To be Defined or Not to Be? Addressing Internal Questions in the Online Community for Gender Diverse Youth
Proceedings of Interaction Design and Children (IDC), 2021, pp. 552-557. https://doi.org/10.1145/3459990.3465200
Description
ABSTRACT
The online community plays a pivotal role in the transgender community. To better understand how gender-diverse youth equip online communities during their critical stage of gender identity development, we collected online postings from TrevorSpace, one of the most active forums among gender-diverse youth in the US. While existing HCI research largely focuses on the connectedness and social aspects of online communities, our findings illustrate how trans children use online communities to explore and navigate their gender identity. The thematic analysis reveals two conflicting ideas during this exploration, a desire to figure out whether their gender identity could be defined as trans, yet not to be defined through categorical classification of trans. More specifically, we found that 1) trans youth use the community to understand the changes happening in their gender identity by sharing their experience; 2) and these experiences vary for individuals in regards to the intensity of gender dysphoria and their coping mechanisms; 3) yet, the debate centers around the meaning of trans—for example, whether gender diverse youth should experience dysphoria or physically transition to be considered trans; 4) the growing impact of trans social influencers, particularly trans Youtubers, is pointed out as one of the sources that ignite the debate surrounding the categorical classification defining trans. Altogether, our findings point to the importance of acknowledging the spectrum of the trans experience to design a more inclusive digital platform for gender-diverse youth.
Additional information
Author | Ok, & Kang |
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Journal | Proceedings of Interaction Design and Children (IDC) |
Year | 2021 |
Pages | 552-557 |
DOI |
Citation
Citation
BibTex
@article{digitalWorlds:576,
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3459990.3465200},
author = {Ok, & Kang},
title = {To be Defined or Not to Be? Addressing Internal Questions in the Online Community for Gender Diverse Youth},
journal = {Proceedings of Interaction Design and Children (IDC)},
year = {2021},
pages = {552-557}
}