Browsing Tag

research

Let’s Set The Record Straight—Abuse Doesn’t Make You Gay

Posted on April 23, 2019
A photo of a queer survivor of abuse.

To this day, one of the most common misconceptions I hear in both my classes and from my well-educated non-queer colleagues (one that I actually addressed in my 2015 doctoral dissertation) is that being LGBTQ is not always a normal, naturally occurring identity. Instead, it is the result of abuse. I am both terrified and frustrated to no end that this myth—that abuse can “make you gay”—is still very much alive and well. I am in awe of how many…

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At The Forefront: Texas A&M Research Fellow Explores Evolution of Queer Youth Culture

Posted on August 18, 2017
A photo of Nikita Shepard, a research fellow focusing on the history of queer youth at the Don Kelly Research Collection of Gay Literature and Culture at Texas A&M University

Queer scholar Nikita Shepard sits at a long wooden table—the soft overhead lighting shines down as they dive into another issue of ONE magazine, one of the first pro-gay publications in the United States. This library has been Shepard’s home for the past month as they conduct research in one of the country’s premier collections of LGBTQ scholarly literature. But Shepard isn’t studying in the halls of Berkeley or the Ivy Leagues of the Northeast—they’re in College Station, Texas, in…

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