Presently, there is a political attack on LGBTQ+ individuals, especially in southern states. In 2022, six southern states (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas) enacted laws that prohibit discussing LGBTQ+ students or issues within P-12 schools. These laws perpetuate heteronormativity and create intolerant and unsafe…

In this research note, I use an autoethnographic approach to examine the challenges of qualitative research for queer scholars, and to bring the embodied, interactive, and gendered research experience to life. I compare and contrast how my queer embodiment and identity was received, or erased, in two different research contexts, both within the…

This article demonstrates the therapeutic benefits of storytelling and testimony through qualitative interviews with HIV+ Black gay men in Jackson, Mississippi, in 2017. Sponsored by Project + Connect, a story preservation nonprofit based in New York, the research trip was inspired by a "New York Times" article claiming that 50% of all…

Social Activism Through Theater" chronicles the author's first full year as a teaching artist in New York City, including the launch of National Queer Theater and its inaugural show, Speechless, as well as his experiences investigating film and storytelling with teenagers at the Refugee Youth Summer Academy.

This article presents a critical discourse analysis of "no promo homo" policies and their effects in US schools. "No promo homo"--short for "no promotion of homosexuality" (Eskridge, 2000, p. 1329)--polices have been adopted across nine states and several local school districts in the United States. They direct…

Federal court cases are examined in an effort to view recent First Amendment rights infringements which have occurred in Mississippi. Case law reinforces students' rights to wear same-sex outfits to school functions as well as to bring same-sex dates. Connection to a recent civil rights investigation by the NAACP into a north Mississippi middle…