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ABSTRACT
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people living in rural communities have unique needs related to cultural and information access about their identities. A growing body of literature is concerned with the experiences of rural LGBTQ people’s experiences and their use of information and communication technologies for supporting identity and community. However, there is opportunity to better understand relationships between various information sources and how information access itself lends to the creation of queer communities. Seeing the need for a more holistic understanding of the LGBTQ information landscape, this study builds on existing work with rural LGBTQ people, and asks how do rural LGBTQ people get access to information about sexual and gender identity and how is that information embedded through the practice of circulation? Drawing from ethnographic research in a rural region of the Midwestern United States, this study proposes the concept of queer information literacy: a process through which LGBTQ people find, recognize, share, and create information related to their sexual and gender identities. Using queer information literacy as a framework, the paper shows how disparate information access results in the formation of different, and often conflicting, LGBTQ experiences.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Silvia Lindtner, Tiffany Veinot, and Gayle Rubin for their guidance during this research. He would also like to thank Cindy Lin Kaiying, Lindsay Blackwell, Stephen Molldrem, Seyram Avle, Stefani Vargas, and Nazanin Andalibi for their feedback on the manuscript at various stages.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes on contributor
Jean Hardy is a PhD Candidate at the University of Michigan School of Information. His research uses ethnographic and participatory design methods to understand how people use information and communication technologies for community and economic development in the rural Midwestern United States.
Notes
1 Ethnographic vignettes (i.e., descriptions of interactions with participants based on fieldnotes) are italicized.
2 All people and place names have been changed.
3 People who hold particular identities related to race, ethnicity, or religion (among other identities) often have exposure to their culture through family traditions, ethnic neighborhoods, or community organizations from a very young age. LGBTQ people often are not born into families or communities that give them access to similar information.
4 All counties in this region are defined by the United States Department of Agriculture as non-metropolitan.
5 These legislation were called ‘bathroom bills’ because they eliminated legal protections of LGBTQ people, particularly the ability to use the bathroom in line with one’s gender identity.
6 In particular, the ability to self- and communally-educate via spaces such as Tumblr gave a younger generation access to language and knowledge that further amplified their separation from an older generation.