“Crazy, yes. But not tiny.”:
Networked #FtM Culture, Identity, &
Knowledge Production on Tumblr
Jack Gieseking
American Studies
Trinity College (Hartford, CT)
@jgieseking

Image c/o “The L Word” S1E2 2008@jgieseking

?
What can we learn from trans youth on Tumblr?
What interventions/insights can trans networks offer?
What interventions/insights can trans “big” data itself offer?
What interventions/insights can such data/networks afford trans
theory?
@jgieseking

Interventions
Intervening in big/small data
debates
Suggesting next steps for trans
theory as derived from feminist and
queer theory
Insights into the world-making of
trans youth as a global-virtual space
@jgieseking

the internet
happens
trans activism
formalizes nationally
1990s
2010strans recognition
surges
social media
soars
@jgieseking
2000s“trans-surge” &
Camp Trans
social media
begins
U.S. Trans Generational Shifts

Image c/o Lutz Finger 2014
Also in the 2010s…
@jgieseking

Big Data
More data points
More accurate
Newer approach
—>
More power
More important
Small Data
Less data points
Less encompassing
Traditional approach
—>
Less power
Less important
Hi. I’m a
binary.
volume, velocity,
variety, veracity[ ]
@jgieseking

“Size Matters to Lesbians Too:
Queer Feminist Interventions in
the Scale of Big Data”
Framing data as such bestows power
and limits agency
Big/small data is binary requiring
queering
@jgieseking
Professional Geographer
forthcoming 2017
bit.ly/jg-sizematt
Largest LGBTQ organizational
archival collection (LHA) is 789kb
Recent work:

While I’m in Berlin working on my diss on les-queer-trans NYC…
…and I’m online finding my new name.
@jgieseking
Also in the 2010s…
Gender identity disorder diagnosis is
dissolved
Gender dysphoria diagnosis is created
Trans media representation increasingly
widespread and positive
President Obama speaks out about
conversion therapy

tumblr #ftm :: images@jgieseking

tumblr #mtf :: images@jgieseking

trans #mtf & #ftm tumblr
Finding/sharing medical knowledge
Defining identity (“trans enough”)
Suicide notes & community support
Production of culture
Other geographies: social networks
Eyeing Tumblr
@jgieseking

trans youth groups
studying Tumblr
undergrad thesis
(Drager 2012)
trans social media - qual
(Tumblr, YouTube)
social science and social
theory: health, recognition
trans archives
Grounding Literature
self-representation online
@jgieseking

#ftm hashtag
#mtf hashtag
over 2yrs of data
@ 20 posts
per hour
per hashtag
//Tumblr allows 500 max per day
Research Methods
over 1 million posts
150.8MB@jgieseking

What interventions/
insights can trans
networks offer?
?

A Year in the Life of Trans Youth on Tumblr
@jgieseking

tumblr #ftm :: text in posts
sense of self, embodiment, affective being, visuality, temporality, embracing
&/or surviving life (July 2015-2016)
1. Holds binaries/multiples in tension in one space
@jgieseking

gendering, identity labels, sense of self, embodiment, reassertion of identity
or link to transition - at once (July 2015-2016)
2. Recognizes partial, situated pasts & affords production of partial, situated futures
@jgieseking tumblr #ftm :: post hashtags

@jgieseking
~30,000 likes a month
evidence of patterns of conversation

tumblr #ftm :: SNA
July 2015 #ftm Tumblr likes
17,756 users || 29,847 likes
Average 4.8 degrees of separation
July 2016 #ftm Tumblr likes
13,150 users || 24,374 likes
Average 5.3 degrees of separation
3. Requires incremental, multifaceted, and long-term analysis
@jgieseking

tumblr #ftm :: SNA
Which brings us to queer feminist trans data…
Zoom: July 2016 #ftm Tumblr likes/hearts
4. Co-constitutive & critical of capitalist political economies in
which it is accumulated & refutes
@jgieseking

Two Weeks in the Life of Trans Youth on
Tumblr, Pre- and Post-U.S. Elections 2016
@jgieseking

tumblr #ftm :: text
PLACEHOLDER: pre-/post-election data
title
conversations during the elections (31 Oct - 15 Nov 2016)
@jgieseking

tumblr #ftm :: identity terms
title
@jgieseking
conversations before the elections (31 Oct - 5 Nov 2016)

tumblr #ftm :: transition terms
PLACEHOLDER: pre-/post-election data
title
@jgieseking
conversations before the elections (31 Oct - 5 Nov 2016)

tumblr #ftm :: election
PLACEHOLDER: pre-/post-election data
title
@jgieseking
conversations during the elections (31 Oct - 15 Nov 2016)

What interventions/
insights can trans
networks offer?
? & A
summary findings
Archive of affect
Medical knowledge
Stories of embodiment
Production of culture
Visualization of mirroring
Defining identities (“trans enough”+)
Understanding of desire
Major trans cultural touchstone
Record of a revolution but/and
national politics not yet revealed
over 2yrs of data
@ 20 posts per hour
over 1 million posts
150.8MB

What is a trans theoretical
intervention on behalf of trans
Tumblr in the era of big data?
?

Rather than absolutist
model of ideal mother,
Donald Winnicott
suggests that we
require instead the
good enough mother -
enough to survive and
thrive. There is no
perfection, no total
truth, no full extreme.
Other groups and
theories have not
“measured up” before…
Image c/o Joshua Rosenthal 2012@jgieseking
What @ the Data?!
Let us trace our roots
and find our
grounding…

What is a trans theoretical
intervention on behalf of trans
Tumblr in the era of big data?
? & A
Big enough data.

What interventions/insights can
such data/networks afford trans
theory?
?

Binaries are
false
Ethics of eros alongside
ethical moralizer
Moral imperative to
exclude exclusion
Refuse antisocial
reductionism
Personal is
political
Standpoint
epistemologies
@jgieseking

1. Holds binaries/multiples in tension which does
not reproduce a hierarchies of scale
2. Recognizes its partial, situated pasts & affords
production of its partial, situated futures
3. Requires incremental, multifaceted, and long-
term analysis
4. Co-constitutive & critical of capitalist political
economies in which it is accumulated & refutes
What are the components of big
enough data that arise from a
queer feminist trans approach?
@jgieseking

Binaries are
false
Ethics of eros alongside
ethical moralizer
Moral imperative to
exclude exclusion
Refuse antisocial
reductionism
Personal is
political
Standpoint
epistemologies
…to a politics of
queer trans feminist
data studies.
Manifold can be held
in tension
Manifold must be
recognized
Lived realities
of life
@jgieseking

What interventions/insights can
such data/networks afford trans
theory?
? & A
Recognize the manifold,
held in tension,
based on lived realities of life.

Research Questions, Now
What can we learn from trans youth?
What interventions/insights can trans networks offer?
What interventions/insights can trans big enough data offer?
What interventions/insights can such data/networks afford trans
theory?
@jgieseking

Research Questions, Later
What medical knowledge do trans youth circulate on social media?
How can it inform long-term public health research, in their own
words?
In progress: seeking text analysis & public health co-researchers.
What can we offer trans youth by returning their data?
In progress: online participatory action research (PAR) project with
existing youth groups.
@jgieseking

Dana: It’s like this whole crazy, tiny, little world.
Image c/o “The L Word” S1E2 2008
Alice: Crazy, yes.
[Pauses.]
But not tiny.
- The L Word, S1E2
@jgieseking

Jack Gieseking
@jgieseking
jgieseking.org
All publications OA online at jgieseking.org/publications
Thank you.

@jgieseking

rooted foremost in feminist theories
develops through legal and policy
studies alongside history and
psychology
jumps off from queer refusals
and adherences
kin to decolonial, disability, and
critical race theories
A Trans
Theoretical Approach
@jgieseking

What are the trans theoretical,
methodological, and policy
interventions on behalf of trans
Tumblr in the era of big data?
?
@jgieseking