Browsing by Subject "Lesbian"

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Concealed campus carry and the academic freedom of LGBTQ+ faculty : a case study
(2017-08) Phelps, Nicholas Daniel; Somers, Patricia (Patricia A.); Sharpe, Edwin Reese; Reddick, Richard J; Carroll, Claudia E
This study explores the perceptions of faculty who identify as LGBTQ+ of the impact of campus carry on their academic freedom and feelings of safety. This study employed a case study methodology, guided by self-determination theory’s (Deci and Ryan, 2000) tenets of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. This study explored three research questions: 1. To what extent do LGBTQ+ faculty perceive campus carry to influence their ability to freely teach, challenge, and otherwise interact with students in and out of the classroom? 2. To what extent do LGBTQ+ faculty perceive campus carry to influence their ability to freely pursue their research agenda? 3. To what extent to faculty believe their identity as LGBTQ+ influences their sense of safety and security at a campus on which campus carry has been implemented? Data were collected from ten total faculty interviews, an analysis of department statements regarding campus carry, and observations of two previously-recorded public forums on campus carry. Results indicated campus carry negatively impacts faculty perceptions of competence in teaching in potentially armed classrooms as well as faculty perceptions of safety and relatedness to their campus community. Results also indicated faculty are ardently striving to maintain and pursue autonomy in their research agendas. Faculty also expressed considerable concern for the safety of their LGBTQ+ students, students of color, and students from other marginalized backgrounds. Finally, faculty expressed a general perception of campus carry as a symbolic affront to them as academics by a conservative Texas legislature
Domestic violence in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community
(2010-08) Pal, Hoimonti; Awad, Germine H.; Sherry, Alissa
Domestic violence is considered a serious health and social problem in the United States and around the world. Annually, domestic violence costs in the U.S. are estimated at 8.3 billion dollars. Domestic violence issues first came to modern attention with the women’s movement of the 1970’s. Much of the literature focuses on domestic violence within heterosexual relationships. There has not been much attention directed towards domestic violence in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community. This report reviews information about domestic violence, its causes, theories, and how domestic violence affects individuals in the LGBT community.
Education, labor, and health disparities of racial and sexual minorities
(2020-06-25) Delhommer, Scott Michael; Murphy, Richard J., Ph. D.; Trejo, Stephen J., 1959-; Oettinger, Gerald; Black, Sandra; Vogl, Tom
The three chapters of this dissertation explore the applied economics of inequality in educational attainment, labor market outcomes, and sexual health for racial and sexual minorities. In the first chapter, I explore the role of same-race teachers reducing gaps in minority education, presenting the first evidence that matching high school students with same-race teachers improves the students’ college outcomes. To address endogenous sorting of students and teachers, I use detailed Texas administrative data on classroom assignment, exploiting variation in student and teacher race within the same course, year, and school, eliminating 99% of observed same-race sorting. Race-matching raises minority students’ course performance as well as improves longer-term outcomes like high school graduation, college enrollment, and major choice. My second chapter examines how public policy can reduce labor market inequality across sexual orientation. I present the first quasi-experimental research examining the effect of both local and state anti-discrimination laws on sexual orientation on the labor supply and wages of lesbian, gay, and bisexual workers. To do so, I use American Community Survey data on household composition to infer sexual orientation and combine this with a unique panel dataset on local anti-discrimination laws. Using variation in law implementation across localities over time, I find these laws significantly reduce inequalities in the labor supply and wages across sexual orientation for both men and women. The last chapter explores the moral hazard and health inequality implications of a life-saving HIV prevention drug, PrEP, for gay men. We document the first evidence of PrEP on aggregate STD and HIV infections. Using the pre-treatment variation in the gay male population, we show that male STD rates were parallel in states with high and low gay population before the introduction of PrEP and begin to diverge afterwards. However, HIV infections were consistently downwardly trending before PrEP with no break at the introduction of PrEP, making inference of the effect of PrEP on HIV infections difficult. Specifically, we show that one additional male PrEP user increases male chlamydia infections by 0.55 cases, male gonorrhea infections by 0.61 cases, and male syphilis infections by 0.03 cases.
Gay by any other name?
(2014-12) Stone, Lala Suzanne; Dahlby, Tracy; Jensen, Robert, 1958-
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?
GLBTQ representation on children's television : an analysis of news coverage and cultural conservatism
(2015-05) Mayer, Christopher John; Tyner, Kathleen R.; Fuller-Seeley, Kathryn
The invisibility of GLBTQ characters on children's television stands in stark contrast to trends in adolescent and adult television over the past decade. A deep cultural ambivalence exists as to whether or not sexual identities are appropriate topics for young children on preschool television programming. For example, a marriage between Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie has been the topic of many petitions, political debates, and academic studies over the years. This analysis seeks to reconcile the cultural ambivalence through analysis of news coverage over the most prominent children's shows associated with latent and/or manifest GLBTQ content. New stories that make up the research sample are analyzed for "Anti-GLBTQ" logics, and placed in a broader discourse analysis of societal expectations for children’s television, and what is considered to be appropriate content. The goal of this study is to draw greater attention to debates over how to best serve the educational needs of young children, and posits that the increasing numbers of children living under same-sex parented households are underserved by the children's television industry. The ambivalence by the industry seems suspect given prior, and well established efforts, of children’s shows, such as Sesame Street, and the ability of educational programming to bridge cultural, class, and racial divides. This study represents a preliminary effort to extend the conversations about children’s television content to be more inclusive of GLBTQ identities.
The impact of minority stress and conceptual complexity on developing a positive gay and lesbian identity
(2013-05) Acebo, Victoria Alicia; Sherry, Alissa René; Daleu, Nancy; Ainslie, Ricardo; McCarthy, Chris; Aguilar, Jemel
Contemporary research on gay men and lesbian women features an increased focus on the manifestations of antigay stigma in their lives. In particular, the development of gay and lesbian identity within a cultural context that may be shifting but remains one that includes intolerance, or at best, indifference (Garnets & Kimmel, 1993). Internalization of anti lesbian and gay prejudice has been termed "the most insidious" form of minority stress (Meyer & Dean, 1998). Most models of lesbian and gay identity suggest that these individuals follow a unique trajectory due to their experiences of prejudice and social oppression (Potoczniak, Aldea, & DeBlaere, 2007). One question not typically addressed by these models, however, is how homosexual individuals vary so markedly in their progression through the phases of sexual minority development and/or the degree to which that identity is a positive one. This study was an attempt to explore the relationship between minority stress, cognitive style, and lesbian or gay identity development. 272 adults identifying as a lesbian woman or gay man participated in this study. A measure, The Lesbian and Gay Salient Experiences Questionnaire (LGSE), in order to examine the management of a sexual minority identity and the interactions or experiences related to identifying as a member of this population. Participants' lesbian or gay identity development and their capacity for cognitive complexity were also measured. Results yielded a significant relationship between three of the five scales of the LGSE and negative lesbian or gay identity but there was no relationship between conceptual complexity and negative identity. Significant sex differences were found on both the measure of negative identity and salient experiences with men reported higher levels on both. The relationship between salient experiences and negative identity were also different between men and women. This finding in particular suggests that men and women may not only have a different trajectory in forming their lesbian or gay identity, but that the experiential factors that influence their identity development may also be different. Therefore, further research is suggested in order to investigate whether gay men and lesbian women should be studied separately.
Karen Thompson Interview
(2020-10-06) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life
This interview is with Karen Thompson, Pastor of Uprising Austin. Karen was an avid church go-er in Pflugerville and involved in youth work. She came out as lesbian during the process of becoming a minister and was eventually ordained in Metropolitan Community Churches, creating a safe space for the LGBTQ community. Speaking on the pandemic, Karen moved into the church for three months to make sure the food and clothes delivery services to Austin’s unsheltered population were able to continue. Now, Karen is in the process of founding a daycare for deaf infants and children as well as children from low socioeconomic backgrounds.
Let's have a gay old time : how lesbians shaped early Hollywood
(2021-07-30) Reinschmidt, Janet; Isenberg, Noah William
This thesis puts forth Alla Nazimova, Kay Francis, and Greta Garbo as case studies for early Hollywood lesbian stardom and reception and unpacks how their star personas were constructed as well as the fan responses to their image and work. Through intersections of star studies, reception studies, classic literature, and queer historical texts, I discuss each star’s life and career with textual analysis of their films and primary sources such as fan letters, fan magazines, advertisements, and newspaper articles. I argue that each star represents a queer, and more specifically lesbian and bisexual, sensibility within the early Hollywood film industry that deserves more scholarly attention. The fan letters columns within old Hollywood fan magazines such as Photoplay and Modern Screen particularly illustrate the construction of queer star personas and the impact that they had on informed movie fans. Nazimova, Francis, and Garbo were all-powerful and influential figures in the film industry during significant periods of change such as the rise of the studio era, the arrival of sound, and the shift from pre-Code to the production Code era. Their star personas reflect how they were influenced by and went on to influence these critical transitions in Old Hollywood. There is a fundamental activist function to this work, to remind audiences that queer people have always existed, even without a framework to discuss identity, and this work endeavors to show a dedicated lesbian influence and audience of early Hollywood.
"Listen to what your jotería is saying” : pain, social harm, and queer Latin@s
(2015-05) Glisch-Sánchez, David Luis; Rudrappa, Sharmila, 1966-; Rodríguez, Néstor; Ekland-Olson, Sheldon; Carrington, Ben; Peña, Susana
In this dissertation, I investigate how transgender, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (TLGBQ) Latin@s have experienced social harm during the late 20th and early 21st centuries, what is the socio-historical context for their experiences, and how have ideologies of Latin@ gender and sexuality shaped these experiences. This is accomplished through the analysis of twenty-six (26) life story interviews where TLGBQ Latin@s provide a testimonio account of their encounters with social harm. Using a social harm framework and centering markers of pain, I develop the theoretical concept algorithms of pain to understand the dynamic and complex experiences TLGBQ Latin@s have with harm rooted in the everyday and institutional realities of racial, gender, sexual, and class inequalities. Algorithms of pain asserts that the totality of social harm TLGBQ Latin@s encounter shapes the meaning they assign to any individual harmful event, informs evaluations of pain and potential harm, and structures daily behavior and attitudes. Algorithms of pain reveal the myriad of ways TLGBQ Latin@s can and do express, communicate, and narrate pain; thus, countering the dominant presumption that pain manifests and is communicated in very narrow terms. This is exemplified in what I have observed as racial utterances, where TLGBQ Latin@s narrate in ways that make use of silence, brief remarks, or stories in passing as ways to index racial social harm, instead of stories thick with detail, description and explicit accounts of pain. Additionally, algorithms of pain establish the centrality of racism, patriarchy, transmisogyny, homophobia, class exploitation, and xenophobia to constructing the full spectrum of emotions that represent pain. Lastly, the dissertation documents through an analysis of governmental mission statements why the state is unable to intervene into the social harm effecting TLGBQ Latin@ lives. The state represents the institutionalization of an algorithm of pain that privileges whiteness, cisgenderness, heterosexuality, wealth, and citizenship, which results in harm management being the overall orientation and function of the state in social harm.
Negotiating a contested identity : lesbian and gay parents' definitions of family
(2014-08) Wagner, Sarah N.; Epps, Patience, 1973-
This dissertation examines changes in the meaning of family and what this reveals about the complex, socially grounded mechanics of meaning-making more generally. Examining the discourse from interviews with 23 gay and lesbian parents, I show that they have very concrete and definable ideologies of family that reflect an American/ Western concept of kinship in which family is made up of those who are related by blood, marriage or adoption; as well as an understanding that family can also be chosen and therefore outside of traditional biogenetic structures. For these men and women, family of choice and the dominant American kinship structure are not mutually exclusive. Through an analysis of the participants' definitions of family, this dissertation finds that the parents gave both a narrow definition (that which includes only blood and legal relationships) and a broad definition (that which includes those not related by blood, marriage or adoption). Based on these definitions, both from the participants themselves and from those who have spoken out nationally against same-sex marriage and parenting, I apply Lakoff's Prototype Theory to offer a way to understand the disconnection between those who believe being gay and being a parent are incompatible, and those who see it as one of many types of family that do not conform to a dominant ideology. I identify a prototype of FAMILY made up of two radial categories to account for two central, yet opposed, ideologies, separated solely by whether parents could be the same sex. I also discuss the parents' positioning of their narratives toward local and nonlocal interactants and their use of generic and personal features in their discourse. The parents both draw upon external influences and become meaning-makers themselves through negotiations of their family identities in the context of dominant ideologies of family that often regard them as illegitimate. The outcomes of the negotiations that the parents undertake do not reflect a new, radical kind of family on the whole, but often a traditional sense of family that sometimes gets more broadly defined to include a supportive network of family and friends. The discursive micro-shifts in definition that these parents perform inform our understanding of the bridge between local negotiations and global shifts in ideology.
Out on the court : progress for gay college basketball players comes in fits and starts
(2015-05) Capraro, Joseph James; Bock, Mary Angela; Cash, Wanda G
Gay college athletes have often faced homophobia from fellow players, coaches, and others on campus. Barriers are still being broken; there have been just two out gay men's basketball players at the college and professional levels combined, and some conservative institutions continue to force gay students into the closet. LGBTQ and questioning youth are already at increased risk for suicide and drug abuse, and those in hostile environments are significantly more likely to do self-harm than those in supportive or neutral settings. The responsibility for care of these students lies in part with the coaches and schools that provide the arenas and uniforms. While at some schools policies have changed with the times, Baylor serves as a high-profile example of a university that remains hostile to LGBTQ students. This report examines the experiences of two former Baylor women's basketball players and one graduating University of Massachusetts player, who came out before this past season. Context will be established by examining studies done on scholastic and collegiate out gay athletes in 2002 and 2010.
The outcomes project
(2011-05) Castillo, Jose Raul; DeCesare, Donna; Cash, Wanda G.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual & transgender young people face a landscape of prejudice and intolerance when first coming to terms with their identities. In these moments of confusion, they often turn to their parents for support, yet parents often lack the information and resources necessary to support their LGBT child. The outcomes project interviews LGBT people about their "coming out" experience, and presents their video interviews a multi-platform website. The interviews appear alongside written accounts that highlight common themes encountered in research. The website also links to well-sourced resources for parents coming to terms with a child's disclosure. By telling these stories in a context that encourages an empathetic response, The outcomes project aims to give parents the information and understanding they need to support their LGBT child.
Queering the clinic : LGBTQ in the doctor's office
(2019-05) Paine, Emily Allen; Umberson, Debra; Gonzalez-Lopez, Gloria; Pudrovska, Tetyana; Pedulla, David; Russell, Stephen
Lesbian, bisexual, transgender, non-binary, and queer (LGBTQ) people in the U.S. are in worse health than their straight and cisgender peers. Models of minority stress and structural stigma explain how stigma related to minority sexual and gender identity “gets under the skin” to diminish LGBTQ health across the life course. Underutilization of healthcare is one mechanism through which the LGBTQ health disadvantage is produced. Little is known, however, about what happens within everyday healthcare interactions to compel LGBTQ people to continue or avoid seeking care. In this dissertation, I examine the healthcare experiences of LGBTQ people least researched, yet also least likely to seek care: cis women; trans men; and non-binary people assigned female. I also address an urgent gap in knowledge about how healthcare settings in general and LGBTQ health settings in particular are shaping patients’ experiences, interpretations of, and decisions about care. To do so, I observe organizational processes and strategies for delivering affirming care at a LGBTQ health center over the course of one year. In addition to interviewing 50 patients, I interviewed 12 staff and 11 providers at this site (N = 73). In three articles that make up this dissertation, I triangulate analyses of data to reveal how stigma related to nonconformity, sexual and gender identity, and fatness is constructed—or alternately, avoided—through relational processes within health settings. Analyses also reveal how new sexual and gender schemas constructed and deployed within a LGBTQ healthcare organization affirm patients; yet these practices center some LGBTQ groups over others. In these articles, in addition to using theories of minority stress and stigma, I draw from and contribute to theories of gender and sexuality in medicine and organizations. All together, findings indicate barriers and facilitators to care for multiply marginalized minority groups, which hold implications for LGBTQ healthcare. Findings also suggest that future research into sexual and gender inequality should attend to embodiment, visible nonconformity, structural schemas at play within situated interactions, and how material-discursive factors trouble the implementation of discursive ideals within queer organizations.
The role of narcissistic entitlement, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, conformity to masculine gender norms, and religious orientation in the prediction of prejudice toward lesbians and gay men
(2013-08) Adelman, Andrew Lee; Awad, Germine H.
This study introduces narcissistic entitlement as a correlate of homonegative attitudes and behaviors and examines the relative strength of relations along with established correlates of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA), social dominance orientation (SDO), conformity with masculine norms, and intrinsic religious orientation. It also tests the role of negative attitudes towards lesbian women and gay men (ATLG) in mediating the relationship between the predictor variables and gay- and lesbian-rejecting and affirming behaviors. Implications for what these findings may offer psychologists are discussed, as are ways findings may inform the political process. Earlier studies support the link between entitlement and homonegativity (Exline, et al., 2004). Narcissism was positively related to dominance, neuroticism, social anxiety, and more aggressive/sadistic and rebellious/distrustful interpersonal styles (Emmons, 1984). Entitled narcissists are quick to take offense (McCullough, et al., 2003), externalize blame (Campbell, et al., 2000), and derogate or attack those who provide ego-threatening feedback or social rejection (Bushman, et al., 2003; Konrath, et al., 2006). Entitlement increases the risk of the narcissist becoming prone to hostile and reactive aggression and extreme violence, even without an ego-threat (Bushman, et al., 2003; Reidy, et al., 2008). Participants were recruited through the Department of Educational Psychology subject pool and data was collected by online survey. Given the focus on heterosexual men's attitudes toward lesbian women and gay men, participants were excluded from analysis if they identified as female, bisexual, or homosexual. Results indicated that entitlement, RWA, and intrinsic religiosity, but not conformity to masculine norms or SDO, were related uniquely to ATLG. ATLG was also related uniquely with measures of behavior, positively to gay- and lesbian-rejecting behaviors, and negatively with gay- and lesbian-affirming behaviors. ATLG was found to significantly mediate the links of entitlement and RWA with lesbian- and gay-rejecting behaviors. Results also indicated that the indirect link of intrinsic religious orientation with lesbian- and gay-rejecting behaviors was significant. Additionally, ATLG significantly mediated the links of entitlement with lesbian- and gay-affirming behaviors. Such an examination advances research and practice by identifying unique correlates of homonegative attitudes and the mechanisms through which they are related to lesbian- and gay-rejecting and -affirming behaviors.
Sexual prejudice in Asian-American young adults : the mediational role of Asian cultural values in the relation between acculturation and attitudes towards lesbian and gay individuals
(2021-08-05) Nguyen, Hien H.; Awad, Germine H.; Edwards, Kathleen; Falbo, Toni; Whittaker, Tiffany A
A well-documented form of prejudice in American history is sexual prejudice against lesbian and gay individuals. Understanding prejudicial attitudes towards lesbian and gay individuals are of concern for psychology researchers and mental health providers because sexual prejudice and adjacent discriminatory behaviors greatly hinders social justice and harms gay and lesbian individuals’ well-being (e.g., Gates, 2014). For lesbian and gay individuals of color in the United States, sexual prejudice concentrated in ethnic enclaves within the American mainstream culture may cause great psychological distress, as these individuals may place high importance on their degree of immersion in these communities of color and their immersion in mainstream White society (Szymanski & Sung, 2010). Research on sexual prejudice in the United States rarely centers Asian-American populations (Szymanski & Sung, 2013) and rarely accounts for acculturative and cultural factors in these populations’ sexual prejudice attitudes. The purpose of the present study was to examine a model of relationships between two facets of acculturation (dominant society immersion and ethnic society immersion), Asian cultural values, and sexual prejudice attitudes (attitudes towards lesbian women and gay men) for heterosexual Asian-American college students. In addition to establishing direct relationships between predictor variables and the outcome of sexual prejudice, the study also examined endorsement of Asian cultural values as a mediator between dominant society immersion (acculturation) and sexual prejudice, and between ethnic society immersion (enculturation) and sexual prejudice. For this population, there exists some research examining how degree of acculturation is correlated with prejudice attitudes, but none in a predictive structural equation model with simultaneous inclusion of both acculturation and enculturation and a mediating cultural values variable. Findings from the study indicated that a direct and an indirect linkage exists between acculturation and sexual prejudice, Asian cultural values is the mediating variable in the indirect linkage between acculturation with sexual prejudice, enculturation was neither linked to endorsement of Asian values nor to sexual prejudice, and Asian cultural values is a strong and more proximal predictor of sexual prejudice attitudes, compared to all examined variables, for this population. Determining predictors and mediating pathways which influence negative attitudes and behaviors toward lesbian and gay individuals is critical for informing clinicians who work with these individuals within the Asian-American community and for developing more culturally appropriate community-wide stigma reduction interventions.
The 1990s gender progressiveness in Taiwan
(2018-05) Shih, Mu-Min; Tsai, Chien-hsin, 1975-; Chang, Sung-Sheng; Hoad, Neville; Oh, Youjeong
Taiwan has long been obsessed with its own particular idea of progress, a concept that has been heavily influenced by different historical and cultural factors. Throughout its modern history, the island’s inhabitants have found themselves under the sway of colonial modernization, an authoritative regime, rapid economic growth, and progressive intellectual discourse. While under the political grip of totalitarianism from 1949 to 1987, the island experienced prosperity to the point of believing that discipline alone leads to progress. When control under martial law became strained due to emancipatory currents, the society of Taiwan in the 1990s sought to curb liberation from getting out-of-hand. With its modern history closely related to material progress, the Taiwanese society and culture seems to utter in the same breath both progress and restraint based on its deep roots of Confucianism. This research focuses on gender and sex in exploration of the notion of being progressive in 1990s Taiwan. The discussion of progressive gender discourse as to prostitution, feminism and homosexuality in this research casts light on the relation the social history of Taiwan has to gender, sex, and sexuality. Gender discourse in 1990s Taiwan ushered in a critical review of Confucian values. What we now call gender bias or stereotypes permeate Confucian teachings. Even though it may seem unrelated at first glance, a close reading shows that Confucian tenets about the roles both men and women play in the family and society, and the critiques of them, are inherently political. The dissertation focuses on gender discourse to uncover how it really lies behind all progressive politics in 1990s Taiwan.
“They think I am a pervert”: a qualitative analysis of lesbian and gay teachers’ experiences with stress at school
(2015-12) Lineback, Sarah Casey; McCarthy, Christopher J.; Moore, Leslie A
Consensual Qualitative Research was used to develop a framework for understanding the demands faced by lesbian and gay (LG) teachers as a function of the interaction between sexual identity and professional context, including resources used in combatting those demands. Data sources included two interviews each with 11 teachers who each identified as lesbian or gay. Overall, the participants identified a far greater diversity of demands than resources/coping strategies. This speaks to the main finding, which indicates that neither remaining closeted nor being open about sexual orientation protected teachers from a variety of workplace demands explicitly tied to sexual orientation. Findings are discussed within the context of literature on minority stress, the transactional model of stress, and coping strategies. The present study adds to the literature on the types of demands and resources that are unique to LG individuals by highlighting specific interactions between sexual identity management and the workplace. Additionally, the study contributes to the body of work on teacher stress by providing a framework for how elements of identity that do not directly relate to teaching can influence the demands experienced by teachers. Implications for supporting LG teachers and making their school environments less stressful are discussed.
Walking contradictions : Latina lesbianas, immigration and citizenship
(2010-12) López, Candace; González-López, Gloria, 1960-; Rodriguez, Nestor
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.
Why are they so mad? Queer women college students navigating Chilean higher education
(2020-04-08) Canelo-Pino, Ximena Carolina; Reddick, Richard, 1972-; Bukoski, Beth Em; Jabbar, Huriya; González-López, Gloria
As also has happened in the United States, Chilean higher education has experienced a major paradigm shift over recent decades, becoming a massive and more accessible educational system whose student profile has changed significantly in association with its levels of selectivity. Despite these changes, higher education has not yet become a mechanism for reducing social inequalities, since its structure contains entrenched ideologies and values that promote the continuation of hegemonic power, helping to reproduce and perpetuate inequality. Similarly, empirical inquiry in higher education has been remiss in taking into consideration sexual identity as a characteristic of a student’s background, establishing the heterosexual experience as the norm when studying any particular issue. In the United States, scholarship about LGBTQ issues in recent decades while increasing the support and recognition of LGBTQ students, also contributed to the perpetuation of a monolithic view of this population. Although sharing similar experiences of invisibility, isolation, and marginalization, as well as everyday struggles to foster a positive sense of belonging and a healthy identity development within that context of oppression, queer women students also face challenges that are unique to them and are normally overlooked by researchers when employing the LGBTQ umbrella. Consequently, research on queer college women remains scarce in the United States, while in Chile scholars have been negligent about addressing this topic. Therefore, as a way to contribute to filling in this gap, this study’s purpose is to better understand the college experience of Chilean queer women. To achieve this goal, a grounded theory study was carried out. The primary study findings portrayed how complex it is for Chilean queer women collegians to navigate higher education while facing multiple challenges, such as transitioning to adulthood, embracing their sexual identity and, at the same time, responding to demands from family and college. These demands increased the students’ anxiety and emotional distress, affecting their well-being. Furthermore, the study shows that the academic success of queer women students attending Chilean higher education institutions is affected by the ubiquity of sexism and heterosexism resulting from customary and explicit policies and practices currently in place.