This study is an exploration of the lesbian subculture in Russia focusing in particular on the subculture as a unique heterogeneous space of social interaction and cultural production that is not self contained or isolated from mainstream society, but incorporates a variety of cultural flows and traditions that are a part of Russian mainstream culture, other Russian subcultures, or global cultural flows. Some of these cultural flows and traditions are more compatible than other ones. The increasingly globalized images and ideas of what a gay and lesbian community is, or perhaps should be like, are only partially compatible with contemporary reality in Russia. The high value placed on visibility and explicitly political, even radical activism, in gay and lesbian subcultures in the West, must in Russia be reconciled not only with the totalitarian past, and the increasingly authoritarian present, but also with the traditions and practices that developed as a response to the repressive regime and enabled people to live and even thrive within it. Using private spaces as public space, and public space as private space established a practice of multilayered spaces that are continuously maintained through social inclusion and exclusion, visibility and invisibility. However, the subculture is not only an intersection of external cultural flows and traditions, it also has it’s own unique traditions, knowledges and practices. Poetry, music, literature and art form the backbone of the flow of activities within the subculture. Visual and grammatical cues, styles, jokes and lesbian genders are integral aspects of the subculture as it is continuously renegotiated by its participants also on an individual level.. The study is based on fieldwork, participant observation and interviews, mainly in Moscow, and to some extent in St Petersburg, during 2005 with recurring visits during 2006 and 2007.

Media impact on LGBT people’s empowerment is not a new topic to media and communication studies, however, the extent to which lesbians’ use of internet-based media have contribute to their empowerment in a non-western context remains under-researched. This research attempts to respond to the question with an exploration of the relation between nv-tong-zhi’s use of internet-based media and their empowerment by the lens of their own lived experiences in Taipei. An interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA) method was applied in this research, and thematic analysis was conducted on the data gathered through in-depth semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that nv-tong-zhi individuals’ use of internet-based media have brought about increases in self-efficacy, self-esteem and competence as well as active engagement in empowerment interventions by providing more valuable information and more convenient and accessible social interactions. However, the contribution of using internet-based media remains contextual and temporary. In some cases, using internet-based media may bring in subjective sense of insecurity. Furthermore, there has emerged a paradox between psychological empowerment and collective empowerment that deserves further explanatory studies in the future.

Moving to Florida to retire has become commonplace among American elders, though we have seldom addressed how lesbians and gay men navigate sexual identity in retirement. I undertake ethnography of three suburban, retirement-aged residential communities in Florida in which lesbians and gay men make community in order to understand how identities are produced by and within communities, the significance of suburban gay communities in the post-gay community era, and how residents from each community engage dominant discourse. Sanctuary Cove 1 is a ―gay and lesbian‖ retirement community; Bayside Park is a ―women‘s-only‖ (lesbian) community; and Heritage Estates is a heteronormative retirement community with a growing lesbian ―network.‖ Drawing from conversations with thirty lesbians and four gay men, I compare community practices to support my argument that these are respective settings for accrediting, contesting, and privileging identities. By exploring how participants collectively construct and present sexual selves in disparate communities, I attempt to uncover the co-constitutive interaction between community and identity; while attention to the ruling relations of sexuality, sex, gender, race, and class engages the politics of privilege and stigma.

It has long been a tool of the LGBTQ rights movement to loudly proclaim and own one’s sexual orientation label. However, there is a new generation of young sexual minorities who feel a label is no longer necessary. Are these no-labelers headed in the right direction? Or are they hurting the fight for LGBTQ equality? / text

Research suggests that non-judgmental, unbiased counseling (that includes an advocacy component) is effective in addressing the psycho-social needs of sexual minority youths--a population of students considered at-risk (Reynolds & Koski, 1994; Savin-Williams, 1994). The ability to provide such services is impeded if the clinician has not first come to terms with his or her own feelings and attitudes about homosexuality (Pederson, 1988). This study examined the attitudes and anticipated professional behaviors relevant to sexual minority youths of 309 pupil services professionals in the fields of school psychology, school social work, school nursing, and school counseling. Participants from two regions of the US (Florida and New Jersey) responded to a survey comprising a homophobia measure and a measure of anticipated professional behavior toward sexual minority youths, and questionnaires collecting demographic information. Results of multiple regression analysis, with the significance level set at .05, indicated that levels of homophobic bias were positively correlated with political conservatism (r = .52), high religiosity (r = .51), and lower education levels (r = .30) among the participants. Furthermore, a backward elimination model predicting biased professional behaviors toward sexual minority youths was significant (p = .001). Results indicated that those less likely to employ gay affirming professional behaviors were more politically conservative (p = .001) than those more likely to do so. Implications of this study suggest that even among these counseling professionals, personal ideologies and dogmatic belief systems could potentially impede many of their ability or willingness to advocate in behalf of sexual minority students. Training efforts, therefore, should assist these professionals in distinguishing between their personal ideologies with regard to sexual orientation diversity and their professional responsibility to serve the needs of all students.

This dissertation investigates the workplace experiences of gay and lesbian teachers. In-depth interviews and field observations were conducted with 51 teachers in Texas and in California, two states with different legal approaches to gay rights and worker rights. This comparative study highlights the importance of social, political, and cultural context in individual decision-making about sexual disclosure and performance, explores the consequences of "normalization" of LGBT experiences in the classroom, and addresses the role of identity politics in social change. By taking an intersectional approach to gay/lesbian identity construction, this dissertation considers how race, class, gender, and sexuality inequalities are expressed and reinforced in the experiences of gay and lesbian teachers. / text

Sexual minorities or those minoritized as a result of the expressed or assumed sexual orientations and identities (i.e., lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer), by virtue of their sometimes stigmatized identities, oftentimes report deleterious and unprovoked experiences of harassment, victimization, and prejudice. For several decades, research has confirmed that lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals are at high risk for maladaptive outcomes, including higher rates of suicidality, depression, substance use and abuse, and anxiety disorders. The goal of this dissertation was to 1) document and compare these disparities across two cultures, 2) disentangle social support systems that are important to sexual minorities, and 3) identify factors that best protect sexual minorities against the effects of bias-based bullying. Large datasets were used to compare, understand, and trace the processes of interpersonal relational support on adjustment for sexual minorities. Specifically, different cultural normativities were hypothesized to explain differences in adjustment across culture, parent support was hypothesized to be most associated with lower depression and higher self-esteem, and parent acceptance was expected to buffer the relation between bias-based bullying and depression for sexual minorities. These expectations were generally supported and demonstrate the clear role that parents and friends contribute to mental health for sexual minorities. Implications for future research, parents, teachers, and other stakeholders are discussed in different contexts of sexual minority adjustment.

This dissertation examines the relationship between gender and language in Japanese through the often ignored lens of sexuality. Although linguists are increasingly examining these issues for American gay, lesbian, and bisexual speakers, little similar research has been done in Japan. Lesbians, in particular, are relatively invisible in Japanese society. Examining these women, who do not fit neatly into the hegemonic gender ideology, illuminates how speakers can project a specific identity by displaying or rejecting prescriptive gender-specific linguistic norms of Japanese.I analyzed data recorded from interviews with both Japanese lesbian/bisexual and heterosexual women, looking for differences in frequency and range of use of pronouns and sentence-final particles and for phonetic differences in terms of average pitch height and width. I also considered the results of a perception experiment undertaken to investigate the effect of pitch height and width on Japanese speakers' perceptions of sexuality.Although Japanese speakers were generally unable to identify a cohesive lesbian stereotype, especially in terms of language use, the perception experiment indicated that both average pitch height and width significantly affect judgments on whether a voice sounds lesbian or heterosexual. Tokens judged to be lesbian were also judged to be more masculine and less emotional than those judged to be heterosexual. Analysis of the interview data showed that lesbian participants produced an average pitch height that was significantly lower than that of heterosexual participants. In terms of gendered morphemes, lesbians were significantly more likely to use masculine morphemes than heterosexual women, both for sentence-final particles and first-person pronouns, and were significantly less likely to use the feminine first-person pronoun <italic>atashi</italic>. Finally, correlations showed that speakers who instantiate gender through the use of gendered-morphemes also do so through manipulations of pitch.Although Japanese lesbians are still fairly closeted and interviewees maintained that there are no cultural stereotypes for this group, significant differences in pitch and gendered-morpheme usage were still apparent. These lesbian/bisexual women did not appear to be mimicking men's language, but instead seemed to be rejecting hegemonic femininity and many of the cultural and linguistic stereotypes that accompany it.

Sexual representations in Seba al-Herz’s Saudi Arabian novel The Others span various kinds of sexual identification and experience. Surface level readings of the novel find examples of lesbian identities and encounters, but a deeper, more nuanced examination of the novel unearths a complex set of queer desires, practices, sexual encounters, and relationships that do not fit neatly in to regulated sexual identity categories. Through literary analysis, I argue that through ambiguities in the novel’s construction and narration, and through the Narrator’s sexual experiences, The Others offers a kind of sexual expression that opens up possibilities of de-territorializing and re-territorializing sexual experience beyond static identity labels.

College is a formative stage of identity development for many young adults. This study presents an in-depth analysis of how some young adults who identify as gay or lesbian experience higher education in a faith-based setting. The theoretical framework for the research was founded in the literature of two separate fields: the general experience of college students and homosexual identity formation. Utilizing models created by Chickering (1969), Cass (1984), and D’Augelli (1994), among others, the intent of this study was to discover how an explicitly faith-based college environment impacts the collegiate experiences of students who identify as gay and lesbian. This study was grounded in qualitative, phenomenological methodology. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews with students who identified as gay or lesbian while enrolled in private, faith-based institutions of higher education. Interviews were completed during the spring semester of 2010. Data analysis was conducted based on steps identified by Moustakas (1994) and Strauss and Corbin (1990), and predominant themes were discovered. The researcher concluded that a faith-based institutional setting impacts the collegiate experience of gay and lesbian students in considerable ways. Students encountered significant struggles, including identity denial, pressure to conceal sexuality, and frustration regarding school policies. Based on these themes, specific conclusions were drawn regarding students’ enrollment decisions, sexual identity formation during the collegiate experience, reconciliation of faith and sexual identity, encouraging supportive networks for gay and lesbian students, and policy development regarding sexual behaviors on campus. Suggestions were presented for administrators, counselors, faculty, staff, and students at faith-based universities. / Department of Educational Leadership