My research investigates how the politics of sexuality in the U.S. inform claims to particular physical environments, how people inhabit them, and what inhabitation reveals about the discursive construction of identity categories and the aesthetics that are associated with each of them. In my dissertation I argue that different LGBTQ groups create spatial and temporal “fixes” based on the ways sexuality intersects with race, gender, ethnicity, age, and bodily ability, to serve their needs. I do this by probing into the histories of a number of LGBTQ spaces in San Francisco and Oakland since 1964, which demonstrate that the bifurcation of these spaces into assimilationist and non-assimilationist in much of the existing literature does not capture their complexity. I concluded that particular environments may eventually disappear, but their material and immaterial legacies inform new spatial and social formations all around the Bay Area, such as cooperatives, clinics, and spaces for entertainment.

Before my doctoral studies I obtained a Master of Architecture from UC Berkeley and worked as a designer in the Bay Area in the field of housing and education facilities. Besides my professional and scholarly work I have developed solo and group experimantal performances.