Being Transgender with Online Disinhibition
Gemmy Matthew Tremain
Plymouth State University
Studies in Communication and Media: CM 2000
Scott Coykendall
December 4th, 2023
There has been one giant way I have acted differently online compared to in person, and it has to do with my transgender transition. A lot of people who are a part of the LGBTQIA+ community can agree that for the first bit of time, while you are out, it is difficult to say, “I’m Gay” or in my case “I’m trans”. It applies to me too, and it was this very factor that brought the “online disinhibition” into my transition.
The difference between my transition online Vs. In Person, I could go onto Discord and copy and paste the same message into each server I was active in. Whereas in person I had to tell everyone individually and face them at some point after I told them. This caused me to avoid telling people whom I knew in person for as long as possible, and I still have not told everyone. I am more confident not only in myself and my identity online, but also in my friends online because they are the ones I know will be there if I need to vent about anything that annoys me or angers me. In-person, however, I just texted the people I cared about and have already told and hoped that gave them time to process. This use of the internet is called a preliminary sphere, Brandon Miller explains what it is, “While some posters on Empty Closets might have used the forum as a complementary sphere, in which their online and offline identities complimented each other and required minimal separation, or as an alternative sphere, in which they enacted a parallel identity not afforded to them in offline space, most—and validation seekers, in particular—treated the forum as a preliminary sphere, or an opportunity to virtually practice the coming out scenario before engaging in disclosures offline.” Miller (2016) He uses the term “posters on empty closets” to describe trans people coming out due to a previous analogy. Overall, there is use of all three of these spheres today, a lot of people exist in the offline world, the same way they do in the online world. Some people exist in the online world and display their gender very differently from the offline world, whether they’re testing the waters of how they want to be called or if they just identify with a different gender online.
If I had to tell anyone face to face, I would still be hiding how I felt and dealing with the pain of dysphoria. Now I will spend the rest of this paragraph speaking about how I cannot know what would happen if I had made a different decision. When someone decides, it is because they have reason or motive to but when someone must make a spur-of-the-moment decision or must “theorize” what they would do, they will never be correct when they say, “Maybe I could have done this”. People do not actually know what they would have done in other scenarios because everything they THINK they would do is simply wrong.
Realistically the Online Disinhibition effect exists because people feel safer online for many reasons. Most of those people grew up with the internet but that does not change the fact that having the internet and technology makes people feel like things might go more their way. They think they have more control over both themselves and the situation when they have time to breathe and let their thoughts give the answer, they want to give rather than the emotional answer they are afraid of. If people did not feel like things could go their way on the internet we would be dealing with a whole different world, maybe for better, maybe for worse but no matter what it would be different. I do think social media companies have a part in this safety, but I do not think it is a conscious control they have. I do not think they realize the level of safety feeling they are giving to their consumers, and I do not think they realize how much control they have over it.
Miller (2016) talks about how questioning youth are already more likely than an average teen to commit suicide, but trans youth, are a different story. He says a quarter of trans youth attempt suicide and half of them think about committing it. This is a huge issue considering we are trying to lead the world to prosperity. I know that I apply to that very statement but because parents are starting to teach their children that their love is conditional, I couldn’t talk about it. The fact that therapists are so expensive, I couldn’t talk about it. The fact that I was raised to believe that I was alone in the world and couldn’t count on anyone to have my back made it so that I couldn’t talk about it.
While Jenkins (2004) says, “We need to move from a politics based on culture-jamming – that is, disrupting the flow of media from an outside position – towards one based on blogging – that is, actively shaping the flow of media.” I’d like to take the statement a little more broadly than he was referring to. I think that overall, the world is jammed in and only hears about their own culture all the time, and instead we need to have a system that makes us learn about other cultures or in my case, identities. So many people are ignorant of how transgender people feel when they are forced to act and be seen as their assigned gender, and that is all because those people are just fed with information that agrees with their own opinions. They’re faced every day with biased and uninformed information that just makes them even more ignorant.
Suler (2004) says, “Some types of benign disinhibition indicate an attempt to better understand and develop oneself, to resolve interpersonal and intrapsychic problems or explore new emotional and experiential dimensions to one’s identity.” This perfectly describes how I’ve used the Online Disinhibition effect, using it to explore myself and the me I could be if I wanted to. However, Online Disinhibition also makes it harder to come out as trans because you have easier access to hear about the horrible things happening to trans youth around the world.
There was a good example from just a few months ago in March of 2023, CBS covered a story about a trans girl in San Francisco. (Nakano, 2023) pulled this quote from their interview, “”Part of this was just shock and disbelief that this was happening. I live in San Francisco for a reason. I live here because it’s a liberal city, it’s one of the most queer-friendly cities in the world. To have it happen in such a public place and have nobody help…” Contino said.” situations like this, which happened fairly recently, make it scary to even go outside as a transgender person. It isn’t just trans women though, that face this scary world, trans men have to face it as well and that can scare someone out of ever coming out to anyone. However, having access to a world online where no one will ever know that you’re trans unless you choose to let them in, makes the world seem a whole lot safer around the people you care about.
People magazine spoke to Josie Totah about her reboot show, “Saved by the Bell” and spoke about her character being genuinely trans so that there was a more accurate representation (Nahas, 2020) says, “Totah says she’s felt immense “pride and happiness” when it comes to the reception in the trans community. “I never saw someone like me on a TV show before. For so many years we weren’t reflected or seen in the proper light,” she says. “And people have come out and said how much the show already means to them. It’s humbling.” Why must it be so difficult to represent minorities in movies and shows that show genuine potential? Then when someone does try to represent that minority, they make it the character’s whole personality. However, the fact that we are moving toward a time when we can watch a show like Totah’s is good news, that eventually we will get to where we need to be.
I don’t know when or where there will finally be complete and total equality among people, but it hurts that I have to worry about whether or not I’m going to have my first transphobe encounter when I go to Walmart, or if I’m going to get into a fight with a classmate because they don’t want to use the right pronouns or worst case scenario, I fight with another trans person for being transphobic. Yes. It happens. Too much. I just want to live and be myself, and if the world isn’t okay with that, then maybe I don’t want to be a part of this world.
Citations
Miller, B. M. (2016). A Computer-Mediated Escape from the Closet: Exploring Identity, Community, and Disinhibited Discussion on an Internet Coming Out Advice Forum. Sexuality & Culture, 20(3), 602–625. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-016-9343-4
Jenkins, H. M. (2004). The Cultural Logic of Media Convergence. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 7(1), 33–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/1367877904040603
Suler, J. (2004). The Online Disinhibition Effect. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 7(3).
Nakano, A. (2023, March 10). Anti-trans encounter in San Francisco caught on camera. CBS. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/hostile-anti-trans-encounter-san-francisco-caught-camera/
Nahas, A. (2020, December 2). Saved by the Bell’s Josie Totah Humbled to Play Character Who Is Transgender. People. https://people.com/tv/saved-by-the-bell-josie-totah-humbled-to-play-character-who-is-transgender/
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