This thesis seeks provide queer scholarship with first steps to take toward decolonizing its current conceptions of queerness, including what queer advocates stand to gain from reading the works of Indigiqueer and Two-Spirit authors. I revisit Indigenous history and the longstanding relationship Indigenous communities, queer communities, and modern systems have with colonialism to convey why the queer community needs to concern itself with Indigenous issues. With an emphasis on Indigenous speculative fiction, I analyze select stories from Joshua Whitehead’s Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit & Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction (2021) and Qwo-Li Driskill et al.’s Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature (2011). Using Grace Dillon’s theory from Walking the Clouds (2012), I make clear how these pieces decolonize gender, sexuality, and queer identity and demonstrate that these anthologies are important for the advancement of queer scholarship. I then present takeaways from each piece for queer advocates and scholars to begin to apply within the real world. This thesis concludes that it is time for queer scholarship to merge itself with Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer speculative fiction.

If you've spent any amount of time in fan circles, or even any community that discusses media, you've no doubt heard of the Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is a character who, through positive personality traits, skills, and aspects of their appearance, warps the story so that they are the most interesting thing in the story's universe. The Mary Sue stereotype, however, can be used for good as a good basis for an engaging and intriguing story, provided the author considers more than simply their own interests - in fact, so can many stereotypes, whether existing solely in fan communities or branching out into more mainstream fiction. As such, I present a short story starring "M.S.", a very basic Mary Sue who is aware of her status and utterly despises the lack of meaningful action in her life. When one of her close friends shows symptoms of becoming a Sue herself, M.S. brings together a group of equally stereotypical friends - from the Gay Best Friend to the Spicy Latina - and, through their impromptu intervention, learns some things about them - and about herself.

This thesis takes the form of a nonfiction graphic novel to analyze how ideas about monsters are subverted in DreamWorks’s How to Train Your Dragon and Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water, and how these subversions are queer acts. Both of these movies initially introduce the inhuman as something to fear, but later deliver messages of empathy and respect as the protagonists learn to communicate with and befriend the inhuman. Interestingly enough, these movies present contrasting opinions on whether monsters should be integrated into society or remain outcast; How to Train Your Dragon shows a society where dragons become normalized by the end and argues for the integration of monsters into society. Conversely, The Shape of Water concludes with the protagonist Elisa escaping society with the Amphibian Man, therefore arguing that the monstrous is to be kept separate from society at large. The act of personifying monsters elevates them to the same level of respect as humans. I maintain that the personification of monsters queers the definition of both person- and monsterhood by blurring the distinctions between the two. This is important because it allows humans to recognize not just the humanity of monsters, but the monstrosity in ourselves.

This excerpt of my novel, The Letter, is about a girl named Gwen who moves across the country to deal with the loss of her father. When she moved into Palm Castle and creates a connection with Blake Everton both through a magical portal and through letters they exchange, she begins to heal from her trauma caused by grief.

This project was designed to assess whether Arizona State University’s current Health and Counseling services perpetuate healthcare discrimination against its LGBTQIA+ student population: a pervasive problem that both researchers and patients have observed in the general healthcare landscape--on university campuses and beyond. A two-part online survey, including multiple-choice and free-response questions, was administered to ASU students attending any of the four campuses in order to receive a wide range of student feedback from diverse populations and assess the queer and transgender healthcare experience on campus. This survey data was used to pinpoint gaps and/or problems in student care and to assess how these concerns might be addressed. Results showed that a number of participants experienced discrimination, including incorrect references to gender pronouns, name preferences, and sexual identity. In response to survey participants’ desire for clearer information about health care services, a prototype for a resource pamphlet and corresponding mock-up of an online platform were created. These prototype resources clearly outline information about the sexual, mental, and physical health resources provided by ASU and include supplementary off-campus programs to fill the gaps in university services. Additionally, these findings were used to create a prototype that could be used to help ensure healthcare workers are familiar with LGBTQIA+ specific healthcare needs.

The Bachelor first aired on ABC in 2002, and its gender-swapped counterpart The Bachelorette aired a year later. The premise of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette is that one lead, the titular bachelor or bachelorette, pursues romantic connections with up to thirty contestants at a time, with an elimination ceremony every week where the lead decides who they would like to continue dating and who they would like to send home. This paper uses queer theory on non-monogamy to explore the role of non-monogamous practices in the franchise and their relationship to the monogamous goals of the shows. By exploring the tension between monogamy and non-monogamy, this paper illustrates how dissonance between monogamy and non-monogamy is not only present but essential to preserving the shows' goals.