A New Language of Gender and Desire (2005)
I was inspired to begin this work after reading an essay where someone had vehemently exclaimed that she was not a lesbian and that she hated being called a lesbian; she was, in fact, a dyke.  I could tell that there was a very significant meaning assigned to that differentiation.  I wanted to identify what that differentiation was and show it to others.  This became my honors thesis.  I did in-depth interviews with 12 participants.  The idea was to talk with people who were uncomfortable, unwilling, or unable to identify with what I termed the "established" language of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender.  This thesis focuses on what areas of contention my interviewees had with established language, what non-established language they used, how they described the specifics of their identities, and how others responded to them.  Here you can find the introduction to this thesis. You can order the zine version at http://www.assimilatethis.com (It's at the bottom of the second zines page).  I'm in the middle of setting up a way to send it electronically as well. I'm also hoping to complete a accompanying document about how to incorporate this knowledge into best practices for social service providers, activist, and political organizations.

A Juvenile Perspective (2002)
This is one of my earlier works and was one of my first real tries at an academic project. It was before I had any actual training on how to do something like this and I simply tried to mimic the academic works that I had seen. Still, my primary goal wasn't academia, it was creating a useful report that the local Commission on Children and Families (CCF) could use. This was written after I had just resigned from being a youth commissioner so I could focus on my work and activism on campus. This is set up as a way to present the problems I had encountered while doing youth organizing for the county, and the solutions that I had found. Specifically, it is about creating mechanism for youth input into adult-based organizations. One of the biggest things I had hoped to impart to my readers is that youth input is valuable and often is prevented due to ageism. There are a now few things that I might change, given my further experience, but I still see it as a useful guide and occasionally get contacted by people who read it from the CCF's website http://www.co.lane.or.us/ccf/ (You can find it near the bottom).