“The system is fucked. Everything needs to change” was stated by Ashley Paige, a professional dominatrix and author in We Too: Essays on Sex Work and Survival, at a book launch event. Paige’s sentiments are poignant and a call to action to all of us. Through this thesis, I will...
This dissertation is a memoria histórica of the Guatemalan Civil War that centers queer and trans Maya people in its imaginings. Using Maya backstrap weaving practices, “constellating” as defined by the Cultural Rhetorics Theory Lab, and ghost stories as a Maya-centered queer/trans rhetorical methodology, I argue for a shift from...
This work examines the decolonial potential of queer and Two-Spirit Indigenous storytelling by telling stories using graphic novel chapters, literary analysis, and graphic analysis. I explore the importance of stories in defining us as individuals, as peoples, and as humans. As a mixed-race Indigenous (unregistered Cherokee) transwoman, I engage with...
This thesis offers a feminist perspective on the stories and representations of Hijra individuals and gender non-conforming communities in Bangladesh. It considers these stories for how they represent resistance to dominant gender normative discourses and cultural values in Bangladesh, and I explore how they figure both the struggles and survivals...
Gender bias and discrimination are currently some of the most pertinent topics being explored in counseling practice and counselor education and supervision. Because of all the public attention in recent years to the topics of transgender and marriage equality, the definitions of gender identity and gender roles have become more...
Indigenous and Latinx communities have always used storytelling to pass along ancestral histories and memories, whether it be through the act of speaking, performing or other types of artwork. This thesis examines the ways that queer Latinx artists are retelling the stories that have been mistold to erase, repress and...
This thesis explores the gendered histories of slavery through the concept of haunting in two neo-slave narrative novels: Toni Morrison’s A Mercy and Octavia Butler’s Kindred. I offer readings of these texts through slavery’s geographic and temporal implications, in order to argue that the logics of antiblackness remain a fundamental...
In the current armed conflicts that have become known to the international community since the sweeping attacks on northern Iraq on Aug. 3, 2014, the Islamic State (ISIS) perpetrated extreme forms of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) against a small ancient ethno-religious conservative Yazidi group. ISIS has used SGBV against...
Stories of the Guatemalan Civil War, which lasted from 1960 until 1996, have often focused on only encapsulating the violence indigenous people experienced at the hands of the Guatemalan government and military. Although these stories contributed to the many civil rights organizing and calls for justice that followed, these types...
This thesis describes how heteropatriarchal, settler colonialism impacted Indigenous communities' systems in power and control, particularly with the American Indian Movement during the 1960s-1970s. Further, the gendered divides this created within the American Indian Movement are described. The murder of Anna Mae Aquash is revisited as an act of gendered...