University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 3-27-2007 Queer Identity? Discussing Identity and Appearance in an On-line “Genderqueer” Community Sharla N. Alegria University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons Scholar Commons Citation Alegria, Sharla N., "Queer Identity? Discussing Identity and Appearance in an On-line “Genderqueer” Community" (2007). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/596 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Queer Identity? Discussing Identity and Appearance in an On-line “Genderqueer” Community by Sharla N. Alegria A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Sociology College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Major Professor: Laurel Graham, Ph.D. Sara Crawley, Ph.D. Chris Ponticelli, Ph.D. Date of Approval: March 27, 2007 Keywords: identity, Queer Theory, genderqueer, consumer culture, gender, self fashion, interaction, Internet research, on-line community, shopping © Copyright 2007, Sharla N. Alegria Dedication I would like to dedicate this thesis to all the folks who have been targeted, harassed, excluded, abused, assaulted, or in anyway harmed because others perceived them to be “different.” Acknowledgements I am extremely thankful to my thesis committee; Sara Crawley, Chris Ponticelli, and especially my chair Laurel Graham, for their guidance, insight, work and inspiration throughout the process of writing and researching this thesis.