Abstract:
Despite significant legal and social advances, many LGBTQ young people remain subject to bullying, stigma, and marginalisation because of their sexuality or gender identity (Lucassen et al. 2014). Against this context, digital technologies such as social media platforms, websites, and apps offer opportunities for LGBTQ people to access resources and connect with others. Survey research has also suggested that LGBTQ young people tend to spend more time online, are more likely to search online for information relating to sexuality or health, and more likely state that “their online community is a source of comfort” than their peers (Born this Way Foundation 2017; GLSEN 2013). In this thesis, I explore how a range of young LGBTQ people utilise digital technologies, especially social media, in the processes of constituting, experiencing, and understanding their identities and their belonging to broader queer and trans communities. These processes take place against a background of societal and interpersonal heteronormativity and cisnormativity, but for these young people, being LGBTQ is not just a matter of sexual attraction and behaviour or gender identity, nor societal oppression. Rather, they draw upon and construct shared experience, understandings, and struggles, but also shared knowledge and humour to create distinct and positively valued, LGBTQ selves, communities, and spaces. I draw on six months of participant observation at LGBTQ youth groups and events in Auckland and Wellington and 25 semi-structured interviews with young people from across New Zealand to address how these processes take place. I argue that the concept of ‘relatability’ is particularly powerful in shaping these processes, where moments of ‘relating’ to an experience or another person are deeply affective experiences of recognition and connection. These young people, who feel different by virtue of their gender or sexuality, seek out other young people whose feelings, experiences, and identities reflect and help contextualise their own. Social media platforms provide an accessible way to directly connect with others, but also to consume other people’s stories, learn about LGBTQ issues, share memes, and construct “safe spaces” which are affirming of diverse genders and sexualities. Furthermore, these interactions facilitate the imagining of a broad global coalition of LGBTQ people. However, there are also tensions between the concept of a broadly inclusive LGBTQ community, and the question of whose voices and experiences are represented and foregrounded in practice. Therefore I also explore the various complex negotiations of inclusion and exclusion involved in these processes.