These are the slides for my presentation at the Brisbane ICA Regional Conference, October 2, 2014. The presentation examines whether or not Facebook can transform the process of LGBTQ people coming out and being 'out' in their everyday lives. For more info on the conference: http://icabrisbane2014.com/

1. “I never had to say anything”:
Examining the transformative
potential of Facebook for
sexual identity disclosures
Stefanie Duguay, PhD Student, Digital Media Studies, @DugStef
Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology
Presentation for the ICA Regional Conference, Brisbane, 2 October 2014

2. “gender rebels”
“trans people are just people too, and
deserve to be happy.”
(Bailey, 2013)

3. 1950s – 1970s
Homophile
movement
1969/1970s
Stonewall &
Gay Liberation
1970s-1980s
Identity Politics/
Minority movements
Late 1980s – 1990s
Queer activism &
Queer Theory
(Beasley, 2005)
Image from David Prasad

4. Are we
“post-gay” or
homonormative?
Image from David Goehring
a. Define oneself by more than
sexuality;
b. Disentangle gayness from
struggle (and stereotypes);
c. Enjoy sexually mixed
company.
(Ghaziani, 2011)

5. Is Facebook like moving out of the gay
village and to the suburbs?
Does this allow for people to be post-gay?
Or do they blend in in homonormative
ways?
Image from Douglas Muth

6. “Queer people exist whether or not you tell them they
can in a Catholic high school.”
“It just stops the concern for me that when I go home and
hang out with these people they’ll be like, ‘Why didn’t you
tell us this earlier?’ It’s such a silly thing because how
would you contact all of these people that you don’t really
keep in touch with across the country and be like, ‘Hi, just
checking in, I’m gay.’ You wouldn’t do that.”
“The situations where everyone’s talking about their
romantic life and I feel like I’m being
burdensome…Everyone has to pause and be like, ‘Oh,
you’re queer.’ Like, do we have to have a session about it?
People don’t know what to do and so, yeah, I wanted to
say it and stop having that fear.”
Queer
Post-gay
Homonormative
Image from Mononc’ Paul

7. “[Facebook] is a really good tool for me to broadcast that I am
gay to people who I would never feel like coming out to in real
life… I don’t want to run the risk of having a confrontation in real
life so if I have it on Facebook, they can take it in, deal with it
themselves and then it’s over and done with and I never had to
say anything.” - Robert
“It's easier than telling everyone separately - not that everyone,
like, I couldn't rely on everyone checking that kind of thing,
because obviously my friends know my birthday and my gender
and all the other things on that page. So I couldn't rely on them
checking it but just in case they did, it was there.” - Brianne

8. “For example, if I sat down with a lot of people that I
didn’t know that well and there was an advert that had
gay people in it but they were like, I don’t know, drinking
Diet Coke together or something then I wouldn’t feel that
uncomfortable about it. And then if it was about gay
people being political, I would feel more uncomfortable
about it, and then if it was gay people having sex, I’d
probably be feeling more uncomfortable.” - Henrik
“If I were face-to-face, I probably wouldn’t have done it… I
would have just said it to myself several times and then
nothing would have actually [come out].” – Jennifer
Image from Michael_Goff

9. “I don’t think there’s really an option that describes accurately
how I feel.” – Mackenzie
“[My city] is not a metropolis but I came from a very small part
of the world and suddenly I could really, really enjoy being
gay.” - Elizabeth
“[For Italians] the message that passes is like, ‘You are gay,
keep it for yourself.’” – Marco
“When I found out you could block some people I was just like,
oh okay, I can put it up now.” - Erin
Sexuality
Location
Culture
Digital
literacy
Image from Jason Pier in DC

10. Post-gay aspirations + heteronormative constraints = mostly
homonormativity
Facebook helps some, but it is not transformative because we
have not transformed society’s heteronormativity.
Image from Scorpions and Centaurs

11. References
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http://www.facebookstories.com/stories/3790/essay-coming-out-in-a-single-click
Beasley, C. (2005). Gender & sexuality: Critical theories, critical thinkers. London: Sage.
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Papacharissi (Ed.), A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (pp. 39–58).
New York and London: Routledge.
boyd, d. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. New Haven, CT and London: Yale
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Butler, J. (1990). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.
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context collapse on a social networking site. New Media & Society. doi:10.1177/1461444814549930
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Image from Barron Webster

12. Johnson, E. P., & Henderson, M. G. (2005). Introduction: Queering Black Studies/“Quaring” Queer Studies. In
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13. Questions? stefanie.duguay@qut.edu.au
stefanieduguay.com
@DugStef