ABSTRACT
Scholars are starting to understand transgender people use social media to create online communities to discuss aspects of their lives. Tumblr, a social media site that allows people to share information often via tags targeted for specific groups (e.g., #ftm, #mtf, or #trans), is a virtual space commonly used by transgender people to seek or share information. We collected interview data on English-speaking transgender people's experiences to understand the connection between Tumblr and transition-related mental health posts. Tumblr was described as a safe space for many transgender people who might lack a physical community of support when dealing with their mental health while transitioning. This paper contributes a description of the ways transgender people use Tumblr to meet their mental health needs. Analyzing transgender Tumblr users' interactions and experiences while transitioning provides an opportunity to understand a population that faces high rates of mental health challenges.
- Andre Cavalcante. 2016. "I Did It All Online:" Transgender identity and the management of everyday life. Critical Studies in Media Communication 33, 1: 109--122.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Avery Dame. 2016. Making a name for yourself: tagging as transgender ontological practice on Tumblr. Critical Studies in Media Communication 33, 1: 23--37.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Oliver Haimson., Jed R. Brubaker., Lynn Dombrowski., and Gillian Hayes. Digital Footprints and Changing Networks During Online Identity Transitions. Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems 2895 -- 2907. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Oliver L Haimson and Gillian R Hayes. 2017. Changes in Social Media Affect, Disclosure, and Sociality for a Sample of Transgender Americans in 2016's Political Climate. In Proceedings of ICWSM Conference on Web and Social Media.Google Scholar
- Oliver L Haimson and Anna Lauren Hoffman. 2016. Constructing and Enforcing "Authentic" Identity Online: Facebook, Real Names, and Non-Normative Identities. First Monday 21, 6.Google Scholar
- Blake Hawkins and Jack Giesking. 2017. Seeking ways to our transgender bodies, by ourselves: Rationalizing transgender-specific health information behaviors. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology 54, 1: 702--704.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Blake Hawkins and Ryan J. Watson. 2017. LGBT cyberspaces: a need for a holistic investigation. Children's Geographies 15, 1: 122--128.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Aira Maria Pohjanen and Terttu Anna Maarit Kortelainen. 2015. Transgender information behaviour. Journal of Documentation 72, 1: 172--190.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Anselm Strauss and Juliet M. Corbin. 1998. Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory. SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
- Susan Stryker. 2008. Transgender History. Seal Press, Berkeley, CA.Google Scholar
- Veale J, Saewyc E, Frohard-Dourlent H, Dobson S, Clark B & the Canadian Trans Youth Health Survey Research Group (2015). Being Safe, Being Me: Results of the Canadian Trans Youth Health Survey. Vancouver, BC: Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre, School of Nursing, University of British Columbia | Stigma and Resilience Among Vulnerable Youth Centre. Retrieved February 15, 2018 from http://www.saravyc.ubc.ca/2015/05/05/being-safe-being-me-results-of-the-canadian-trans-youth-health-survey/.Google Scholar
Index Terms
- Building an online community of care: Tumblr use by transgender individuals
Recommendations
Disproportionate Removals and Differing Content Moderation Experiences for Conservative, Transgender, and Black Social Media Users: Marginalization and Moderation Gray Areas
CSCW2Social media sites use content moderation to attempt to cultivate safe spaces with accurate information for their users. However, content moderation decisions may not be applied equally for all types of users, and may lead to disproportionate censorship ...
Examining the Unique Online Risk Experiences and Mental Health Outcomes of LGBTQ+ versus Heterosexual Youth
CHI '24: Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsWe collected and analyzed Instagram direct messages (DMs) from 173 youth aged 13–21 (including 86 LGBTQ+ youth). We examined youth’s risk-flagged social media trace data with their self-reported mental health outcomes to examine how the differing online ...
Social Media as Social Transition Machinery
Social media, and people's online self-presentations and social networks, add complexity to people's experiences managing changing identities during life transitions. I use gender transition as a case study to understand how people experience liminality ...
Comments