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.

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.