Women who have transitioned to a lesbian identity from a previously heterosexual one lack a voice in the academic literature. Identity formation in this subset of women, those who chose a heterosexual marriage, had children, and later in life self identify as lesbian, has not been fully investigated. For this project, eight women were asked to answer this question: How have you negotiated the path from heterosexuality to lesbianism? Four main themes were found dealing with heteronormativity and accountability, relationship with children, transition, and acceptance by the lesbian community. Additionally, I introduce a new term---gender-normativity---to describe these women who only after marrying, having children and raising those children, and going through a process of self-reflection, realized they wanted to make a transition and spend the rest of their lives in an intimate relationship with a woman.

In immigration and sexuality research there is new and emerging literature that understands the convergence of these two topics. However, scholarship primarily examining Latina lesbian immigrants is not as visible. This thesis examines the lives of Latina lesbian immigrants residing in Texas and California to understand greater meanings of immigration, sexuality and citizenship. Ten Latina lesbian immigrants participated in in-depth interviews, answering questions about growing up, sexuality, migration, citizenship and meanings of home. The research questions asked the following: What affect does immigration have on the sexualities and sex lives of Latina lesbian immigrants? How does their age of migration impact their sexualities? How do these women define and conceptualize citizenship? How do immigration and sexuality converge in the lives and on the bodies of Latina lesbian immigrants? The interviews revealed that the age in which the women migrated and their resettlement in urban areas contribute to their conceptualizations of a “sexually open” United States and a not-as-queer-friendly home country. Second, the women interviewed categorize citizenship in local and global ways. While some saw citizenship as part of every day practice, others found it to be connected with a sense of global community. Migration also developed a consciousness surrounding citizenship, as many of them were confronted with the concept upon migrating to the United States. Finally, immigration and sexuality unfolds in my participant’s lives in contradictory and non-linear ways. While many of the women felt a connection to their local gay and lesbian communities in positive ways, their lives are met with adversities in other ways that are affected by their immigrant status – including inability to obtain a driver’s license and obligations to become United State’s citizens. The women also conceptualize home in fluid and unfixed ways. Home and the body collapse when discussing migration, citizenship and nation. The research presented attempts to offer a conversation about the historical and current relationship between immigrants and LGBT people. It is also my objective to further conversations about multiple levels of oppression and how Latina lesbian immigrant women use their circumstances to gain a better awareness of themselves, and hopefully improve their rights and living conditions as human beings. / text

Compared to men, women devote substantially more attention and effort toward enhancing the health of their spouses. Yet, scholars have been unable to explain why this gender gap persists. Women also do more unpaid work in the home than men, and a significant literature explains the origins of this gender gap. In order to better understand why women do more to enhance the health of their spouse, this dissertation maps well-tested theory on unpaid work in the home on the literature on social integration and health to develop the theoretical construct of health work. Health work is defined as the activities and dialogue concerned with enhancing others’ health habits. After developing this theoretical construct, this dissertation turns to a qualitative examination of health work dynamics in 61 straight, gay, and lesbian couples living in the United States (N = 122). Findings reveal two distinct ways that partners work to shape one another’s health habits. Respondents in all couple types describe specialized health work, whereby one partner does health work over the course of the relationship. In straight couples, women perform the bulk of health work and men were the primary recipients of health work. Individuals rely on gendered discourses of difference to explain these unequal health work dynamics. Cooperative health work, whereby both partners perform health work in mutually reinforcing ways, emerges nearly exclusively in gay and lesbian couples. Individuals rely on discourses of similarity to explain why they perform cooperative health work. Findings reveal that health work processes not only depend on gender, but also on the intersection of gender, sexuality, and the gender composition of a couple. Additionally, this dissertation finds that partners not only do health work to promote one another’s healthy habits, but that partners also attempt to promote one another’s unhealthy habits. The implications for the promotion of both healthy and unhealthy habits are discussed. / text

Some romantic relationship types have a greater likelihood of receiving parental support than do others. Specifically, adults in traditional romantic relationships (i.e., same-race, opposite-sex) perceive more parental support for their relationships than do individuals in socially stigmatized relationships (e.g., interracial, same-sex relationships; Lehmiller & Agnew, 2006). The goal of the current study was to understand better what motivates parents to provide support for their adult children’s romantic relationships. To address this question, the original and a modified version of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975) were tested. The TRA was implemented to measure whether parents’ attitudes toward showing support and the parents’ subjective norms were associated with the parents’ intentions to provide support for their children’s relationships in the future. In the modified model, subjective norms was reconceptualized to include parents’ perceptions of stigma by associating with their children’s relationships and the perceived threat of sanctions from the parent’s social networks if the parents were to provide support for their children’s relationships in the future. To improve predictive ability of the models, theoretically relevant covariates were included in each model. To capitalize on a variety of viewpoints, this study included parents whose children were either single or in dating relationships. Parents whose child was single completed the questionnaire while imagining his or her child in a traditional, interracial, or same-sex relationship whereas parents whose child was in a dating relationship reported on his or her child’s current relationship. A sample of 438 parents completed an online survey. Overall, across all groups, parents’ attitudes toward providing support were consistently associated with parents’ intentions to provide support. Associations between the parents’ subjective norms and intentions to provide support varied across groups and were not always significantly associated with parents’ intentions to provide support in the future. Furthermore, parents’ motivations to provide support differed among parents who imagined their children in relationships compared to parents whose children were in real relationships, suggesting parents may overestimate problems with their children’s interracial and same-sex relationships and underestimate problems with their children’s traditional relationships than may occur in real-life situations. / text

The goal of this dissertation is to examine minority stress in the lives of gay and lesbian individuals and couples. To do this I conducted three separate, but empirically and conceptually related studies using data from 68 self-identified gay men and lesbians. Of these, 38 participants were coupled (n = 19 couples). All three studies were informed by minority stress theory. In the first study I examined individual (N = 68) and partner (n = 38) correlates and associations with concern for safety because of sexual orientation and harassment because of sexual orientation. Comfort with homosexuality was the strongest negative predictor of concern for safety because of sexual orientation. Further, involvement with gay related activities was found to be the strongest positive predictor of harassment because of sexual orientation. In the next two studies I examined the daily influence of minority stress for same-sex couples (n = 19). In the second study I examined how daily public displays (PDA) of affection are associated with daily relationship satisfaction, daily concern for safety because of sexual orientation, and daily harassment because of sexual orientation. I found daily PDA to be positively associated with concurrent and lagged relationship satisfaction, positively associated with concurrent and lagged concern for safety, and concurrent, lagged, and prospective increases in harassment because of sexual orientation. In the third and final study I examined the moderating effect of daily relationship satisfaction on the relationships between daily concern for safety and harassment in predicting daily physical health and well-being. I find that daily concern for safety and harassment are not associated with daily physical health suggesting that the negative effects of minority stress on physical health are more cumulative and do not fluctuate from day-to-day. I also find that daily relationship satisfaction does moderate the relationship between daily concern for safety and harassment and their daily well-being in unexpected ways. Collectively, this dissertation illustrates the complex influence of minority stress in the lives of gay and lesbian individuals and couples in two ways: first, as it pertains to how personal characteristics and behaviors (e.g. involvement with gay related activities and engagement in PDA) are associated with minority stress overall and on a daily basis; second, by illustrating the daily influence of minority stress on daily physical health and well-being. In conclusion, in these studies I highlight the complexity of life and how minority stress, stress that is unique to gay men and lesbian individuals and couples, complicates otherwise beneficial behaviors. Further, I illustrate the long and short term ramifications minority stress has on gay men and lesbian individuals and couples.

No description available.

This thesis is the product of a discourse analytic investigation of the first decade of the British lesbian magazine, DIVA, which launched in 1994. Work on mainstream women's and men's magazines has established them as sites at which (largely heterosexual) femininities and masculinities are constructed and construed, but relatively little scholarship has addressed lesbian magazines in this fashion. DIVA is Britain's only nationally sold, mainstream lesbian magazine; with this in mind, the thesis provides an analytic account of the magazine's launch, production and brand, and considers the discursive construction of lesbian community and the boundary work that that entails. The initial analytic chapters detail editorial philosophies, routines, and financial circumstances; design, front covers, and editorial content. Though the magazine has only limited resources available, those restrictions are simultaneously liberating, allowing DIVA's editors to pursue their political commitments at the same time as operating in the commercial marketplace. In considering the discursive construction of 'us', the thesis highlights a focus on community, support, and heritage. It further considers the discursive management of the boundaries of that imagined community, focusing on the 'threat' posed by bisexual women and the arguments this causes among readers. Finally, DIVA's handling of (heterosexual) others is considered, concluding that they are constructed as irrational, yet powerful, aggressors. Overall, DIVA's was a brand invested in the notion of community and in its role not only in imagining that community but also bringing members together. Though readers were at times divided over who belonged, or should belong, they were united in their belief that there was something to belong to. In the face of a hostile greater 'other', which was constructed as a constant source of threat, this belonging was incredibly important.

Det senaste årtiondet har inneburit stora förändringar för homosexuella när det gäller lagar och förordningar. Bland annat är rätten till att bli föräldrar numera juridiskt accepterat. Flera homosexuella par väljer därför att skapa familj. Syftet med litteraturstudien var att beskriva lesbiska kvinnors upplevelser i samband med mödravården och förlossning. Sammanställningen resulterade i fem huvudkategorier, Kommunikation, Bekräftelse, Försvar , Kunskap och Öppenhet, vilket bearbetades utifrån Imogene Kings omvårdnadsteori. Resultatet visade på att flera kvinnor hade upplevelser av positiv karaktär men att det även fanns många som berättade om negativa upplevelser. Heteronormativitet var ett ständigt återkommande tema som genomsyrade samtliga kategorier. Vårdpersonalen förutsatte ofta att de lesbiska kvinnorna var heterosexuella utan att ta hänsyn till andra möjligheter. Denna studie visar på att vårdpersonal bör vara medvetna om sitt sätt att kommunicera och att se det unika i varje individ. Positiva upplevelser framkom när barnmorskan tydligt bekräftade de lesbiska kvinnorna som blivande föräldrarna. En god omvårdnad förutsätter att vårdpersonal har kunskap om heteronormativitet och att det skapar hinder för vården av lesbiska kvinnor. / The last decade has brought great changes for homosexuals in laws and regulations. Among other things, the right to be parent is now legally accepted. Many gay couples have therefore decided to create a family. The purpose of this study was to describe lesbian women´s experiences in connection with prenatal care and childbirth. The compilation resulted in five main categories: Communication, Acknowledgment, Defense, Knowledge and Openness, which was worked up from Imogene King´s theory of caring. The results showed that several women had experiences of positive character, but that there also were many who talked about negative experiences. Heteronormativity was a constantly recurring theme that permeated all categories. Caregivers often assumed that the lesbian women were heterosexual without regard to other possibilities. This study shows that health professionals should be aware of their own way to communicate and to ensure the uniqueness of each individual. Positive experiences emerged when the midwife is clearly confirmed the lesbian women as prospective parents. Good care requires that health professionals are aware of heteronormativity, and that creates obstacles to the care of lesbian women.

This study was designed to examine the effects of identifying as a butch, androgynous, or femme lesbian on self-esteem, internalized homophobia, and passing behaviors. It was hypothesized that butch lesbians would have higher self-esteem, lower internalized homophobia, and fewer passing behaviors than femme lesbians, with androgynous lesbians falling between the butch and femme groups. Self-esteem was measuring using the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. Internalized homophobia was assessed by the Lesbian Internalized Homophobia Scale. Passing behaviors were addressed through questions in the demographic questionnaire. Data were analyzed by conducting an ANOVA analysis. Results indicated that butch lesbians have the lowest internalized homophobia and the lowest amount of passing behaviors; androgynous lesbians have a highest self esteem. Implications of this study for research and practice are discussed.Ball State UniversityMuncie, IN 47306 / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

The purpose of this study was to examine whether current literature on the stages of family developmental life cycles accurately describes the family and developmental tasks for lesbian families. Due to the lack of empirical literature on this topic it was important to examine the experiences of families headed by two women related to developmental tasks experienced versus those proposed. Several authors have suggested there may be differences between same-sex and opposite-sex parents in relation to parenting styles and some child outcomes. However, none of these differences have been studied within the framework of family developmental tasks. The purpose of the present investigation was to explore the diversity of family structures, goals, and strategies within families headed by two women. The present study collected data, explored the themes related to families headed by two women who have children in the home who have not yet entered school. The goal was to develop a theory from this data using Grounded Theory which was compared with existing family developmental tasks theory and proposed changes to existing theory to take into account expected differences lesbian families may present. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services