Date of Award
5-2021
Culminating Project Type
Thesis
Degree Name
English: Writing Studies and Rhetoric: M.A.
Department
English
College
College of Liberal Arts
First Advisor
Daniel L. Wildeson
Second Advisor
Catherine O. Fox
Third Advisor
Tim R. Fountaine
Fourth Advisor
Brandon L. Johnson
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Keywords and Subject Headings
ally, Safe Space, LGBT resource center, queer, rhetoric
Abstract
While university LGBT resource centers work to educate, enable, and embolden members of the LGBTQIA+ community themselves, there is also important work for resource centers in building bridges to, and understanding within, greater campus and greater community populations. Our paper explores the rhetorical construction used by university LGBT resource center Safe Space training manuals to develop understanding, compassion, activism—allyship and allies—in resource center communities, populations potentially both inside and outside that of the university LGBTQIA+ community proper. As many LGBT resource centers have been founded on texts that unintentionally promote hetero- and homonormative ways of being, current Safe Space manuals may not address queer community intragroup allyship, and therefore the many embodiments of queer experience—ignoring potential for ally development, and perpetuating singular understandings of the ally, and the queer individual. In Side by Side we’ve examined who university Safe Space manuals address, how invitations to support the LGBTQIA+ community are presented, and the frames used to develop allies and change views of the LGBTQIA+ community. Through examination of recent iterations of one university’s Safe Space manuals and interviews with its recent LGBT Resource Center directors, the study found that while understandings of “ally” and the queer community have changed in recent decades, that resource center manuals have not, maintaining focus rather on intergroup allies as vital and privileged players in queer and trans causes. Implications of this stagnation and possible enhancements of the rhetoricity of the resource center’s Safe Space manuals are discussed.
Recommended Citation
Kuehn, Chad, "Side by Side: Allyship's Rhetorical Construction in University LGBT Resource Center "Safe Space" Training Manuals" (2021). Culminating Projects in English. 7.
https://repository.stcloudstate.edu/eng_etds/7
