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from the issue of April 3, 2008
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Krahmer to receive chancellor's award for queer research guide, LGBTQ work
Transgender resource
BY TROY FEDDERSON, UNIVERSITY COMMUNICATIONS
Debbie Krahmer never felt comfortable in a dress.
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| | | AWARD WINNER - Debbie Krahmer, digital media librarian and assistant professor libraries, will receive the chancellor's award for Outstanding Contributions to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community on April 9. Krahmer created an online Queer Studies Research guide to assist with campus research projects. Photo by Troy Fedderson/University Communications.
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She didn't care for long hair either.
And, don't get the digital media librarian and assistant professor started about her high school prom.
"I still have the pictures," Krahmer said. "I had this long, curly hair and wore this teal blue prom dress thing. It was God awful."
Still, Krahmer walked behind that feminine facade for a number of years. It wasn't until she started to pursue a master's degree in library science at the University of Missouri-Columbia that the real Debbie Krahmer came out.
"Since I was very young, I've known I was really a boy," Krahmer said. "The first time I acknowledged that I was transgender was in 2000, I was online, chatting."
The declaration seemed weird to Krahmer at first - but it also felt right.
"It was something that has always been inside of me," Krahmer said. "I just decided to start living as the person who I am inside, instead of as a person who never really existed."
Due to the stigma attached to being transgender, the majority of individuals seek initial information from online sources. Krahmer's searches provided useful and supportive sites - stories on the experiences of other transgender individuals, resources on support groups, information on how to deal with discrimination from doctors, and lists of related legislation.
"The transgender community is incredibly supportive and provides a lot of good, easy to find information on the Web," Krahmer said. "But finding scholarly information is very difficult."
Her work at UNL has helped to ease scholarly searches into transgender issues. Krahmer has been with the University Libraries since 2004.
For the last three years, Krahmer has served as the library liaison for Women's and Gender Studies and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/sexuality studies minor. She is also faculty co-chair of the UNL Committee for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Concerns.
During her tenure at the library, Krahmer has worked to develop an online LGBTQ Research Study Guide that provides research assistance for gender issues. The guide is available at http://www.unl.edu/libr/liaison/facultysites/krahmerDebbie/.
"The guide is something I developed because queer studies is a hard area to do scholarly research in," Krahmer said. "It's so interdisciplinary, especially in the vocabulary used."
For example, Krahmer said a search of journal article databases for transgender research will find a wide array of information.
"You may get 2,000 hits, but only 50 of them are directly related to transgender issues," Krahmer said. "The other 1,950 will include any document that contains the phrase gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender whether it deals with trans issues or not."
The guide provides information on resources available in the University Libraries and tips on how to conduct LGBTQ searches.
For her LGBTQ-related work on campus - which includes organizing a survey of UNL's unisex restrooms (a project dubbed the "potty tour") and giving presentations on how to conduct transgender research - Krahmer will receive the chancellor's faculty/staff award for Outstanding Contributions to the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community during a 3:30 p.m., April 9 ceremony in the Nebraska Union (room posted).
"I feel really grateful for the recognition," said Krahmer. "I never really considered the things I've done to be that important.
"I don't think the research guide is anything special. But I guess it can mean a lot to someone researching LGBTQ issues. It's at least a place to start."
GO TO: ISSUE OF APRIL 3
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Opening Day
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