Master of Science / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Briana S. Goff / Homophobic hate crimes against lesbians and gay men represent a significant social problem that has important psychological consequences for survivors. Because the nature of these crimes is, by definition, against someone for his or her intrapersonal traits, it has even more potential to be damaging to a victim and in turn potentially detrimental to the development and/or maintenance of close personal relationships. The impact of trauma has long been studied from the view of the trauma survivor or any secondary traumatization of those around the primary survivor. The impact of hate crime victimization has also been examined, and it, too, has also been examined from the primary survivors perspective. Only in recent years has the impact of trauma on interpersonal relationships been examined. Additionally, there is currently little to no literature on the impact of trauma or traumatic events on gay or lesbian relationships. The types of hate crime victimization experiences range from verbal abuse to severe physical assault to death. While hate crime victimization is not specifically identified in the DSM – IV – TR as a potentially traumatic event, physical assault, which is found commonly in hate crimes, is identified. Therefore, hate crime victimization could be a potentially traumatic event. However, this has not been addressed in the traumatic stress field. This report is intended to address the gaps in the current body of literature in both the traumatic stress field and the gay and lesbian literature. This overwhelming lack of literature has the potential to be very detrimental to professionals working with this population and in turn detrimental to the population and society. Evidence suggests that there may be a difference in how or if the potentially traumatic hate crime victimization experience manifests itself internally or in other forms because of the nature and severity of the victimization in one or both partners. Evidence also suggests, similarly to heterosexual couples, the impact of trauma has repercussions throughout the couple relationship. This report provides a preliminary start to continue and expand the work with the gay and lesbian community.

Namibia continues to face an ongoing struggle in protecting the rights and civil liberties of its LGBT population with LGBT rights-based organisations in the country strongly relying upon their volunteers to take advantage of political opportunities and manage multiple visibilities. Despite a growing body of international research into volunteer motivation and the beneficial application of such knowledge in volunteer management strategies, a dearth of literature exists on the motives of volunteers within LGBT rights-based organisations. This study uses data from qualitative interviews with 6 formal volunteers from Namibian LGBT rights-based organisations to explore volunteer motivations. A thematic analysis of the research findings reveal the complex motivations underlying volunteering in these organisations. Volunteer motivations in Namibian LGBT rights-based organisations included: (a) addressing and promoting humanitarian concerns; (b) improved social interaction, integration and support; (c) self-regulatory opportunities for personal enhancement; (d) developing career prospects; and (e) responding to past homophobic incidents. Barriers to volunteering were also identified and included: (a) strained organisational resources; (b) LGBT discrimination; and (c) complacency. For volunteer recruitment and retention strategies to be effective, organisations need to recognise and satisfy volunteers’ motives while also properly training and assisting volunteers in their respective roles. Also, given the local LGBT community’s sense of complacency, Namibian LGBT rights-based organisations would greatly benefit by strategically engaging community members and working to overcome the community’s lack of urgency. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

Many women experience sexual violence, but bisexual women are at particularly high risk for such victimization. Theories attempting to explain women’s risk for sexual violence have focused on numerous risk factors (e.g., childhood abuse, substance use, sexual risk behavior, among others); however, many of these factors have not been explored with sexual minority survivors. The current study used multiple groups path analysis within a structural equation modeling framework in order to test a theory-driven model of victimization risk, first among a general sample of women, and then among subsamples of heterosexual, lesbian, and bisexual women. The prospective model included childhood sexual, physical, and emotional abuse as three separate exogenous variables; sexual risk behavior, alcohol use, and drug use as separate mediators; and a count-based adult sexual victimization score as the outcome. The prospective model was trimmed until it best represented the observed data for the full sample, which saw the inclusion of childhood sexual and physical abuse as the only exogenous variables, sexual risk behavior as the only mediating variable, and adult sexual victimization as the outcome. Sexual risk behavior mediated the relationship between both childhood abuse variables and adult sexual victimization for the general sample of women. However, within the multiple groups model, sexual risk behavior mediated the relationship between childhood physical abuse and adult sexual victimization among bisexual women only. A mediational relationship between childhood sexual abuse and adult sexual victimization via sexual risk behavior approached significance among bisexual women only. A second-stage moderating effect approached significance whereby the relationship between sexual risk behavior and adult victimization was stronger for heterosexual women than for bisexual women. Additionally, the direct effect of childhood sexual abuse on adult sexual victimization was stronger for lesbian women than for bisexual women. Relationships among variables and the novel and unique findings pertaining to bisexual women’s victimization risk are framed as the compounding effect of childhood trauma and social stigmatization of bisexuality. Implications and future directions are described.

This thesis is about the resources that speakers can draw on when producing actions, both verbal and non-vocal. It considers how identity categories, gaze and touch can contribute to action in everyday interactions. The study stemmed from an interest in how lesbian identity is made relevant by lesbian speakers in everyday co-present interaction. A corpus of approximately 23.5 hours of video-recordings was gathered: households self-designated as lesbian (including couples, families, and housemates) video recorded some of their everyday interactions (including mealtimes, watching television, and playing board games). Using the tools of Conversation Analysis and working with the video recordings and transcripts of the interactions, several ways of making a lesbian identity relevant through talk were identified. As the analysis progressed, it was found that many references to sexual identity were produced fleetingly; they were not part of or integral to the ongoing talk, and were not taken up as a topic by participants. Rather, this invoking of a participant s sexual identity appears to contribute to a particular action that is being produced. It was found that invokings of other identities, for example relating to occupation, nationality, and race, worked in a similar way, and this is explored in relation to explanations and accounts. Where the first half of the thesis focuses on verbal invokings of identity in relation to action, the second half of the thesis considers some of the non-vocal resources that participants incorporate into their actions. It was found that when launching a topic related to something in the immediate environment, speakers can use gaze to ensure recipiency. Also, when producing potentially face-threatening actions such as teases, reprimands or insults, speakers can use interpersonal touch to mitigate the threat. In addition to showing how identities can be made relevant in everyday interaction, the findings of this thesis highlight the complexity of action design, and that in co-present interaction the physical resources available to participants also need to be taken into account.

São Paulo, Brazil is currently pursuing a project of creative urbanism. Though city rhetoric insists this project is rooted in tolerance of sexual diversity, I suggest that city policy effectively perpetuates normative conceptions of family and respectability. Using data gathered through a series of qualitative interviews with transgender and travesti individuals living in São Paulo, I argue that the straight time of São Paulo’s creative urbanism generates exclusionary temporalities and spatialities in the city that render travestis out of time and out of place. Furthermore, I argue that travestis use their capacity to enact shame through scandals to generate temporalities and spatialities of their own, ones not aligned with the reproductive, progressive futurity of straight time. In doing so, travestis participate in their own kind of creative urbanism and provide an affective challenge to the hetero- and homonormativity of São Paulo’s creative urban project. Building on recent scholarship in queer urbanism and affect, this thesis adds to critical efforts to understand how creative urbanism sexualizes space and time in contexts outside of EuroAmerica and how a queer theoretical approach contributes to critiques of progressive modernity.

Genom tiderna har homosexuella och de som inte varit heterosexuella klassats som avvikande. Även idag är vi styrda av normer över hur folk ska bete sig och vara. De som inte är heterosexuella har ofta i dagens samhälle ett större vårdbehov, men undviker gärna att söka vård då de inte känner att de får en förståelse från vårdpersonalen. Sjuksköterskans roll är att ge vård på lika villkor utan fördomar och genom att ha respekt för en människas egen integritet. Studiens syfte är att se hur kunskap och attityder hos sjuksköterskan påverkar vårdandet av sexuella minoriteter. Litteraturöversikten som gjorts har granskat fyra kvalitativa och fyra kvantitativa studier. Dessa åtta studier sammanställdes och Kunskap samt Attityder och värderingar uppstod då som huvudkategorier, vartefter underkategorier skapades. I dessa två huvudkategorier framkom att det finns en vilja hos sjuksköterskor att vårda sexuella minoriteter men att kunskapen saknas. Vidare diskuterades hur attityder och kunskapsbrist påverkar patienterna och att utbildning inom detta område behöver bli mer framträdande i vården samt i grundutbildningen.

This thesis paper gives a brief history of the vampire narrative and its role in representing the collective anxieties of an age as well as serving as a metaphor for oppressed peoples. It uses Bram Stoker’s Dracula and J. Sheridan le Fanu’s Carmilla as historical examples of how the vampire adapts to suit issues of the day such as reverse colonization and female sexuality, respectively. The latter part of this paper speculates on the future role of the vampire in literature and proposes that the vampire could be used to discuss transgender issues as well as challenge the gender binary. It addresses the suitability of the vampire narrative in particular for representing gender as a spectrum using the lenses of Foucault’s heterotopias, Kristeva’s abject, and Freud’s uncanny and pulls examples of early evidence of this trend from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.

Introduction: The desire to have children and form a family is for many people central for life fulfilment and the desire does not differ by sexual orientation. Due a series of societal changes during the last decade, today we see a lesbian baby boom. Planned lesbian families are a relatively new group of patients and parents in reproductive health care, yet little is known about psychological wellbeing during the transition to parenthood in these families. Aim: The overall aim of this thesis was to fill a gap of knowledge about the psychological aspects of undergoing treatment with donated sperm, at the time of pregnancy and during early parenthood that affect lesbian couples forming a family. Method: This is a multicentre study comprising all 7 university clinics that perform gamete donation. The study includes lesbian couples undergoing treatment with donated sperm and heterosexual couples undergoing IVF treatment with their own gametes. Participants were recruited consecutively during 2005 and 2008. 165 lesbian couples and 151 heterosexual couples participated in the study. Participants responded questionnaires at three time points (T); time point 1 (T1) at the commencement of treatment, (T2) after the first round of treatment, around 2 month after T1 and (T3) 12-18 months after first treatment when a presumptive child had reached 1 year. Data was analysed with statistical methodology. Results: Lesbian couples reported an all over high satisfaction with relationship quality, good psychological wellbeing and low parenting stress. Heterosexual couples also reported good satisfaction with relationship quality, however somewhat lower than the lesbian couples. Parenting stress in the heterosexual couples was similar to the lesbian couples. A strong association was found between high relationship satisfaction and low parenting stress. Conclusions: Lesbian couples forming a family through sperm donation treatment are satisfied with their relationships, they report a good psychological health and experiences of low parenting stress.

Introduction: The desire to have children and form a family is for many people central for life fulfilment and the desire does not differ by sexual orientation. Due a series of societal changes during the last decade, today we see a lesbian baby boom. Planned lesbian families are a relatively new group of patients and parents in reproductive health care, yet little is known about psychological wellbeing during the transition to parenthood in these families. Aim: The overall aim of this thesis was to fill a gap of knowledge about the psychological aspects of undergoing treatment with donated sperm, at the time of pregnancy and during early parenthood that affect lesbian couples forming a family. Method: This is a multicentre study comprising all 7 university clinics that perform gamete donation. The study includes lesbian couples undergoing treatment with donated sperm and heterosexual couples undergoing IVF treatment with their own gametes. Participants were recruited consecutively during 2005 and 2008. 165 lesbian couples and 151 heterosexual couples participated in the study. Participants responded questionnaires at three time points (T); time point 1 (T1) at the commencement of treatment, (T2) after the first round of treatment, around 2 month after T1 and (T3) 12-18 months after first treatment when a presumptive child had reached 1 year. Data was analysed with statistical methodology. Results: Lesbian couples reported an all over high satisfaction with relationship quality, good psychological wellbeing and low parenting stress. Heterosexual couples also reported good satisfaction with relationship quality, however somewhat lower than the lesbian couples. Parenting stress in the heterosexual couples was similar to the lesbian couples. A strong association was found between high relationship satisfaction and low parenting stress. Conclusions: Lesbian couples forming a family through sperm donation treatment are satisfied with their relationships, they report a good psychological health and experiences of low parenting stress. / <p>Name change: Paper 2, "Psychological health in lesbian and heterosexual couples undergoing assisted reproduction" in the list of papers has been changed to "Symptoms of anxiety and depression in lesbian couples treated with donated sperm: a descriptive study"</p>

<p>Predmet istraţivanja ove doktorske disertacije jesu metafore tela i prostora u stvarala&scaron;tvu savremene vel&scaron;ke spisateljice Sare Voters. Istraţivanje se usredsreĊuje na prvih pet romana iz njenog opusa, objavljenih u periodu od 1998. do 2009. godine. Romani Usne od somota, Srodne du&scaron;e i Dţeparo&scaron; spadaju u neoviktorijansku prozu, dok su romani Noćna straţa i Mali stranac sme&scaron;teni u period za vreme i nakon Drugog svetskog rata. Uloga protagoniste u njenim romanima najĉe&scaron;će se dodeljuje lezbejskim likovima, pa se njeno stvarala&scaron;tvo moţe shvatiti kao poku&scaron;aj da se navedene istorijske epohe rekonstrui&scaron;u tako da se omogući predstavljanje lezbejskih likova i lezbejske seksualnosti. Istovremeno, njeni romani doprinose &scaron;irem predstavljanju lezbejske tematike u savremenoj knjiţevnoj produkciji. Osnovni cilj istraţivanja jeste da se ispita uloga telesnih i prostornih metafora u obradi teme istopolne ljubavi, ali i znaĉaj ovih metafora za ĉitav niz drugih tema.<br />Istraţivanja tela i prostora predstavljaju izuzetno plodnu i dinamiĉnu oblast savremene kritiĉke teorije. Ovi pojmovi dospevaju u ţiţu kritiĉkog interesovanja u drugoj polovini dvadesetog veka, mada je njihovo prisustvo u oblastima nauĉnih istraţivanja znatno duţe, pa rasprave o telu i telesnosti nalazimo jo&scaron; u klasiĉnoj filozofiji. Prostor je pak sve do druge polovine dvadesetog veka prevashodno bio predmet matematiĉkih i geografskih istraţivanja, dok je u humanistiĉkoj tradiciji bio shvaćen tek kao pasivna i statiĉna pozadina istorijskih dogaĊaja. Istraţivanje polazi od istorijskog pregleda kljuĉnih teorijskih pristupa telu, poĉev od platonistiĉke dualistiĉke tradicije,&nbsp;preko kartezijanskog dualizma, sve do savremenih poststrukturalistiĉkih teorija, a teorijsko upori&scaron;te analize telesnih metafora ĉine teorije Mi&scaron;ela Fukoa i Dţudit Batler. Analiza romana se usredsreĊuje na motiv transodevanja, metaforu duha, ali i na skup konkretnih telesnih slika kojima se spisateljica iznova vraća. Potom se razmatraju savremena teorijska poimanja prostora, pri ĉemu se istraţivanje oslanja i na relevantna istorijska, knjiţevnoistorijska i sociolo&scaron;ka istraţivanja. Ovaj teorijski okvir sluţi da se ispitaju predstave kuće, zatvora, ludnice i britanske prestonice, te interakcija lezbejskih likova s ovim lokalitetima<br />&nbsp;</p> / <p>The aim of this doctoral thesis is to explore the corporeal and spatial metaphors in the fiction of Sarah Waters, a contemporary Welsh novelist. The critical focus of the thesis is on Waters‟s first five novels, published between 1998 and 2009. Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith belong to the neo-Victorian genre, while Night Watch and The Little Stranger are set in the period during and after the Second World War. In Waters‟s fiction, the role of protagonist is mostly reserved for lesbian characters and her oeuvre can be perceived as an attempt to rewrite the chosen historical periods in ways which provide for the representation of lesbian characters and lesbian sexuality. In addition, her novels make a significant contribution towards wider literary representation of lesbian issues in the contemporary context. The main goal of this research is to analyze the role of corporeal and spatial metaphors in the portrayal of same-sex relationships, class tensions and other relevant themes in Waters‟s work.<br />The issues of body and space are undoubtedly at the centre of contemporary critical interest and theoretical debates that surround them are diverse and wide-ranging. However, while the history of theoretical interest in the body dates back to the classical tradition, spatiality only came to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century, when a surge of critical interest can be observed marking the beginning of the so-called spatial turn. The thesis therefore&nbsp;starts by providing a brief historical overview of the key theoretical approaches to the body, including the mind/body debate in the classical Platonic tradition, Cartesian dualism and contemporary poststructuralist theory. The theories of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler are then used as the main theoretical framework for the analysis of corporeal metaphors, which focuses on the motif of cross-dressing, the spectral metaphor, as well as a range of recurrent corporeal images in Waters‟s writing. In the following chapters, the focus shifts to contemporary theoretical approaches to spatiality and relevant sociological, cultural and historical research, which are used to explore the representations of home, prison, asylum and urban space, as well as the interaction between the lesbian protagonists and their surroundings.</p>