Graduate social work students are mandated to be cultural competent to work with lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) clients. This exploratory study examined how best to teach graduate social work students to be culturally competent in working with LGB clients by assessing their perceived competence of attitudes, knowledge and skills as well as their demonstrated competence through case vignettes. The study compared a current pedagogical method of infusing LGB material across the curricula with two types of brief trainings (didactic lecture and experiential) . This mixed methods study utilized a pretest/posttest design to examine the effects of the trainings as well as qualitative responses from the participants. Results offer suggestions as to which pedagogical approach might be most effective in helping social work students gain competence for working with LGB individuals.

Gay actors have a long history with the notion of “straightening up” to remain castable and economically feasible in today’s market. Searching to find answers for young acting students while strengthening their own self worth, I will explore the history of gay actors in film, television and theatre and in society to understand this notion more fully. By interviewing working actors and managers in the business I will explore how I can address this question of “straightening up” to the future generation of actors and analyze how we can face the future with integrity and self-respect.

Existing literature about transgender college students calls upon higher education organizations to support trans students' use of self-identified first names (in place of legal names, given at birth) and self-identified pronouns (in place of assumed pronouns based on sex assigned at birth, or other's perceptions of physical appearance), but that literature lacks guidance on how to achieve this work, which is deceptively complex. This study addressed this gap in the literature in two ways. First by using critical theory to show how hegemonic, binary notions of gender shape intellectual, social, and regulatory dimensions of higher education in ways that complicate practitioners' efforts to provide trans students with support. Second, by using institutional ethnography (IE) as a critical framework and methodology to uncover what IE refers to as texts and relations that operate in unintended ways to undo practitioners' efforts to provide desired supports. I use examples from my experience as a higher education LGBTQ resource professional at the University of Vermont (UVM) to add depth to my analysis and present the results in two articles. The first article presents the rationale for changing campus information systems to enable transgender students to use self-identified names and pronouns on campus, and presents examples of the work accomplished at the University of Vermont and the University of Michigan. The second article extends beyond logistics to explore the complex questions that are the focus of this dissertation.

Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of the Master of Technology in Fashion, Durban University of Technology, Durban, South Africa, 2015. / The years succeeding 1990 have seen a significant increase in the release of mainstream film featuring transgendered characters. The inclusion of such characters in popular film becomes a point of interest as transgendered identities differ from the hegemonic heterosexism of the audiences at whom these films are targeted. This investigation aims to gain a better understanding of how audience members read gendered identity through the visual appearance of drag queen characters in mainstream film. Due to the emblematic contrast between the male body and a hyper-feminine dress aesthetic, drag queens pose an overt visual challenge to the normative expectation of anatomical sex determining gender and gendered expression. This investigation is conducted from the paradigmatic perspective that recognises the impossibility of a ‘correct’ reading of dress aesthetics and is thus concerned with discovering the various gendered meanings audience members may attach to drag costume in film. This interpretivist standpoint, however, is held in conjunction with the critical understanding that prevalent contemporary socio-political constructs with regard to gender and dress will undoubtedly affect these perceptions. Segments from selected Hollywood films featuring drag queen protagonists were screened for a heterogeneous focus group and the subsequent discussion analysed through critical discourse analysis. Academic discourse concerning the socially constructed gender dichotomy and the debated subversive potential of the drag act is reviewed in order to provide a theoretical framework for analysing the participants’ comprehension of gendered performance. Gendered associations with dress and the body together with film theory are examined to better understand how an audience may perceive gendered identity through drag costume in film and what affect this may have on their conception of sartorial gendered expressions in reality. Finally, to situate and provide further context for this investigation, Queer theory critiques of the representation and reception of transgendered characters in past mainstream films are considered. / M

ABSTRACT Background: Sexual orientation is comprised of distinct components, including sexual identity, sexual attraction and sexual behavior. Lesbian, gay and bisexual adolescents are at an increased risk of experiencing poor health outcomes compared to non-sexual minority youth. Health care professional organizations recommend that health care providers discuss each component of sexual orientation at every adolescent health supervision visits in order to best assess the adolescent's health risks and needs for intervention and education. Objective: This survey assessed the frequency with which nurse practitioners (NPs) in the state of Vermont discussed sexual identity, attraction and behavior with adolescents during annual health supervision visits. Design: A cross sectional study that analyzed descriptive statistics of a small convenience sample of Vermont NPs. Setting and Participants: Attendees of the Vermont Nurse Practitioner Association 2015 annual conference. Participants in the study were licensed, practicing NPs in the state of Vermont responsible for the health supervision of adolescents. Results: Participants were overwhelmingly female (93%), with a median age between 40-49 years old, and a median length of years in practice of six to ten years. Sixty-two percent of respondents specialized in family practice. Respondents reported that they always asked adolescents about the sex of sexual partners at 49% of health supervision visits. Respondents always discussed sexual attraction and sexual identity at 31% and 24% of health supervision visits, respectively. Twenty percent of respondents reported rarely or never discussing sexual attraction, and 38% reported rarely or never discussing sexual identity. Conclusions: The Vermont NPs who participated in this survey were demographically similar to national NP cohorts. Vermont NPs discussed the adolescent's sexual behavior at health supervision visits as frequently as health care providers nationally, and Vermont NPs discussed sexual attraction and sexual identity more frequently than providers nationally. However, Vermont NPs discussed sexual attraction and identity much less frequently than they discussed sexual behavior. Results of this survey illustrate that there is substantial room for improvement regarding the frequency with which Vermont NPs discuss the three components of sexual orientation with adolescents, particularly the components of sexual identity and attraction.

This thesis explores the role played by narrative desire within two modernist experimentations with novel form: Willa Cather's 1918 novel My Antonia and William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! (1936). In it, I argue that Cather and Faulkner utilize framing narratives in order to present the main plot of each novel as a product of multiple narrators' desire for a story to emerge. In My Antonia, it is the expressed wish of Jim Burden's nameless writer friend that compels him to finish writing his account of Antonia, which constitutes the main plot of the novel. Meanwhile, in Absalom, Absalom! it is Quentin's perception that Rosa "wants it told" which inspires him to investigate and reconstruct her ex-fiancee Thomas Sutpen's life story with the help of two other character-narrators: his father and college roommate Shreve. Calling on narrative theory and psychoanalysis, I argue that Cather's and Faulkner's novels depict characters' desire for both storytelling and each other to be enigmatic and intersubjective. Indeed the impulse to generate narrative on the part of the tellers in both texts--notably Jim and Quentin--is seen to arise out of a partial, but not entirely clear, sense that another wants them to do so. In other words, the narrative desire conveyed by the nameless writer and Rosa appears to have no clear object. While it is understood by Jim and Quentin that a story is desired of them, the full extent of what this story might come to be about is never fully explicated by their interlocutors. Theoretically, the intervention this project wagers by way of Cather and Faulkner is a rethinking of two influential attempts to bring together narrative theory and psychoanalysis: Peter Brooks' Reading for the Plot (1984) and Judith Roof's Come As You Are (1996). While the claims regarding narrative advanced by both Brooks and Roof rely primarily on Freud's work (notably his theories of the death drive and of sexual development), I attempt to demonstrate how Lacan's thinking allows us to understand narrative as issuing from a desire that is at once intersubjective and objectless--as appears to be the case in My Antonia and Absalom, Absalom!. Lacan's dynamic conceptualization of desire, I suggest, is not only essential to understanding these two works; it is also very much implicit within the interplay of desire and narrative form they establish.

Estimativas mundiais apontam que 19% das travestis e mulheres trans estão vivendo com HIV/Aids; no Brasil, a prevalência está acima de 30%. Essas taxas são crescentes e expressam a falta de atenção à saúde desta população. Raros estudos abordam a adesão dessa população aos antirretrovirais, com resultados preocupantes demonstrando falhas na adesão; além disso, escassos trabalhos científicos descrevem a qualidade de vida de travestis e mulheres trans vivendo com HIV/Aids. Este estudo teve por objetivos: (i) descrever a adesão à terapia antirretroviral de travestis e mulheres trans vivendo com HIV/Aids; (ii) identificar fatores associados com a adesão à terapia antirretroviral; (iii) mensurar a qualidade de vida entre travestis e mulheres trans vivendo com HIV/Aids; (iv) identificar fatores associados à qualidade de vida; e (v) explorar a associação entre qualidade de vida e adesão à terapia. A ferramenta para estimar a adesão foi o autorrelato desenvolvido pelo grupo Terry Beirn Community Programs for Clinical Reserch on Aids, além do parâmetro clínico carga viral. Para avaliação da qualidade de vida o questionário utilizado foi o Patient Report Outcomes Quality of Life - HIV (PROQOL-HIV). Este estudo foi aprovado pelo comitê de ética e pesquisa da Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de São Paulo - FMUSP e pelo comitê de ética e pesquisa do Centro de Referência e Treinamento CRT Santa Cruz, além de estar em consonância com as diretrizes da resolução nº 510 de 2016 pelo Conselho Nacional em Saúde. Os dados foram analisados no programa STATA 15.1, sendo aplicados teste qui-quadrado, teste da soma dos postos de Wilcoxon, cálculo da correlação não paramétrica de Spearman e modelo de regressão logística multivariada. Cento e seis travestis e mulheres trans vivendo com HIV/Aids foram incluídas nesse estudo, das quais 90% declararam adesão ao tratamento; idade mais avançada foi identificada como fator associado a melhor adesão. O escore de qualidade de vida esteve entre boa a excelente em cinco dos 8 domínios do PROQOL-HIV; e menor escolaridade, depressão e uso de drogas ilícitas foram fatores associados com pior escore de qualidade de vida. Não observamos correlação estatisticamente significante entre qualidade de vida e adesão. Nosso estudo sugere que os resultados obtidos possam estar relacionados ao modelo de atendimento adotado no centro recrutador. Estudos multicêntricos, com maior número de participantes e que considere unidades de atendimento localizadas em regiões remotas e menos favorecidas são necessários para expressar a real situação da adesão aos antirretrovirais e qualidade de vida de travestis e mulheres trans. / Worldwide estimates indicate that 19% of transgender women are living with HIV / AIDS; in Brazil, the prevalence is above 30%. The increase of the numbers express the lack of health care for this population. Rare previous studies address transgender women adherence to antiretroviral, with poor results and worrying results; In addition, rare scientific studies describe the quality of life in this population. This study focused on evaluating adherence to antiretroviral therapy, identified predictors for adherence, assessed quality of life, identified predictors for quality of life and explored the association between adherence and quality of life in a population of transgender women living with HIV/AIDS. We interviewed 106 transgender women treated at the outpatient clinic of the HIV / AIDS referral center in São Paulo about their adherence to antiretroviral, using a self-reported tool developed by Terry Beirn\'s group Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS and about quality of life using Patient Report Outcomes Quality of Life - HIV (PROQOL-HIV) questionnaire. We also used viral suppression as an indicator of adherence. Prior to the study, ethical clearance was obtained from a Health Research Ethics Committee and informed consent obtained from the study participants. Results formed part of adherence assessment. Data was analyzed using STATA 15.1, with x-square, Wilcoxon test, Spearman test and logistical regression analysis was performed. The sample declared 90% adherence to treatment in self-report, was created a new variable to measure adherence considering viral suppression and self-report, the results decrease to 78% of participants adherent; statistical analyses showed that younger transgender women have more chances to report low adherence. Most participants reported well to excellent quality of life, and lower schooling, depression, and illicit drug use were predictors for a worse quality of life score. We did not observe a statistically significant correlation between quality of life and adherence. Our study suggests good results from the service model adopted at the recruiting center. Multicentric studies with a larger number of participants and considering service units located in remote and less favored regions are necessary to express the real situation of adherence to antiretroviral and quality of life of transgender women.

The main interest of this interdisciplinary thesis (psychology-law) is the understanding of transphobia and discrimination against trans* people. I locate the problem of this type of discrimination in the social construction of ‘sex/gender’ categories. Particularly, I situate it in the definition of the norms that constitute ‘woman’ and ‘man’ as two essential and mutually exclusive categories that sustain the unequal binary organisation of society. People who transgress those norms have been labelled as ‘mentally ill’ by psychiatry and psychology since the end of the 19th century. The emergence of trans* activism from the 1960s and especially Trans Studies in the 1990s has allowed questioning those pathologising discourses. In the present context, we observe a tendency towards the depathologisation of trans* experiences and identities. Depathologisation is coupled with increased visibility of trans* people in the cultural domain and a more favourable public opinion towards them. However, trans* people still face serious discrimination and the norm that divides humankind into ‘women’ and ‘men’ is still very much present. Drawing on these premises I argue that the transgression of ‘sex/gender’ norms have been redefined nowadays so that the binary opposition between women and men is maintained as the norm. Thus, trans* people are still depicted as ‘abnormal’ although pathologising and psychiatric discourses are not necessarily employed today. The general objective of the thesis is to understand how this redefinition is carried out and the effects of it in two specific contexts: the legal certification of sex in the civil status of individuals in Belgium and the definition of the worker subject. The choice of these two cases responds to the fact that trans* people report facing many obstacles and discrimination in them. Based on the theoretical and methodological principles of discursive psychology and Perelmanian new rhetoric, I realised the discourse analysis of two corpora: a legislative corpus and a corpus of interviews. The legislative corpus comprises texts of Acts, bills, amendments, parliamentary debates and Circulars regulating the mention of sex in the civil status in Belgium. The second corpus includes the transcriptions of five group interviews with workers carried out with co-workers from five work organisations in Brussels. In both cases, the identification of discursive practices and their variability allowed me to elucidate the effects they produce. Specifically, it allowed me to show that, although the identified practices seem less stigmatising, they still depict trans* people as a ‘deviation from the norm’, thereby legitimising a different legal treatment towards them and justifying the discrimination and exclusion they endure at work. Moreover, the identified practices reproduce the binary organisation of society and justify discrimination against women in the workplace. The ultimate purpose of this thesis is to promote an informed critical attitude towards those discursive practices and, in this way, to contribute to the struggle against transphobia and sexism. / Dans cette thèse interdisciplinaire (psychologie-droit) je m’intéresse à la transphobie et la discrimination à l’égard des personnes trans*. Je situe ce problème de discrimination dans la construction sociale des catégories « sexe/genre », notamment dans la définition des normes qui constituent les catégories « femme » et « homme » comme deux catégories essentielles et mutuellement exclusives qui soutiennent l’organisation binaire et inégale de la société. Les personnes qui ont transgressé ces normes ont été étiquetées comme « malades mentales » par la psychiatrie et la psychologie depuis la fin du 19ème siècle. L’émergence de l’activisme trans* dans les années soixante et notamment des Trans Studies dans les années nonantes ont permis la remise en question de ces discours pathologisants. Dans le contexte actuel, on observe une tendance vers la dépathologisation des expériences et identités trans*, accompagnée d’une croissante visibilité des personnes trans* dans le domaine culturel et d’une opinion publique globalement plus favorable à leur égard. Par contre, les personnes trans* font encore l’objet de nombreuses discriminations et la norme qui divise l’humanité entre « femmes » et « hommes » est encore extrêmement présente. Sur la base de ces prémisses, je soutiens que la transgression des normes de « sexe/genre » a été actuellement redéfinie de façon à ce l’opposition binaire entre les femmes et les hommes est maintenue comme norme. Ainsi, les personnes trans* sont encore définies comme « anormales » alors que des discours pathologisants et psychiatrisants ne sont pas nécessairement mobilisés aujourd’hui. L’objectif général de la thèse est de comprendre comment cette redéfinition est faite et quels sont ses effets dans deux contextes spécifiques :la certification légal de la mention du sexe dans l’état civil en Belgique et la définition du sujet travailleur. Le choix de ces deux cas se justifie par le fait que ce sont deux domaines dans lesquels les personnes trans* signalent beaucoup d’obstacles et de discrimination. M’appuyant sur les principes théoriques et méthodologiques de la psychologie discursive et de la nouvelle rhétorique perelmanienne, j’ai effectué l’analyse du discours de deux corpus :un corpus législatif et un corpus d’entretiens. Le corpus législatif est composé de textes de loi, projets et propositions de loi, amendements, travaux parlementaires et circulaires régulant la mention du sexe dans l’état civil en Belgique. Le deuxième corpus inclut les transcriptions de cinq entretiens de groupe menés auprès de travailleuses et de travailleurs dans cinq organisations de Bruxelles. Dans les deux cas, l’identification des pratiques discursives et de leur variabilité m’a permis de dévoiler les effets qu’elles produisent. Spécifiquement, j’ai pu démontrer que, bien que ces pratiques semblent moins stigmatisantes aujourd’hui, elles continuent à définir les personnes trans* comme une « déviation de la norme », légitimant ainsi un traitement légal différent à leur égard et justifiant la discrimination et l’exclusion dont elles sont victimes au travail. En outre, ces pratiques discursives reproduisent l’organisation binaire de la société et la discrimination à l’égard des femmes au travail. Avec cette thèse j’espère contribuer à la promotion d’une attitude critique informée par rapport aux pratiques discursives identifiées et, par ce biais, à la lutte contre la transphobie et le sexisme. / Doctorat en Sciences psychologiques et de l'éducation / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis explores the implications of visibility and invisibility of transgender people, their constructed bodies, and how these bodies are used for both personal empowerment and education. By using various gender theorists for support, I argue that the transgender male body obtains power through visibility. Despite the many obstacles transgender males face, putting their bodies in a space of visibility gives them both personal power and the power to educate others about their bodies and sexuality. In doing a study of the human body and the different definitions applied to it, I show how we, as a society, are restricted by gender binaries and how the transgender body serves as a gap between the socially-constructed terms. Ultimately, transgender people are able to break through these barriers by subverting the definitions and meaning of “male” and “female.” / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2014. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Under året 2015 lanserades det två modekampanjer i Sverige som fick stor medialuppmärksamhet. Först ut var Åhléns med sin modekampanj Vårmod, kollektionen lanserades under våren 2015, frontfiguren för denna lansering var modellen och transpersonen Lea T. Under hösten samma år lanserade H&M ägda & Other Stories sin kollektion The Gaze & Other Stories, för denna kollektion var både frontfigurerna och produktionsteamet bakom transpersoner. Att två så stora och väletablerade företag valde att använda sig av transmodeller vid lanseringen av sina senaste klädkollektioner var något helt nytt, både för den nationella och internationella marknaden. I en av artiklarna som publicerades efter att & Other Stories lanserat sin kampanj kunde vi läsa: “Världens första modekampanj av och med transpersoner” (Lacis 2015). Mitt syfte med denna studie var att utifrån de här modekampanjerna undersöka och skapa en djupare förståelse för hur transpersoner upplever användningen av transpersoner i modekampanjer. I studien ville jag undersöka om det råder någon diskrepans mellan producenternas intentioner och hur mottagnarna tolkar modekampanjerna. Med hjälp av Stuart Halls teori encoding/decoding redogörs först för de intentioner som låg bakom och formade produktionerna (encoding), för att sedan sätta dessa i relation till hur bemötandet och responsen kring dessa produktioner såg ut hos mottagarna (decoding). Följande frågeställningar var utformade för att besvara syftet: 1) Vilka intentioner ligger bakom och formar modekampanjerna? 2) Hur tolkar informanterna modekampanjerna? 3) Hur kan man utifrån Stuart Halls encoding/decoding teori undersöka om det råder en diskrepans mellan producenternas intentioner och informanternas tolkningar av dessa modekampanjer? Studiens teoretiska ramverk har sin utgångspunkt i teorier om heteronormativitet, maktutövning, jagbildning, medierad verklighet, representation och encoding/decoding. Det empiriska materialet är insamlat genom tre enskilda djupintervjuer, där samtliga informanter kände sig bekväma med att definiera sig själva som transpersoner. Två av intervjuerna skedde face-to-face och en skedde över telefon. I encoding delen redogörs det för de intentioner producenterna hade med modekampanjerna, intentionerna var att bredda bilden av transpersoner och vad som är vackert (Hansson & Fridh 2015, Törner 2015).  I decoding delen framgår det att informanterna anser att det generellt råder goda avsikter med dessa modekampanjer och att det är roligt att transpersoner inkluderas och uppmärksammas. Dock kan man urskilja att det råder en diskrepans mellan producenternas intentioner att bredda bilden av transpersoner och hur informanterna tolkar denna representation. I informanternas avkodning finns det en ambivalens, informanterna ifrågasätter modekampanjernas utformningar och hur de valt att gestalta modellerna. De anser att den textliga diskursen i kampanjerna är bristfällig då ingen djupare redogörelse för personerna, deras transformering eller begreppet trans ges. Dessutom ifrågasätter de gestaltningen, att den sker utifrån ett heteronormativt synsätt där det råder en tvåkönsnorm, en gestaltning som är vanligt förekommande när transpersoner representeras i mediala sammanhang. Detta resulterar i att även om transpersonerna visas upp och uppmärksammas i en ny kontext i de här kampanjerna så är gestaltningen ändå inom ramarna för den representation som de vanligtvis figurera i. Gestaltningen utifrån en tvåkönsnorm resulterar även i att informanterna har svårt att relatera till representationen, dessutom genererar gestaltningen en ensidig bild av begreppet gentemot allmänheten. Informanterna ser denna typ av representation som en del i den rådande okunskapen som finns för transpersoner i samhället.