Rachel O'Neal
Political Science

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder. I have a Master’s degree in political science from CU Boulder and a Bachelor’s degree from Creighton University in political science and journalism. I am grateful to have received the 2023 CU Boulder Summer Fellowship, two 2022 research grants from the Institute of Behavioral Science and the Political Science Department respectively, and the 2021 Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grant during my time at CU Boulder. My pronouns are they/them.

My research focuses on transgender rights, hetero-cisnormativity, and quantitative queer comparative politics more broadly. More specifically, I am interested in how de jure policies unrelated to gender, sex, and sexuality enforce our understanding of each concept. Currently, I am working on projects related to conversion therapy bans in the US, global gender marker policies, and hetero-cisnormativity in US court cases. My proposed research agenda also includes research on transgender sex work, initially at the US level with hopes to expand to the global level.