key finding was LGBTQ youth are continuously developing and creating new ways of naming themselves to self‑identify and identify others in the community. Implications for social work practice include increasing cultural humility and awareness of the fluidity in the LGBTQ community when working with LGBTQ youth. Future research is needed to understand LGBTQ youth perceptions of cultural sensitivity and social work practice. Finally, it is recommended that researchers use feminist and queer theoretical frameworks when working with the LGBTQ youth population.

I take a critical view of sociopolitical and cultural issues dealing with homoeroticism andgay politics. I explore gender theories in order to further understand what it means to bemasculine or feminine and how it affects my placement in society. I use art as a tool forexpressing sexual freedom while questioning traditional sexual identity. I'm interested in exploring ideas of the oppressor and the oppressed, and how power becomes an inevitable force (in every society) that creates a hierarchy, consequently establishing control. But what is power? According to various definitions, power is an entity that possesses and or exercises authority or influence. I want to focus on this idea of exercising authority, which one can argue we need, but why? To prevent chaos or is it to control a society? What about exercising influence? Do we need an influence exercised upon us? Or does that make us subjected to another person's subjective point of views? These are questions that I directly or indirectly ask with my work in relationship to gender, gender roles, and sexual orientation. I am interested in Judith Butler's theory in performing gender, and how in performing gender, one assumes social hierarchy of power depending on what gender we are performing. If I am a man performing as a man then I am treated differently by society than if I am a woman performing as a woman. But what happens if I am a man performing as a man who prefers men as lovers, or a woman who prefers other woman as lovers? In what context is this situation accepted by our society? And is it different for men and women? And why? What does it mean to be a man? What does it mean to be a woman, within the context of performance? Then taking it a step further and argue that we are all performing subjective ideas constructed by social norms.

The term “phantom limb” is used to describe the phenomenal tingling sensation that occurs in the nerve endings of an amputated limb; though the limb is no longer physically attached to the body, the person experiences pain and physical sensation in the space the limb once occupied. Though the body part has been removed, it haunts both the body and the brain. It is through this metaphor that I am interested in investigating the connection between the disembodied and the embodied. The disembodied connects to the embodied through the loss or lack of a bodily form; the embodied, therefore, links the disembodied to movements and mannerisms of the body. Adopting Pierre Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice, I define manner as a fluctuating force that operates as a spectrum. Manner links, rather than separates, the internal and the external through the social. In other words, the interplay between the internal and external must be socially interpreted in order to be understood as manner. The first chapter of my thesis will focus on embodied manner and use Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as a case study to explain how society impacts the construction of normative manner. Building off Jack Halberstam, I adopt the theory that Mr. Hyde “is both a sexual secret, the secret of Jekyll’s undignified desires, and a visible representation of physical otherness” (82). My argument focuses on the connection between the “deformity hidden within” Mr. Hyde and that “inscribed upon his...skin” that Utterson, Enfield and Lanyon struggle to identify (82). The second chapter of my thesis will focus on how manner operates as both a disciplinary force and cultural haunting. In other words, just as the phantom limb reproduces a distorted version of the lost limb, the social control of manner ultimately reproduces imperfect replicas. In George Eliot’s The Lifted Veil, the protagonist, Latimer, begins suffering from visions after he parts ways with his dear friend Charles Meunier. Here, the unconscious operates at the individual level; I argue that these “visions” are the result of an implosion of Latimer’s repressed sexuality. I then turn to Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper to argue that manner operates as a type of social law that attempts to stave off haunting but instead inadvertently reproduces it. In this section, I argue that the narrator’s secondary status as a female character gives her a different kind of agency from Mr. Hyde and Latimer, and that her husband’s ultimate failure to control her results in a type of queer production that calls into question the dialectical relationship between haunting and manner.

(and i can’t stress this enough) in my mouth: Extradiegetic Affect as Material is a non-linear exploration into the structures of feeling that exist in relation to cinema in its role as a technology for generating subjectivity. In the development of this research, a proposal of cinema’s likeness to the ecological circulation of microplastics is drawn in order to illustrate cinema’s materiality and nearly invisible ubiquity. The notion of extradiegetic affect is outlined as a post-cinematic condition in which lived experience becomes secondary to cinematic representation and which, simultaneously, becomes directly shaped by engaging with these representations.

Due to social stigma, millions of sexual minorities have concealed their true sexual identities by entering into heterosexual relationships and marriages. Eventually, some transition to same-sex relationships and are able to live authentic lives. This latter group had identified as genuinely heterosexual, never questioning their sexuality until a particular time in their lives when same-sex desires spontaneously appeared. The experiences of transitioning from heterosexual to same-sex partners are not well known, particularly for women who have been legally married to both men and women. Diamond's dynamical systems theory for same-sex sexuality and McCarn and Fassinger's lesbian identity formation model provided the theoretical framework for this qualitative narrative study investigating the life stories of 15 female participants recruited from social media, who had experienced a transition from heterosexual marriage to same-sex marriage. Face-to-face interviews were conducted and data were coded and analyzed to identify emergent categories. The findings revealed that the women experienced shifts in private and public sexual identities over time. Despite external obstacles and personal concerns in transitioning from heterosexual to same-sex relationships, all the women had more positive experiences in their same-sex marriages than they did in their heterosexual marriages. Understanding these women's life stories will allow mental health professionals to better understand and address the needs of this population in more clinical and applied settings. This study will also help educate the general public about women who experience shifts in the desired gender of their relationship.

Researchers have indicated that there are no formal guidelines for placing convicted transgender felons in the United States in correctional facilities and addressing their post-placement medical care and treatment. The problem is that inappropriate placement may lead to the discrimination of transgender offenders; it may also put them in situations that threaten their safety. Attorneys are legal advocates assigned to defend and protect the rights of their clients during the trial and sentencing phase when correctional placement is determined. The purpose of this hermeneutic, phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of attorneys who represent transgender clients during the legal process of determining their correctional placement. Heider's attribution theory and de Lauretis's queer theory provided a conceptual framework for this study. Participants were 5 attorneys and 1 legal assistant in a large, urban county in Texas. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and analyzed using thematic, linguistic content analysis. The findings from this study suggested that the participant attorneys believed that gender self-identification may reduce the amount of discrimination that transgender clients face in the U.S. prison system and is the first step in determining safe and appropriate housing placement for transgender felons. The findings further suggested that judges and administrators serving in the U.S. criminal justice system need additional education about the transgender population so that sentencing decisions can effectively and safely house the transgender inmate population. The results of this study affect social change by providing wide-ranging administrative changes that should be made in order to address the overall needs of transgender individuals across the U.S. criminal justice system.

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.

Homosexuality is an important and controversial topic in political, philosophical, ethical and religious spheres. We are exposed to the debate of homosexuality in the media on a regular basis and issues related to homosexuality have been taken up by the Supreme Court, politicians and religious institutions. Needless to say, the debate surrounding homosexuality has captured the attention of almost everyone in society to some degree. It is my goal in this thesis to give a candid overview and analysis of the arguments surrounding homosexual sexual conduct. First, I will present an argument by John Corvino, who posits that homosexual conduct can realize the same concrete goods of love, happiness, and pleasure, among others, that heterosexual conduct can realize. Namely, if homosexual conduct can produce these goods, then there is no reason on the face of things to treat homosexual conduct as morally inferior to heterosexual conduct. I will then consider an objection by Michael Levin who asserts that even if this is true, there is a prudential reason to discourage homosexual conduct because it leads to unhappiness. This fact counts prudentially against homosexual conduct and undermines Corvino’s argument. I will then examine an argument by Alan Goldman, who presents a definition of sex which he believes best matches our common intuitions and judgments in regards to what sexual activity is and isn’t. Goldman argues against definitions of sexual activity which posit that the purpose of sexual activity is to fulfill some external goal or purpose to sex itself, such as reproduction or love. Rather, Goldman outlines that sex is essentially a physical desire for contact with another’s body. If Goldman’s definition is correct, then his definition entails that homosexual conduct is not immoral. Afterwards, I will give my own thoughts as to what moral conclusions we should draw about homosexual conduct based on the above arguments.

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.