Becoming non-binary: An exploration of gender work in tumblr

Abstract

The non-binary person poses a problematization of gendered understandings at every level of social interaction. Non-binary people inherently resist an internalization of gender even within worlds where their external presentation limits their performativity. Online and offline, non-binary people face constant questioning of their identity often targeted towards quantifying the amount of boy/girl nuances that make up their doing in the social world. This invasive investigation plays into the binary, seeking to make rigid the exclusionary praxis of gender in neoliberal terms. And so, non-binary people generate affective, communicative and creative places of intimacy where solidarity and resilience can be practiced in order to build critical knowledges of dynamic identities. Individuals actively construct and participate in a liminal space that can facilitate transformative gender work. Leaning into queer futurity, this empirical research focuses on Tumblr as a temporal and ephemeral site of solidarity and resilience. Using qualitative and reflexive research methods which forefront the narrative re-tellings of non-binary people interviewed, we as authors are able to examinne a digital space which is curated by queer(ed) bodies and acknowledges gender diverse identities as becoming, without moving on or away.