LGBTQ Studies (LGBT)

An introduction to the interdisciplinary field of LGBTQ studies. Students gain critical thinking skills to examine norms about gender and sexuality and the relationship between these norms and systems like white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, and settler colonialism. Students are introduced to histories of LGBTQ liberation movements.

University Core Fulfilled: Studies in American Diversity

This course explores the emergence, conceptual frameworks, themes, and critical tools of queer theory with a specific attention to the genealogies of queer theory known as Queer of Color critique. At its root, queer theory attempts to interrogate the structuring logics, or norms, that produce queer subjects. Queer of Color critique situates such analysis in an attention to the logics of racial formation, capitalism, labor, migration, imperialism, and the police state.

Juniors and seniors only.

Examines the lived experiences of LGBTQ migrants in the U.S. and the diaspora through a feminist, queer, and transnational lens. The course analyzes systems such as heteronormativity, immigration control, colonization and colonial borders, and the carceral system as well as liberation practices that are queer.

In recent years, changes in public opinion toward lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) people, along with the global expansion of LGBTQ rights, have been astonishing. At the same time, increasing global resistance to these rights has emerged in the name of “traditional values.” Violence and discrimination against LGBTQ+ individuals remain pervasive. This course will explore LGBTQ rights and representation in the US and around the world. It will seek to understand the role that activists, movements, elected officials, and voters have in driving change. In so doing, we will analyze the impact of the descriptive representation of LGBTQ+ people on public policy, legislation, and social change.
The course will first offer an overview of LGBTQ+ communities, exploring size, diversity, and representation. We will then focus on successes and losses of LGBTQ movements across times and space. We will analyze the homophile movement after WWII, Stonewall and the gay liberation movement, ACT UP following the AIDS crisis, the marriage equality movement, and trans and radical organizing. Next, we will examine LGBTQ electoral politics, focusing on the political attitudes and behavior of LGBTQ+ voters and on the barriers and successes of LGBTQ+ candidates and politicians. We will pay special attention to trans politicians and LGBTQ+ politicians of color. In the end, we will explore LGBTQ life across space, from queer politics in the Global South to migrant LGBTQ experiences in the United States.