Queer: discourses of gender, sexuality, and normativity

A significant amount of contemporary discourse within online LGBTQ spaces centers around the validity of the term queer as a personal and/or community identifier. On social media sites like Twitter, the use or deliberate, conspicuous non-use of the word queer in discourses about gender and sexuality indexes specific stances on slur reclamation and often coincides with political views on (homo/trans)normativity and gender. This dissertation presents two mixed methods studies investigating online and offline discourse surrounding the reclamation and resignification of “queer,” a word that has in recent history been used as a slur, an activist rallying cry, a symbol of anti-normative stance on gender and/or sexuality, and an identity category. In the first study I present interviews with twelve self-identified LGBTQ young adults (18-35) living in the American Midwest. Interview participants were asked about their preferred terms for their sexual orientation and gender, their preferred label for the community (“LGBT community”, etc), and their experiences as an LGBTQ person. In the second study I examine a small corpus of tweets containing the word queer or the avoidance term q-slur. In both studies I employ discourse analysis to analyze sentiment and stance-taking tactics towards queer as a slur and/or an identity label, and the connections between discourse on queer and broader discourses of transphobia, homonormativity, and heteronormativity.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Linguistics

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2024

Author dc:creator

• Casar, Allison Theresa

Contributors dc:contributor

• Smalls, Krystal A
• Bhatt, Rakesh M
• Koven, Michele
• Mendoza, Anna

• Slur Reclamation
• Language Ideology
• Metalinguistic
• Lgbt
• Queer
• Queer Language
• Sociolinguistics
• Internet Linguistics
• Discourse

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2024 Allison T Casar

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/125710

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F125710