YouTube as a Site of Counternarratives to Transnormativity

ABSTRACT

In this article, I discuss how transnormativity can be disrupted by not exaggerating the physical aspects of medical transition and by engaging in conversations around consequential sources of tension within gender and sexual minority communities, namely linguistic understandings of trans and gendered racism within white, gay, cisgender communities toward trans communities of color. This study is based on qualitative interviews with six trans YouTubers; these interviews were complemented by analyses of these YouTubers’ videos and select comments on these videos. With this exploratory study, I aim to provide nuance to existing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans (LGBT) YouTube literature through highlighting the experiences of nonbinary trans vloggers and trans vloggers of color, regardless of medical transition status, as well as contribute a transfeminist analysis to ongoing conversations around transnormativity within sociology, cultural and media studies, and queer and trans theory.

KEYWORDS:

• Heteronormativity
• homonormativity
• hormone time
• new media
• nonbinary
• qualitative
• transgender
• vlogging

Acknowledgments

Thank you to alithia zamantakis, Avery Everhart, Chris Kase, Claudia Tillman, and Katie Acosta for providing feedback on prior drafts of this article.

Notes

1. Assigned-female-at birth (AFAB): Individuals who were designated a female sex category at birth, typically based on the presence of a vulva.

2. Assigned-male-at-birth (AMAB): Individuals who were designated a male sex category at birth, typically based on the presence of a penis.

3. Transmasculine: AFAB individuals who identify as trans and along a masculine spectrum.

4. Transfeminine: AMAB individuals who identify as trans and along a feminine spectrum.

5. See uppercaseCHASE1 (2014), what is truscum?, YouTube. Accessed January 14, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTzBVuwt0Dk.