YouTube: A Space For Trans Issue-Making

A critical study about the issue-making capabilities of trans content producers

By: Edo Druiventak Universiteit van Amsterdam—Media studies Word count 20,926 Supervisor: Ms. N. (Natalia) Sánchez Querubín Completion date: 28 June 2019 Second reader: Mr. Dr. J.A. (Jan) Teurlings Course: Research Master's Thesis

Abstract

The current study explores how trans content producers deal, speak to and negotiate issues surrounding trans life on YouTube. The term issue here refers to unsettled matters of public concern that are discussed, legislated and coming about. Transgender life is a matter of media interpretation where media set the rules for how, by whom and when trans issues matter. However, there is often misrepresentation and under-coverage of transgender people in mainstream media. The latter is not the case on YouTube, where transgender representation is increasing. Although scholarly work provides great insights about transgender engagement with YouTube, they have neglected to answer questions such as: How are trans lives staged as matters of public concern on YouTube? Based on such staging, how may one describe the trans experience? And how is YouTube becoming a medium in which these issues are debated? This research has taken up these questions, by conducting four case studies in which YouTube´s data based on the search ‘transgender´ and the popularity marker view count was repurposed, by means of digital issue mapping and critical analytics. Thereby, this research mapped 22 trans content producers—varying from mainstream media to trans vloggers and others—that do the work of trans issue-making and shape YouTube as an issue space. Although mainstream media is dominant, YouTube empowers transgender vloggers to discuss and influence transgender agenda. Operating on YouTube as a transgender issue- maker is complex, as it involves challenges, such as visibility, agency, competition, group formations, and knowledge of exploiting content categories and formats to turn trans issues into consumable content for audiences. This study encourages further research on trans content producers’ influence on the attitudes and behaviours of audiences and on trans content producers who are marginalised and rendered invisible (e.g. trans people of colour and trans men) on YouTube.

Keywords

Transgender, transgender agenda, issue-makers, YouTube, content producers, digital issue making, critical analytics

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... 1 Table of Contents ...... 2 1. The Issuefication of Trans Lives ...... 4 2. Being Trans: Mainstream Media, the Internet and YouTube ...... 9 2.1 Trans lives as issues in mainstream media ...... 9 2.2 Misrepresentation of trans lives and under-coverage in mainstream media ...... 11 2.3 Trans lives and the Internet: Self-representation and social organization ...... 13 2.4 YouTube: A place for self-education, self-commodification and visibility ...... 15 2.5 Trans life on YouTube ...... 18 2.6 Trans issue-making a matter of YouTube ...... 20 3. Studying Transgender Issue-Making on YouTube ...... 22 3.1 Digital issue mapping ...... 22 3.2 Critical analytics in issue mapping ...... 23 3.3 Organizing issue mapping on YouTube ...... 24 4. Trans Content: Mainstream Media vs. Trans Vloggers ...... 26 4.1 YouTube a paradise for trans people? ...... 26 4.2 Tracing trans content producers: searches, video lists and actor-channels ...... 27 4.3 Mainstream media’s dominant voice in bringing forward transgender issues ...28 5. When Do Trans Lives Matter on YouTube? ...... 30 5.1 Trans life as trans content ...... 30 5.2 Content categories as trans issue spaces ...... 30 5.3 When trans life becomes newsworthy through human-interest stories ...... 33 5.4 When trans life becomes sensational, provocative and entertaining ...... 35 5.4.1 Trans content should distract and entertain ...... 35 5.4.2 Transgender issues as sensational and provocative ...... 35 5.4.3 Transgender issues as fun ...... 38 5.5 When trans life becomes personal ...... 39 5.6 Six content categories, four formats and three discourses ...... 41 6. Trans Agenda: The Case of Trans Beauty and Dating ...... 43 6.1 How do trans vloggers influence trans agenda? ...... 43

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6.2 From keywords to mapping trans agenda on YouTube ...... 43 6.3 Trans beauty is when one looks feminine ...... 46 6.3.1 YouTube: a space to stage trans beauty issues ...... 46 6.3.2 Hegemonic trans beauty ...... 46 6.3.3 How to fix trans beauty problem areas with make-up ...... 47 6.4 How is dating an issue for transgender YouTube vloggers? ...... 50 6.4.1 Being transgender makes dating hard ...... 50 6.4.2 Being clocked: ‘Hey… that is a dude’ ...... 50 6.4.3 ‘Oohw … (Y)ou are trans?! I am not attracted to trans people’ ...... 52 6.5 YouTube empowers and emancipates to influence the transgender agenda ...... 54 7. When Trans Life Creates Alignment and Dispute: The Case of the Transgender United States Military Ban ...... 55 7.1 The issue of being transgender in the United States military ...... 55 7.2 Anti-transgender military ban stances ...... 57 7.2.1 Forming an anti-discrimination program ...... 57 7.2.2 Negligible transgender military costs ...... 57 7.2.3 Trans unemployment because of the military transgender ban ...... 58 7.2.4 Trans life in the military should be accepted and celebrated ...... 59 7.2.5 Backlash regarding President Trump’s contradictory statements ...... 61 7.3 Pro-transgender military ban stances ...... 63 7.3.1 Trans people are mentally ill ...... 63 7.3.2 Safety and efficiency over diversity in the military ...... 64 7.4 Trans life: A matter of individual and group issue-making capabilities ...... 66 8. Trans Issue-Making on YouTube Is Dynamic and Complex ...... 67 References ...... 70 Media List ...... 76 List of Tables ...... 79 List of Figures ...... 80

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1. The Issuefication of Trans Lives

In December 2015, controversial and conservative trans vlogger Blaire White uploaded her first vlog ‘Female Privilege | Antifeminism’ to YouTube. White was born as male, but in her early twenties she transitioned into a transgender woman as she started her feminising hormone treatment. In her video, White sits in her room in front of her camera and argues that living as a man and now as a trans woman has enabled her to critique female privileges from a rather unique perspective (see Figure 1). Unlike heterosexual people, as a trans, White had experienced both male and female privileges. In her experience, people treated women more kindly and women had more privileges than men. Therefore, White argued it was better not to align with feminist ideologies that overemphasise female burdens and male privileges. According to White, people smile at women when they walk on the streets and doors are held open. She said women receive lower sentences for committing the same crimes as men, are hired over men in academic faculties and are afforded more physical safety in the public sphere. White stated that these are just a small subset of the privileges women have over men. Therefore, she stated her goal was to alter statements made by feminists that women solely endure burdens, while men only enjoy privileges. Over the years, White has kept posting videos in which she elaborates on her controversial and conservative views on gender politics. For example, on her YouTube channel one can find videos such as ‘There are only two genders’ and ‘Trans-Retarded’. In these videos, White disavows that there are a multitude of genders (e.g., non-binary or bi-gender), calls gender identities other than male or female ‘bullshit and arbitrary’ and argues that a trans individual will never transition fully into a man or a woman, as from a biological perspective this is impossible. It is videos like this that have contributed to White becoming what some would call a YouTube star. As White caught audience and mainstream media’ attention on YouTube, her base of followers has grown over 500,000 subscribers, her channel generates over 60 million views and she has made guest appearances on political talk shows, such as The Rubin Report. White’s success is very much rooted in her trans conservatism, a position that is rare and therefore has become interesting to many people. Or as put it in an article on The Forward website: ‘Blaire White would be almost indistinguishable from hordes of other far-right YouTube vloggers—if she weren’t transgender’ (Feldman). White’s trans conservative position has created a controversy. While left-wing transgender advocates accuse White of being transphobic, her representation of transgender conservative views is praised and seen as revolutionary by right-wing people. In effect, White is changing the face of traditional 4

American conservatism. Or, as stated in an article on the Thought Catalog: ‘White doesn’t fit the stereotype some try to slap onto conservatives. As a transgender woman, she doesn’t fit the mould most are used to seeing. . . . Perhaps Republicanism isn’t as old, male, or heteronormative as some may think’ (Byrnes). Although some might see White as the new spokesperson for traditional conservatism, publicly stating oneself as a trans conservative comes with its own problems. For instance, in an interview White conducted with Newsweek she stated: ‘I really am the only trans woman occupying this space within the conservative movement. I take what comes with that. There are people on the very far right, who, no matter what I say or how I express myself, won’t accept me’ (Solis). White argues that she is in a political limbo between the left and right parties. She is more accepted as trans by leftists, but as a trans woman, she is also controversial for having conservative stances. In contrast, right-wing people are more accepting of White’s conservative views, but her gender identification is problematic and controversial. White is a YouTube transgender content producer and her vlogs serve as examples of two interconnected situations. First, YouTube has become a key space that gives trans people the means to self-represent, create content and knowledge about their trans experiences, and to engage in gender politics (Horak 572). This allows for trans representations—which may not be covered in other media—to be seen and produced at high speed on YouTube (Raun 101). Some argue trans content on YouTube covers an array of topics, and the most popular are the vlogs in which trans people document their transitioning process (Horak 2014). It is through these videos that trans people reflect on their past selves and imagine future new selves (Horak 2014). YouTube has become a site for educating others about trans life, with videos discussing gender politics, hormone treatment, transgender bodies, reassignment surgery, beauty and more (Miller 2017). Not only trans people create trans content on YouTube. The amount of trans content produced by professionals such as mainstream media has increased over the years as YouTube has become commercialized (101). Therefore, as the attention of (transgender) audiences on YouTube is limited, trans content producers use a multitude of strategies to compete against others for audience attention. For example, to compete on YouTube trans vloggers use strategies of self-commodification by using their ‘trans-ness’ as a brand to promote themselves (Raun 2018). YouTube metrics (e.g., amount of views, subscribers, comments and likes) function as popularity markers that indicate the success of such strategies and symbolises the amount of attention one receives from audiences (Rogers 450).

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Second, White’s vlogs show that the trans experience and politics on YouTube are not a settled matter. Rather, White’s vlogs exemplify that YouTube is a space where what it means to be a trans person is a matter of public discussion. Here, trans or transgender is understood as describing a diverse group of individuals that feels their gender identities to be opposite to that assigned at birth. To be a transgendered person can mean to be someone whose very existence is an issue. The term issue here is used to refer to matters of public concern that are unsettled, discussed, legislated and in coming about. Scholarly work provides a good oversight of trans self-representation, content, education and self-commodification in the first situation (Horak 2014; Miller 2017; Raun 2018). However, they have failed to demonstrate how in the second situation YouTube has become a space in which trans lives are publicly addressed, interpreted and discussed as an issue. Scholarly work also neglects to explore the issue-making capabilities of trans content producers in making trans issues into consumable content for audiences and thereby how they influence and contribute to the transgender agenda on YouTube. Such research would contribute to the body of literature in Transgender and Media studies, since trans people like White are often misrepresented, under-covered and limited to reach large audiences and influence transgender agenda in most other media (Abbott 2013; Miller 2017; Gamson 1998; Jackson et al. 2018). Therefore, such research would deepen and broaden the understanding of trans engagement with online media—such as YouTube. The goal in this research is to study how trans content producers on YouTube deal with, speak to and negotiate issues surrounding trans life. Therefore, the research questions of this study are: How are trans lives staged as matters of public concern on YouTube? Based on such staging, how may one describe the trans experience? Also, how has YouTube become a medium in which these issues are debated? To answer these questions, I propose not to look at coordinated activism, but to examine the aspects of the most popular (based on view count) trans content producers regarding their issue-making capabilities. This research is concerned with identifying the strategies used to stage trans issues, analysing the ability of such strategies to influence trans agenda and determining how trans content producers operate, compete, dispute and align within a hierarchy on YouTube to stage trans issues as a matter of public concern. To do so, an online issue mapping was performed, using digital methods and critical analytics (Rogers et al. 2015; Rogers 2018). These methods can help to identify and trace associations between trans content producers involved within a state of affairs by repurposing YouTube’s metrics to examine the dominant voice, concerns, commitment, positioning and alignment relating to a social issue. 6

This research is constructed in the following way: Chapter 2 presents an overview of transgender experiences as issues and how these issues are staged as a matter of mainstream media and more recently of YouTube. Chapter 3 explains digital issue mapping, critical analytics, and how these methods are applied to the addressed case studies in Chapter 4-7. Chapter 4 maps the different content producers at play, the types of videos they create to engage with trans topics, and visualizes which trans content producer ranks the most high and therefore has the largest audience and dominant voice. Chapter 5 examines how the trans experience—living life as a trans person—is presented in different content by transgender vloggers and mainstream media. This chapter analyses how these differences reflect on the controversies surrounding trans life and how trans people are valued. It also examines those aspects of trans life that are considered worthy of highlighting and whether there are differences or overlaps among content producers in how they produce transgender content— particularly how different transgender content producers use YouTube content categories and formats to stage trans issues. Chapter 6 discusses issues that are more unique to transgender vloggers. Chapter 7 considers how the transgender content producers align with and debate trans issues. Lastly, Chapter 8 elaborates on the findings of this research and reflects on the limitations of the applied methods for examining the work of issue making on YouTube. The findings suggest that both mainstream media and transgender vloggers shape YouTube as an issue space. Hereby, mainstream media content producers dominate in influencing the transgender agenda and in reaching a large audience. However, to some extent, YouTube empowers transgender vloggers by offering them the means to self- represent and do the work of issue making to influence transgender agenda. YouTube as a space for transgender issue-making is complex and involves and requires a dominancy in visibility and knowledge in exploiting content categories and their affiliated formats to make trans issues into consumable content for audiences. To conclude, YouTube entails processes of (re)assembling, (re)associating, aligning, disputing and discussing trans issues through group formations.

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Figure 1: White’s first YouTube video in which she criticizes female privileges.

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2. Being Trans: Mainstream Media, the Internet and YouTube

2.1 Trans lives as issues in mainstream media

As previously mentioned, to be a transgendered person means to have one’s existence become an issue of public concern. Typically, these concerns involve the social validity of trans identity, transphobia, violence, access to services and trans rights. Therefore, to be a trans person is also to deal with, speak to and negotiate over these issues. Mainstream media (e.g., theatre, television, radio, news, etc.) have a history of being venues where such trans issues are staged and represented by different actors with diverse stances and interests. For instance, ‘Boys Don't Cry’ (1999) is a well-known American biographical film that depicts the life of trans man Brandon Teena. In December 1993, at the age of 21, Brandon was gang raped and murdered by a group of male acquaintances. The case made national headlines and media coverage focused on the brutality and sensational part of the act, as people were unfamiliar with the spectacle of a woman passing as a man. Meanwhile, the case intrigued filmmaker Kimberly Peirce, who in an interview with CNN pointed to the issue that people were misinformed (Allen). She argued that media coverage approached the hate crime with little emotional understanding; and that not having the right emotional understanding could cause the public to contribute to a culture of violence in which such hate crimes take place. By highlighting the issues related to Brandon’s trans existence (e.g., passing, transphobia, relationships, violence and hate crimes), Peirce sought to make Brandon’s struggle matter to the public, who would see Brandon as a more deeply human being. A more recent example of how trans issues are staged in mainstream media is the issues surrounding the Gender Recognition Act 2004 in the United Kingdom. The law says that if trans people want to change their gender, they should apply for a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC). This document serves as proof that a trans person has met the conditions for legal recognition in the acquired gender. To be allocated a GRC, evidence of gender dysphoria (a mental condition of feeling one’s gender identity to be opposite to that assigned at birth) is required. As a result, gender can be assigned in law in two ways: biologically by birth or legally by acquiring a GRC. The regulation has set in motion issues surrounding trans life such as bureaucracy and long medical/legal procedures. This led the government of the United Kingdom to open up a public conversation about changing the law to streamline and demedicalise changing one’s gender. This generated discussion of whether trans people

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should be regarded as having a mental illness for them to become who they want to be. And if it is fair for trans people to be defined by factors such as financial conditions, waiting lists, bureaucracy and the consent of external parties. The media become places to address and reflect on such issues, such as during an interview conducted by The Guardian with an anonymous trans person who highlighted the issues he/she faced regarding GRC:

(I) n order to be legally recognised for who I am, I have to navigate demeaning and time-consuming bureaucracy. I must submit a portfolio of evidence—to a group of people who don’t know me and whom I will never meet—that I’ve lived in my true gender for the past two years. I have to get medical reports including two diagnoses of gender dysphoria. If I were married, I’d have to ask my spouse for their permission to be myself. When I’ve gone through this exhausting process, the evidence is sent to a gender recognition panel. And I have to pay £140 to hear whether people I’ll never meet decide if I’m a woman. The medical requirements are especially awful. In practice we are still required to have a psychiatrist or a psychologist confirm that we have a psychological condition that causes us to be trans. Given the waiting lists for gender identity services across the UK, this commonly takes a few years. (‘Reforming the Gender Recognition Act’)

This post shows that being trans in the United Kingdom is not a settled matter; instead it invokes questions that aim to change the way trans lives are dealt with. Media such as The Guardian became a place where such issues are discussed, addressed and brought to the attention of the public as issues that matter. Another example is how the media discusses, addresses and stages the issue of trans bathroom discrimination in the United States. The ability of trans people to use toilets that align with their gender identification has been an ongoing and unsettled matter in the United States and is on the trans agenda for many American non-profit organisations (NGOs) such as the National Center for Transgender Equality. Therefore, bathroom discrimination has become a flash point in the fight for trans rights. In 2016, North Carolina passed a law that prohibited trans bathroom discrimination. However, afterwards the state legislators withdrew that right by passing another bill that eliminated those protections in North Carolina. This led to a backlash from the trans community. In an article on the BBC News website, activist Wayne Maines argued that the effects of this bill were far-reaching. He stated: ‘Now, nowhere in North Carolina can a transgender person be sure they will not be forced into a 10

toilet where they don't belong and in fact, where they may not be safe’ (‘Viewpoint: Why toilets matter’). When Maines’s daughter transitioned at the age of ten and she wanted to use the girls’ bathroom at school, many parents in the community and state were upset. Concerns were raised that if his daughter would use the girls’ bathroom, other girls might see her male genitalia. Maines argued in the article that the one who was truly at risk was his daughter, as he pointed out to that if his daughter was forced to use the boy’s bathroom it might not be safe for her. When his daughter was told to use the staff toilet—after the school received backlash from media and organisations such as Christian Civic League of Maine—she was devastated by the school’s decision as it made her feel not like a normal student. Maines ended up suing the school for discrimination and the Supreme Judicial Court ruled in his favour; according to their judgement schools are prohibited to deny students their rights to use the toilet that matches their gender identification. Although Maines won the lawsuit, the consequences for going against trans bathroom discrimination were far-reaching; his family needed to hide for a couple of years, his wife changed jobs and they moved to another city to be safe. This article demonstrates that regarding the issue of trans bathroom discrimination, BBC News was concerned with the issue and allowed opponents of trans bathroom discrimination to be heard that highlighted safety issues and the right to use a toilet according to one’s gender identification. These examples are just a small subset of unsettled trans issues, staged and represented in mainstream media as matters of public concern by different media stakeholders. They demonstrate that mainstream media are venues where such unsettled matters are discussed. Although mainstream media covers trans issues, trans people themselves are not the ones who get to decide who speaks on trans issues and which topics are deserving of attention. In mainstream media there are limited options for trans people to influence the transgender agenda, as mainstream media gatekeepers decide how trans people are represented and which aspects of their lives are discussed. Therefore, in the next section, I elaborate on the role of mainstream media, how transgender people are often misrepresented and how their voices as issue-makers are seldom heard.

2.2 Misrepresentation of trans lives and under-coverage in mainstream media

Before 2014, media depictions of trans people were rare in the United States (GLAAD 2016). From a historical media perspective, people who identified as trans were not heavily featured in mainstream media (Miller 2). In those rare occasions when they were featured, the

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depictions were overtly negative, stereotypical, and particularly transgender women were heavily sexualised and fetishised (Abbott 2013). Moreover, transgender people were regularly portrayed as the keepers of secrets and the obscene aspects of their lives were highlighted to increase ratings and gain the attention of media audiences (Miller 2-3). For instance, in the 1990s, trans women were fascinating topics on daytime talk shows such as The Jerry Springer Show (Jackson et al. 1870). These daytime talk shows were often scrutinised by scholars who were interested in how trans representations were related to fear, deception, and freakishness (Gamson 1998). Furthermore, contemporary mainstream media is known for casting heterosexual actors as trans women (Jackson et al. 1871), such as Felicity Huffman in Transamerica (2005), Jared Leto in Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and Jeffrey Tambour in Transparent (2014). The trans communities have criticized mainstream media, as casting heterosexual actors as trans woman, further marginalising trans actors. Due to negative misrepresentation and under-coverage of trans people in mainstream media, trans individuals are in need of positive media depictions and mediated role models (Sausa 2005). Although there has been under-coverage of trans representation in mainstream media, in 2014 the United States reached a trans tipping point, according to Time Magazine. At the time, the visibility of trans people in media was at an all-time high, as a certain amount of television shows portrayed the life of a main transgender character (GLAAD 2016). This media visibility could potentially alter negative attitudes and behaviours towards transgender people, as media visibility in mainstream media has a positive effect on the attitudes and behaviours of viewers (Cohen 2001; Fisher 1985). Although mainstream media has the potential to influence the attitude of the public towards trans issues, transgender people are still often misrepresented, marginalized and under-covered. In this sense, trans people have limited options for their voices to be heard and to influence trans agenda in mainstream media. The rise of the Internet and its specific characteristics has brought a significant change to this situation. In mainstream media, trans people do not get to decide how or who is going to represent them or which issues are introduced nor can they form communities. However, the rise of the Internet allows transgender people to self-represent and socially organise, leading to an increase in transgender representations, communities and discussion of issues. In the coming section, I discuss the Internet’s effect on trans people’s self-representation and social organisation.

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2.3 Trans lives and the Internet: Self-representation and social organization

In the early stages of the Internet, many scholars came to the consensus that the Internet provided great opportunities for self-representation (e.g., Katz and Rice 2002; Rheingold 1993; Smith and Kollock 1999; Turkle 1995; Wallace 1999). Self-representation is understood here as individuals impressing on their environment, by leaving impressions that correlate to their standards (Schlenker and Scott 1981). Self-representation is crucial, especially in mediated environments, as people learn to write themselves into being (boyd 120). In mediated environments, people need different skills than the skills they use in real life to interpret and manage impressions, since our bodies are not usually visible on the Internet. The early Internet facilitated these opportunities for self-representation by allowing a person to experiment with one’s identity and gender in anonymity. For example, users could change or hide aspects of themselves due to the reduced auditory and visual possibilities (Igartua et al. 2009). Scholarly work has also shown that Internet users did not feel compelled to disclose aspects of themselves (in chats, blogs and fora), due to the anonymity with little repercussion (McKenna and Bargh 2000). Moreover, the Internet stimulated the forming of social online communities that were distant from real-life communities. These online social communities involved limited commitment that facilitated identity experiments (Turkle 1995; Igartua et al. 2009). Nicknames were an easy way for people to experiment with their identities and remove cues about their gender (Reid 1993). Nicknames could be gendered, gender neutral or even gender plural. As nicknames were manipulatable, users could easily and frequently change their nicknames and therefore could be constantly diverse as to which gender they wished to self-represent. In a sense, the Internet set individuals free to self-represent in a gender identity they conform to in manners that the offline world does not provide (Stone 1995). Therefore, it is not surprising to see that although ‘mainstream media has been slow to warm to trans representation; the Internet has long been a safe haven for the trans community’ (Miller 3). It is the under-coverage and misrepresentations in public culture and mainstream media concerning trans existence that have led trans people to the Internet. In comparison with mainstream media and offline environments, the Internet allowed trans people to facilitate information exchanges, self-exploration and gender experimentation (Fink and Miller 614). The latter is a right that is often not afforded in the offline world to those who identify with a

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gender other than assigned at birth and who wish to experiment with their gender (Miller 3). Or, as Whittle puts it: ‘cyberspace has presented a safe area where body figure and presentation are not among the initial aspects of personal judgement and social hierarchy within the transgender community’ (400). Therefore, in the early stages of the Internet individuals were free to self-present in the gender identity they desired in a way that the offline world did not always accept (Stone 1995). The Internet makes it possible for trans self-representations to be seen by a large and geographical dispersed audience who are distant from offline trans communities (Shapiro 2004). Therefore, Internet communication contributes to feeling a sense of community, and it also provides the opportunity for trans people and others to learn about trans identities in a safe and private way. The use of the Internet by trans people has changed how social organising happens. According to Shapiro this process entails the empowerment of trans subjects, new tactics for protest, the reduction of costs and the fading of geographical boundaries (172). Prior to the Internet, information about transgender people was hard to find. Trans individuals were depended on the medical profession and few support groups for transgender information (170). As a consequence, the forces of pathologisation and medicalisation dominated the framing of trans identities (170). The dominant mode of trans existence was stealth prompted by the medical community, who encouraged trans people to remain closeted about their status and disassociate from the trans community after transitioning (170). This did not foster the proliferation of trans communities. However, the rise of the Internet allowed trans people and activists to find each other and to devise their own framing of transgender identities, challenging the medical and social understanding of gender nonconformity and moving toward social acceptance and political rights. The Internet has fostered the reduction of social organisation costs, because of its low costs for communicating, organising and protesting online (171). This leads transgender activists and organisations to use the Internet as a way to minimise start-up and maintenance costs and to provide quick and efficient information distribution (171). The Internet facilitates networking and collective identity development, as trans organisations and individuals can distribute information, advertise, answer questions, and handle administrative and planning issues online. One of the more profound contributions of the Internet is that it has expanded where trans social movements and activism take place (172). Trans organisations and activists are not tied to their location, but can organise a movement or a protest from anywhere by accessing the Internet (e.g., through listservs, fora, email and websites) (172). This is significant for trans communities, as the Internet’s relative anonymity and safety contributes to recruiting people for transgender 14

activism and reduces the social stigma and related risks that have long inhibited trans mobilisation. To conclude, the Internet has allowed trans people to self-represent and organise movements and protests in ways that were—up till the moment of its birth—not seen before. However, as the Internet has evolved over the years, so have its characteristics; it has proliferated not only in websites but also in social media platforms. YouTube is a social media platform where trans people and organisations can address transgender issues and topics. In the next section, I discuss YouTube's specific characteristics to understand why it is an important platform for trans people and organisations and how they might use it to stage trans issues.

2.4 YouTube: A place for self-education, self-commodification and visibility

Before diving into how transgender people and organisations use YouTube as a place to address transgender topics and issues, it is worthwhile to look at the characteristics of YouTube itself. This sets the background for how, as discussed in the next sections (2.5 and 2.6) and in Chapter (3), we can understand how trans issue-making becomes a matter of deploying the mechanisms of YouTube, YouTube’s role in making videos visible and how transgender issue-making on the platform can be studied. YouTube was launched in May 2005 and is an online platform to create, share, watch and find videos. It has more than a billion users around the world and YouTube hosts hundreds of millions of hours of videos on its platform (Miller 3). In contrast to traditional media, YouTube makes it possible to ‘share user-generated content, including tutorials, reviews, reactions, pranks, confessionals, and much more’ (Miller 3). Because of YouTube’s commercialization in recent years, the distinction between user-generated content and commercial professionally generated content has slowly faded (Raun 101). Not only has the culture of the so-called ‘Pro-Ams’ (professional–amateurs) grown, but content created by other professionals such as mainstream media has grown as well. On YouTube, content producers regard making videos on YouTube as their main profession because of ad revenues and sponsored content (101). Furthermore, scholars have argued that YouTube is a platform for self-education and informal learning, and those digital technologies—such as YouTube—enable people to cultivate new selves (Ashman, Brown and Patterson 476). This argument is very much rooted in neoliberalism, as they point to these digital technologies as ‘technologies of the self’. The

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latter refers to how individuals use production technologies to shape their identity corporeally and cognitively to both their own and society's liking. These are operations performed (e.g., on their body, thoughts, conduct and so forth) either by themselves, or with help of others to transform themselves to reach a ‘state of happiness, purity, wisdom, perfection, or immortality’ (Foucault 18). To do so, the individual needs to regard himself as an entrepreneur, subjected to neoliberal ideals such as self-reliance, personal responsibility, boldness and a willingness to take risks in the pursuit of goals (du Gay and Holt 56). The neoliberal individual is ‘an entrepreneur of himself . . . being for himself his producer, being for himself his own capital, being for himself the source of [his] earnings’ (Smith 52). It is through this concept of neoliberalism that we can understand the practices of YouTube vloggers. As Raun suggested, YouTube encourages their vloggers to compete for attention and status to attract large followings and views (100). Attention, here, is an important term, as it relates to YouTube as an attention economy. It describes the relationship between the amount of information and the lack of audience attention (Goldhaber 1). In this sense, attention is rare, valuable and a driving force for an intense economy that is connected to money flows (Goldhaber 1). Visibility on YouTube relates to the degree of attention a YouTuber gets. Here, a small group of YouTubers receives a significant amount of attention, while the majority receives far less attention (Adamic and Huberman 2001). Therefore, many YouTubers question how they can promote themselves to gain the attention of audiences. To gain followers is important for YouTubers since metrics such as followers (on a symbolic level) are called ‘popularity makers’. Being a follower indicates the longevity of a user’s relationship with a creator and their intent to keep watching, which contributes to how YouTubers are positioned and legitimised as successful (García-Rapp 233). Raun argues that self-commodification on YouTube is used as a strategy to promote oneself and to gain followers. By self-commodification he refers to ‘a specific way of performing in front of the camera and addressing the audience to attract attention and publicity’ (100). He argues that self-commodification entails the practice of exploiting one’s online identity as if it were a branded good (100). This is very much tied to the aforementioned neoliberal technology of subjectivity—the entrepreneurial or ‘enterprising self’. The ones who successfully know how to strategize by means of self-commodification can reach a large following and achieve the status of micro-celebrity. Micro-celebrity is an online identity that is characterized by how people are articulating, creating and sharing their identities online (Marwick 115; Senft 350). Micro-celebrities are famous to a niche group of people and they have a large following base. It also reflects on a specific behaviour—presenting oneself as a celebrity (Marwick 114). 16

People can reach the status of a micro-celebrity by carefully constructing their selves online—in such manners that others regard them as famous (Marwick 114). The latter is not done easily; of micro-celebrities is expected that they are transparent, open, authentic, and they need to be able to interact with their audiences, so they can keep their status (Marwick 118-119). Therefore, of many micro-celebrities is expected that their followers get detailed information about their personal lives (Marwick 117). Although the success of micro-celebrities and others who do well on YouTube could be attributed to their competing strategies to gain audience attention, their visibility is also dependent on what YouTube intends its audiences to see. Platforms such as YouTube market themselves as flat, open and neutral spaces (Gillespie 358). However, their role is complex and fragile, as they (as intermediaries) must strategically present themselves and set expectations to end users, advertisers, and professional content producers, while also serving their own financial interest (353). Some argue YouTube invites users to take part and create content, while YouTube controls the conditions under which such creative content is produced (Gillespie 358). Gillespie has pointed out that these conditions are informed by practical, technical, economic and legal factors (358). Conditions are unavoidable; however, in setting these conditions, choices need to be made that end up shaping the contours of public discourse online. Hence, some argue that YouTube is not as neutral as they claim to be (358). For example, YouTube argued in a recent blogpost to rigorously enforce their policies with regard to harassment and hate speech (Dale 2019). In doing so, YouTube examines whether videos incite harassment, threaten or humiliate an individual or if personal information is revealed. For hate speech, they look at videos that might contain content that incites violence and hatred towards or promote supremacy over a protected group. In the first quarter of 2019, YouTube removed hundreds of millions of videos, comments and accounts that had been flagged or violated YouTube’s policies with regard to hate speech and harassment. In this way, YouTube has been able to reduce the visibility of borderline harmful content, which they do not want their users to see. Furthermore, YouTube argues on their Creator Academy page that they try to match videos with each viewer. However, this is challenging because every minute users upload 400 hours of video. Therefore, for users to see content that meets their desires, YouTube analyses what videos users watch, what they do not watch, the time viewers spend watching videos, which videos viewers like and dislike, and the ‘not interested’ feedback. According to YouTube, based on these considerations, only a select portion of YouTube’s total content becomes visible for users. In this way, what users see and the visibility of videos depends on matches made by YouTube. 17

So how does this relate to the question of how YouTube is becoming a medium in which transgender issues are debated? As the above-mentioned research shows, in contrast to the early stages of the Internet, operating on YouTube now requires strategies to gain audience attention, deal with competition, attract popularity markers (such as followings and views) and to address complex processes of visibility. If YouTube is becoming a medium for trans issue-making, this study must situate and frame the practice of issue-making within YouTube’s tendencies. Why? Because the success of YouTube videos in which transgender issues are staged as matters of public concern becomes, then, very much dependent on those complex tendencies. YouTube is not just a platform solely offering its services to broadcast and ‘give everyone a voice’ as it mission states. No, this study aligns with the aforementioned research by stating that YouTube is an active (non-human) actor that has a dominant voice, in which videos become popular, visible and successful. To examine how YouTube has become a place where transgender issues are discussed, the next section examines how other scholars have analysed transgender life on YouTube.

2.5 Trans life on YouTube

Media that has been created by and about trans people is increasingly being shared and watched on a mass scale (Horak 572). By comparing the search results for the word ‘transgender’ on YouTube, Raun found that there is an exceptional increase in trans content: growing from 134,000 search results in October 2012, 458,000 in June 2015 to 1,480,000 in February 2017 (101). Therefore, it is not surprising to see that this change in trans representation has caught the eye of scholars who are examining this new trans phenomenon. For example, Miller has examined how YouTube functions as a place for trans education, not only for transgender people but also for heterosexual people (2017). He argues that it is through this understanding—of YouTube as an informal environment for education—that we can understand how trans people and others could gain from informative and autobiographical online content (Miller 4). Miller stated that YouTube’s educational character allows for trans people and others to gather, exchange ideas and address issues (4). This is important as (earlier mentioned) offline and before the Internet; trans people could have little trans knowledge and relied on a few (medical) professionals for information (3-4). This changed with the rise of YouTube. For instance, on YouTube trans people could find others who have documented their transitioning experiences. This could encourage, inspire and educate viewers who might be in the process of deciding whether they would like to

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transition themselves (Miller 4). It is argued that some issues trans individuals face (e.g., violence, transphobia and prejudice), could result from the lack of education by heterosexual people and under-exposure of transgender individuals in media (5). Therefore, according to Miller, YouTube videos containing trans themes could be of significant value, as they might help to increase understanding issues that affect trans individuals and communities (Miller 2). Horak has identified YouTube as a platform that has almost single-handedly transformed the trans mediascape (572). She questioned how the parameters of YouTube affect the form and content of trans vlogs, the strategies trans vloggers undertake, and why videos that document transgender vloggers’ transitioning process has become so popular on YouTube. Horak found that trans videos are structured by YouTube’s penchant for the personal and the spectacular (572). Transgender vlogs, or as Horak called it, ‘talking-head’ videos, create an intimate relationship between trans YouTube vloggers and their viewers (572). In this relationship the trans vloggers is seen as an expert on certain matters (572). Moreover, Horak states that vlogs become spectacular when used to exhibit vloggers bodies in the gender they identify with. She pointed out that these talking-head videos operate according to a temporality she called ‘hormone time’ (572). According to Horak, hormone time refers to moment a trans starts to transition—to the moment their bodies fully align with the gender they affirm with. This process is not linear, as vloggers ‘insert and comment on older videos of themselves, imagine future selves, and sometimes question, pause, or stop hormone treatment’ (580). Raun examined how trans YouTube vloggers used their trans identity to brand themselves and therefore self-commodify (2018). He examined YouTube vlogger Julie van Vu, who he framed as a micro-celebrity because of her success and her many appearances in mainstream media. He argued that Vu’s YouTube videos represent a new genre of trans vlogs, which tries ‘to combine and bridge self-reflexive documentations of transition, offering support and advice from others in a similar situation, and sponsored/commercially driven tips and tricks on make-up, beauty and body modification’ (103). He argued that Vu broke with the narrative that trans vloggers had been reluctant to monetise their content (103). Often trans vlogging was understood to be sceptical or critical towards capitalist logic and structures, as those structures hinder access to transitioning technologies and products for some trans people (103-104). According to Raun, this new genre demonstrates how trans vloggers could be imbued within the aforementioned neo-liberal notions of an entrepreneurial self, and how they could embrace capitalist logic and structures to support their own transition (103). According to Raun, Vu demonstrated this by using her trans status as a brand 19

and by building a community through the concept of intimacy (105). This intimacy can be achieved in different ways and is expected by audiences (105). He stated that intimacy becomes a genre when thoughts, feelings and situations that seem deeply private are documented in the form of a video diary. As stated by Raun, intimacy in trans vlogs works as an important currency, as it can be capitalised in different and overlapping ways (e.g., monetary purposes, social recognition and as a tool in advocacy work) (99). To conclude, in this section, I have examined how other scholars view trans life on YouTube. According to these scholars, trans life on YouTube entails employing its educational potential, strategies of intimacy and self-commodification, videos documenting one’s transitioning process, reflecting on a past self and imagining a future self. Although these scholarly works are very helpful and give insight about how transgender people operate and engage with YouTube, they neglect to discuss how YouTube has become as a space in which transgender issues have become matters of public concern. Scholars have failed to examine not only the issue-making capabilities of transgender vloggers but also the network of (non-human and human) actors that are tied to specific issues. Therefore, the next section elaborates on transgender issue-making as an aspect of YouTube.

2.6 Trans issue-making a matter of YouTube

This chapter demonstrated how trans issues are dealt with in different media and presented the limitations of mainstream and exciting new possibilities for online trans issue-making. This research suggests that trans issue-making is a matter of media, as media set the rules for how, by whom and when trans issues matter. In mainstream media, trans issue-making is done by media actors, and trans people are often misrepresented, marginalized, under- covered and limited in self-representing. In contrast, the early Internet has brought new options for trans people to self-represent and experiment with their gender in anonymity and has set them free from the limitations of geographical boundaries. As the early Internet seems to have been a more open (anonymous) space with fewer rules for transgender representation and organising, this chapter has demonstrated that operating and engaging with YouTube seems to involve rather complex processes of self-commodification, the personal, intimacy, competition, popularity markers and visibility strategies. To understand how trans issues are staged as public concerns on YouTube, I suggest that we must situate trans issue-making within these complex factors. As discussed in Section 2.4, YouTube is an attention economy with popularity markers that consist of metrics such as views and followings that indicate the

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success and visibility of YouTube content producers. This visibility is the result of strategies that trans content producers undertake and of the output of YouTube matching capabilities. Therefore, to understand how trans issue work takes place on YouTube, strategies of trans content producers should be studied and YouTube should be regarded as a (non-human) actor that has an active say in which issues become visible. The latter is not easily accomplished, as much of YouTube’s processes are complex and obscure. Hence, I propose repurposing YouTube's popularity markers for social research by critical analytic and digital issue-mapping (see Chapter 3). Why? Through critical analytics and digital issue mapping, we can determine trans content that has become successful and visible on YouTube. These methods serve to trace the issue-making capabilities of trans content producers and of YouTube’s video-matching capabilities. This approach will allow for examining when and which issues are pushed forward by trans content producers and YouTube. This study aims to contribute to the field of Transgender and Media studies by not only giving insight about when and which transgender issues are put forward, but also by looking at the state of affairs surrounding these issues. As previously mentioned, scholars have neglected exploring how trans content producers operate within a network of actors that are tied to those specific issues. Posing the question of how trans issues are staged as public concerns on YouTube involves not only examining the individual trans issue-maker but also a wider network involved that besides transgender vloggers might consist of mainstream media organisations and others. This sets the background to understand the dynamic relations among trans content producers. Understanding the dynamic relationship in networks of trans issue-makers relates to the challenges of hierarchies, dominant voices, alignment, dispute through group formations, and competition between transgender issue-makers. Therefore, the next chapter discusses digital issue mapping and critical analytics by answering the question of how these methods can help to study trans content producers and their capability to make trans issues into public concerns within the addressed case studies.

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3. Studying Transgender Issue-Making on YouTube

3.1 Digital issue mapping

The coming sections explore how digital issue mapping and critical analytics can help to study trans issue-making on YouTube by repurposing YouTube’s data for social research. Therefore, this section elaborates on digital issue mapping, Section 3.2 on critical analytics and lastly Section 3.3 how digital issue mapping and critical analytics can be applied to the case studies in this research. Issue mapping is a method that provides ways for describing, deploying and visualising the actors, objects and substances of social issues (Rogers et al. 9-10). This methodology identifies and traces associations and connections (both in narrative and visual form) among actors involved in an issue (9-10). Issue mapping, is based on Latorian’s (2005) premise that society is not a pre-given substance or structure that serves as a framework through which issues can be explained and understood (Rogers et al. 14-15). Instead, society should be understood ‘as the movement of actors constantly in the process of (re)assembling, (re)associating and (dis)agreeing’ (15). Therefore, to comprehend the state of affairs for social issues, one needs to examine the movement of the actors involved. How? When the social interaction gets triggered, for example in disputes, struggles, controversies, issues and movements, the actors leave traces behind that become visible (15-16). By following these traces, we can examine social issues to identify the actions, connections and associations that bring diverse actors together into this performative state of affairs (15). From a Latourian perspective, there are five factors for the researcher to consider when following the traces of social interactions. The first factor, there are only group formations that are in constant development (16). Therefore, group formations require a continuous stream of input of actions with which they can indicate their boundaries, limitations, and meanings. To examine such group formations means to follow the actors and make their group formations become visible (16). The second factor refers to the researcher’s task to map out agency. This raises the question of how issues become matters of concern and collective calls for action. The third factor entails the recognition that non-humans (objects) also have agency (17). The fourth factor entails how a matter of fact differs from a matter of concern. Facts may contribute, but do not per se result into an issue being settled. Therefore, one needs to trace how facts come about and analyse how they shape matters of concern (17). The fifth factor requires of the researcher to ask when and to whom issues are matters of

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concern and how they are articulated and structured (17). Ultimately, the researcher traces the network and describes what actors within the state of affairs do to move others toward their designated objective (17). According to Rogers et al., the Web plays a crucial role in how we study issues, as it has created new channels to act, communicate, and to participate in debates regarding an issue (29-30). The authors state that digital methods are useful for issue mapping and developing a research framework that contains a set of techniques and software tools for performing social research within the Web (30-31). Digital methods make use of digital devices and objects (e.g., search engines and hyperlinks) and the characteristics of media. This means that such research uses the (technological) logic of media devices to make their techniques useful for social research. Following the medium prevents being surprised by, for example, the disappearance of an API or the removal of a website. Lastly, Rogers et al. suggest that by combining digital methods with issues mapping, researchers can benefit from how digital mediation makes ‘social traceability’ possible. Social traceability refers to how a researcher can follow, aggregate and document a string of hyperlinks or a set of keywords that are used within and across online media to depict associations and substantive alignments between actors (30-31).

3.2 Critical analytics in issue mapping

Vanity metrics measure and show how well one is doing on social media based on popularity markers (e.g., likes, page views, subscribers, and so forth) (Rogers 450). The term also reflects on how social media are spaces for people to present themselves in ways they which to be perceived (Rogers 452). Vanity metrics breed micro-celebrities, as social media metrics propagate a loop of recognisable fame based on measurements and popularity markers. The accompanying critique is how micro-celebrities have become who they are based on factors of fame, instead of by greatness (455). Rogers formed a critique on these vanity metrics; he developed a different kind of metrics that he calls critical analytics (450). Critical analytics mark ‘a shift from social media as a productive social networking site for self-presentation’ to a space where metrics can be used to study social issue work (i.e., the mobilisation of publics around social issues and causes) (455). Critical analytics assumes professional work that is productive for issue engagement analysis to be organised and distributed through social media (467-468).

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Rogers proposes that when researchers want to apply digital methods—which repurposes online devices and methods for social research—to use altmetric scores and other engagement measurements (467). Critical analytics offers those other types of measurements to study issues that are introduced, taken up, (re) articulated, and distributed on social media (455). These measurements entail: the dominant voice, concern, commitment, positioning, and alignment (456). The dominant voice measures which sources are considered most impactful within an issue space (456). Concern relates to the actors who are convinced an issue is a matter of concern and the actors that are present or absent within an issue space (456). Commitment refers to how long an issue is a matter of concern to the actors. It relates to questions of longevity or perseverance, despite lessening attention by others (459). Positioning is based on the choice of words, which are used to indicate and discuss the matter of concern. These words might reveal whether they are part of a local, national or international agenda and stance-taking, or if they are deployed to step outside the current debate (461-462). Lastly, researchers could use positioning to examine the alignment of group formations. This means that one identifies which actors use identical issue language and could therefore share a similar position. These actors might not belong to the same area, field, coalition, or partnership, but how they articulate themselves aligns them with others who use the same words (466-467).

3.3 Organizing issue mapping on YouTube

Digital issue mapping has already shown its potential to map controversies and issues in different scholarly work: from mapping controversies in the content collaboration on Wikipedia (Borra et al. 2014), to the issues of the ageing of Europe (Rogers et al., 2015) and issues of privacy and surveillance concerning the National Security Agency (NSA) data leak in June 2013 (Marres and Moats 2015). However, digital methods has yet to show its potential in broadening the understanding of how YouTube has become a space in which trans lives are publicly addressed, interpreted and discussed as an issue. Aforementioned, this research addresses the questions: How are trans lives staged as matters of public concern on YouTube? Based on such staging, how may one describe the trans experience? Also, how has YouTube become a medium in which these issues are debated? Digital issue mapping with aid of critical analytics can help answer these questions,

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since it allows identifying and tracing associations between actors involved in transgender issues on YouTube. YouTube is a platform in which popularity makers (or as Rogers would put it, vanity metrics) symbolise success and visibility, and indicate what YouTube intends its audiences to see. Digital issue mapping with aid of critical analytics could offer the tools to repurpose these metrics by retracing and examining the most viewed trans content videos on YouTube, to examine the engaged actors and the associations and connections between them. To help repurposing YouTube’s data this research makes use of the YouTube Data Tool. The YouTube’s Data Tool is developed by Digital Methods Initiative (DMI) and media scholar Bernhard Rieder, to build up datasets that can be analysed in social research. DMI is one of the main Internet new media study groups focused primarily on developing methods and tools for repurposing online devices and platforms (such as Twitter, Facebook, Google and YouTube) for research on social and political issues. The tool can extract data from the YouTube API v3 and has several modules. The video list module includes the ability to create lists with video information and statistics that can be generated based on a query tied to a specific channel, a playlist, ID or by a specific search query. One can select metrics such as view counts and ratings to further refine the search. Based on such lists, digital issue mapping with aid of critical analytics allow repurposing YouTube data by asking sub questions that inform the case studies in this research such as: What type of videos and content producers engage with trans topics? Which actors are most successful, visible and committed to stage trans issues as public concerns on YouTube (Chapter 4)? And how do they make trans issues into consumable content to maintain their dominancy in visibility and influence transgender agenda (Chapter 5)? To what extent are transgender people themselves empowered and free to make trans issues matter and influence transgender agenda (Chapter 6)? And how do how trans content producers align, dispute and create group formations (Chapter 7)? Hence, digital issue mapping with help of critical analytics are useful to reach the goal of this research that is to study how trans content producers on YouTube deal with, speak to and negotiate issues surrounding trans life.

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4. Trans Content: Mainstream Media vs. Trans Vloggers

4.1 YouTube a paradise for trans people?

On YouTube’s ‘About’ page, the site states that their mission is to give everyone a voice and to let them know what is happening in the world. Their mission is based on four principles: freedom of speech, freedom of information, freedom to exploit opportunities and freedom to feel at home. YouTube argues that everyone should be able to speak freely and should have the creative means to express themselves. They believe that in doing so, people should also have easy and unhindered access to information and video content created by the site’s users. As a result, according to YouTube, its platform has become a site where everyone is given the opportunity to be discovered, build a business and succeed in their own way. They argue that it is the public that determines what is popular and that other parties are not gatekeepers that determine content. For trans people these promises may seem to agree with what many scholars have already argued: that the Internet is a safe haven for the production of transgender information, knowledge and representations (Miller 3). However, although YouTube offers its users the means to create and upload content, the visibility of videos and therefore of users depends on strategies that gain the attention of audiences and ultimately YouTube’s video matching mechanism. Therefore, this case study uses the most watched videos according to the search term ‘transgender’ as a reflection of those factors that determine visibility. This method resulted in identifying not only the type of trans content videos that are visible and pushed forward by YouTube, but also in the ability to examine which content producers engaged with trans topics as well as which trans content producers ranked the highest and therefore had the largest audience to influence. Although this case study largely confirms that YouTube is a ‘paradise for trans voices’, the findings demonstrate that although both mainstream media and transgender vloggers shape YouTube as an issue space, mainstream media is still the most dominant in influencing the transgender agenda as they are most popular and therefore have the largest audience.

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4.2 Tracing trans content producers: searches, video lists and actor-channels

To trace which trans content producers are most successful in becoming popular and gaining the attention of audiences, I used the video list module of the YouTube Data Tool to extract a video list and view count based on the search ‘transgender’. The search for ‘transgender’ was to examine to what extent the search results reflected the most popular and visible issues regarding being transgender. To limit the search results, I restricted the video list module to generate only the 50 most watched videos. For every search result, information was provided about the position, channelId, channelTitle, videoId, videoTitle, videoDescription, videoCategoryLabel, viewCount and LikeCount. For each of the returned videos, I queried the ChannelId using the Channel Info Module of the YouTube Data Tool. This allowed me to trace back 35 channels and retrieve information such as account name, statistics, personal description, content details and status. I eliminated channels that did not contain any English or Dutch content and determined whether the actors had any commitment regarding transgender issues. To do so, I queried the account name of each of the remaining channels in combination with ‘transgender’ in the video list module based on relevance. I determined that if content producers had not uploaded more than two trans related videos, they had no commitment toward transgender issues. This eliminated 13 channels from the video list, resulting in 22 remaining actors. Their channels information was used to determine what type of actors these trans content producers were. Among the 22 actors, the findings suggested three types of trans content producers: 1) mainstream media that referred to those who identified as television programme makers, news outlets or radio; 2) transgender YouTube vloggers that referred to members who had a personal account and who identified themselves as transgender; 3) and others who had a personal account but did not identify as transgender (see Table 1).

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Mainstream Video Transgender Video Others Video media view vloggers view view count (in count (in count (in millions) millions) millions) ABC News 69.6 Gigi Gorgeous 11.1 Wickydkewl 3.6 Barcroft TV 45.5 Arielle Scarcella 7.9 TheTalko 31.3 Nikita Dragun 6.5 Dr.Phil 13.2 Maya 5.4 Channel 4 9.6 Emma Ellingsen 5.0 LastWeekTonight 9.3 PRINCESSJOUL 4.4 ES RT 9.2 Kailani Loren 3.7 What Would You 6.4 Eden The Doll 3.7 Do? BBC Three 4.9 HLN 4.5 TheEllenShow 4.0 National 4.0 Geographic The Rebel Media 3.6 Total 215.1 47.7 3.6

Table 1: Overview of the 22 most visible actors on the video list, based on the search ‘transgender’ and view count on YouTube.

4.3 Mainstream media’s dominant voice in bringing forward transgender issues

The findings of this case study demonstrate that the most popular transgender content on YouTube that appeared on the video list generated over 266 million views, while content from mainstream media generated over 215 million views and transgender vloggers generated almost 48 million views. Therefore, both mainstream media and transgender vloggers were shaping YouTube as an issue space. However, this case study suggests that mainstream media, and in particular ABC News with over 69 million views, had the most

28 dominant voice in staging transgender issues, as they had the largest reach and therefore were most impactful. Based on these findings, to some extent, YouTube is a free haven for trans people, as YouTube allows trans people to self-represent. However, this should be taken into perspective, as content created by trans people themselves subjects to the dominance of mainstream media content. Although YouTube’s mission might be to give everyone the chance to be discovered, this case study shows that for trans people, this is not (fully) the case. Hence, regarding issue-making this case study suggests that issues staged by transgender people are less likely to become matters of public concern. When taking into consideration that view count reflects on strategies to gain the attention of audiences, what viewers like to see and what YouTube intends audiences to see, the findings show that transgender issues staged by mainstream media are more likely to become public concerns as the media have a larger reach. To conclude, YouTube as an issue space resembles mainstream media, as mainstream trans content makers are still dominant in gatekeeping what becomes a trans issue. In the next chapter, I elaborate on these 22 actors by examining how they make ‘being trans’ into different content and determine which aspects of trans life are worthy of highlighting by content categories and formats.

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5. When Do Trans Lives Matter on YouTube?

5.1 Trans life as trans content

In mainstream media trans people are often marginalised, misrepresented and under-covered. Now that trans content is increasing on YouTube, and both mainstream media and trans vloggers are actively shaping issues, the question arises as to how trans life is being made into content on YouTube. Which aspects of trans life do these trans content producers deem important enough to highlight? How do the ways in which trans content is produced contribute to strategies for gaining the attention of audiences? This case study discusses these questions and proposes that YouTube’s content categories and formats serve as frameworks through which aspects of trans life are highlighted and made into content. Content categories have a significant value, as they help to organise the millions of channels and billions of videos on YouTube, and provide a common vocabulary for advertisers, creators and viewers. Additionally, content categories assist advertisers and viewers in being able to target and better understand their audiences. More importantly, YouTube argues on its ‘Creators Academy’ page that viewers are often used to viewing videos in specific formats and lengths and with certain production values. Hence, these formats are of significant value, as the use of the right format contributes to being successful within a content category. The findings suggest that mainstream trans content producers use content categories and formats to highlight transgender life as newsworthy, sensational, provocative and fun. Transgender vloggers use the vlog format to highlight personal aspects of trans life. By highlighting these aspects of trans life, YouTube trans content producers can reach large audiences.

5.2 Content categories as trans issue spaces

Every channel on YouTube is associated with a content category (see Figure 2 for an overview of content categories). Each of the videos appearing on the video list is accompanied by information about its content category, this allows to trace the different content categories used by the 22 actors who were most successful and visible on YouTube. The findings show that videos containing transgender issues are most watched in six content categories: ‘news and politics’, ‘entertainment’, ‘people and blogs’, ‘how to and

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style’, ‘education’ and ‘film and animation’ (see Table 2). As previously mentioned, content categories have a significant value as they serve as a framework through which viewers can understand and consume trans content. Although the 22 trans content producers operated in an array of different content categories, trans content was most impactful and visible in ‘news and politics’ where trans content was the most watched. As Table 2 shows, new actors ABC News, Barcroft TV, HLN, The Rebel Media and RT (formerly Russia Today) could reach an audience that generated over 132 million views. Within this category, ABC News dominated as their videos made up more than half of the total views generated among these news actors. Trans vloggers mostly operated in different content categories and were most visible in the ‘people and blogs’ category. Although content categories might help to understand which space on YouTube trans content was most impactful and visible, they do not help identify how aspects of trans life are highlighted and being made into content that matters to viewers. Therefore, in the coming sections I discuss the formats used within content categories that help turn trans topics into consumable content.

Figure 2: overview YouTube content categories.

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Rank #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6

Categories News and Entertainment People Howto & Education Film & politics and blogs Style Animation

View count 132.4 82.6 26.9 11.6 7.9 5 per category (in millions) Trans ABC TheTalko Nikita Gigi Arielle Emma content News Dragun Gorgeous Scarcella Ellingsen producers

Barcroft Dr.Phil Maya Princess- TV Joules

RT What Would Eden The You do Doll

The Rebel Channel 4 Gigi Media Gorgeous

HLN BBC Three Kailani Loren

TheEllenShow Wickyd- kewll National Geographic

LastWeek- Tonight Table two: overview actors per content category

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5.3 When trans life becomes newsworthy through human-interest stories

This section focuses on how aspects of transgender life are highlighted and made into newsworthy content by mainstream trans content producers for the ‘news and politics’ category by using the human-interest story news format. Human-interest stories typically feature or discuss a person emotionally by exploring the problems, achievements or concerns of the featured person to induce feelings of interest, sympathy or motivation among viewers. Through this emotional storytelling, viewers connect to the news story. These stories are presented by one or more news presenters and may also include interviews with experts. As an example of how this format is exploited in ‘news and politics’ to make trans life matter and become highly visible, consider the video, ‘Transgender at 11’, by ABC News. ABC News is the news division of the American Broadcasting Company and breaks national and international news. On YouTube it uses the content category, ‘news and politics’, to address an audience seeking news videos. Their video ‘Transgender at 11’ ranked top on the video list with over 31 million views. The video addressed the story of transgender teenager, Jazz Jenning. ABC News had been following Jazz since she was seven years old, turning her into a spectacle by publicizing her as the first publicly documented trans child. To induce an emotional understanding and feelings of sympathy among viewers, the news anchor, Barbara Walters, took the viewer on a journey through the issues Jazz as a trans teenager faced. For example, the video starts with Barbara telling the viewer that ‘If you think life is complicated, then try dealing with a transgender girl texting with a boy she just met at school’. The video then shifts to Jazz and her parents discussing how she should inform and educate her new male friend on what transgender is and why she identifies as one (see Figure 3). Here, ABC News staged Jazz’s life as complicated and tried to induce emotional feelings among viewers, so they would connect with not only Jazz but also the challenges her parents faced. In the video being trans was staged as a real phenomenon, as expert Dr Will Charlton was interviewed about Jazz’s condition. Dr Charlton argued: ‘Jazz is a 100 percent girl, and there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that they did the right thing’. By saying ‘did the right thing’, Dr Charlton referred to the start of Jazz’s transitioning process, in which he gave Jazz hormone shots (see Figure 4). The opinion of an expert in this video played a major role in staging being trans as a reality. One could argue that the opinion of experts makes it more likely for viewers to take Jazz more seriously, as the information provided comes from an expert. Lastly, Walters raised awareness that hormone treatments come with a price. She argued that Jazz might develop a female body due to hormone

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treatment, but that hormone treatments are costly, are not covered by insurance and could have bodily effects, including infertility. By examining how ABC News used the human-interest story news format, it appears the story of Jazz Jenning became newsworthy as she—as a trans girl—was framed as being different. Being a trans girl involves different challenges and issues than those experienced by heterosexual teenagers. A transgender teenage girl like Jazz faced issues such as rejection, hormone treatments, financial costs and infertility, just to name a few. Perhaps this difference, this life of issues so specific to transgender existence, is what made this video newsworthy and therefore might have sparked the interest of viewers. By giving such a detailed overview of Jazz’s life, viewers not only got a better understanding and but could also emotionally connect with Jazz, by experiencing a trans life through this video.

Figure 3: Jazz talking to her father about a boy she met at school.

Figure 4: Dr. Charlton injecting hormones into Jazz’s arm.

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5.4 When trans life becomes sensational, provocative and entertaining

5.4.1 Trans content should distract and entertain According to YouTube, the content category, ‘entertainment’, should entail videos (from visual arts, music, theatre, film and so forth) that distract and entertain. This definition leads to building an understanding of the actors involved in this category and how they use video formats to make trans life into content that distracts and entertains. The findings show that in this category, trans content producers depart from techniques used by television network entertainment news, to adopt specific television programming formats such as talk shows and documentaries (see Table 2). To understand how these mainstream trans content producers make trans life content entertaining and distracting, consider the findings of two actors: Dr. Phil and TheTalko. In the ‘entertainment’ content, Dr. Phil and TheTalko stage transgender issues as sensational, provocative and entertaining. This is done through two formats: the tabloid talk show and infotainment. Dr. Phil’s video ‘Transgender Teen Confronts Mom Who She Says Doesn’t Support Her’ showcased how the format of the tabloid talk show is used to stage transgender issues as sensational and provocative. Secondly, in their video, ‘10 Transgender Celebrities We All Admire’ TheTalko uses the infotainment format to bring forward transgender issues in a way that is informing, fun and entertaining.

5.4.2 Transgender issues as sensational and provocative Dr. Phil is an American, Emmy-nominated, and daily, one-hour television talk show hosted by psychologist and lifestyle strategist Dr. Phil McGraw. The talk show uses television to tell fascinating and real stories about ordinary people. According to Dr. Phil he makes psychology accessible and understandable to everyone by addressing a range of topics that are unspoken about in society (e.g., child abuse, suicide, domestic violence, and more). In doing this, the talk show makes use of what one might call the format of a tabloid talk show, which is a subgenre (popularised by Oprah Winfrey) of the larger talk show genre. In the format of a tabloid talk show, the host invites a group of guests to the studio to discuss an emotional, controversial, sensational and/or provocative topic. The guests are encouraged to resolve their problems on-camera. By understanding the tabloid format used by Dr. Phil, this study unravels how the sensational and provocative aspects of trans life are used to attract the attention of audiences and make the issues matter.

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For instance, in the video, ‘Transgender Teen Confronts Mom Who She Says Doesn’t Support Her’, a trans teen, Arianna, her friend, Jodeci, and her mom were guests on Dr. Phil (see Figure 5). The video ranked high on the video list and was watched for over seven million times. In this video, the issues that trans teen Arianna faced were framed as sensational because of the ‘shocking’ comments Arianna’s mom had made toward her. The video begins with Dr Phil reading a list of controversial and hateful comments that the mother had made toward Arianna that were also displayed on a big screen in the studio (see Figure 6). In these comments, Arianna’s mom called her dumb, admitted that she flushed Arianna’s hormone pills and refused to use female pronouns such as ‘her’ to address Arianna. These comments were seen as shocking and provocative and these feelings of shock were accentuated by the shots where the viewers saw the reactions of shocked audience members (see Figure 7). Arianna’s friend Jodeci functioned as an eyewitness who further helped to frame the behaviour of Arianna’s mother as sensational and provocative. Jodeci confronted Arianna’s mother, telling her that Arianna was cutting herself because of the problems she faced when her mother told her she was ugly and never would be a girl (see Figure 8). As Jodeci stated that Arianna’s mom should support Arianna unconditionally, the audience started clapping. Here again, the audience contributed to staging the unsupportive and non- accepting behaviour by Arianna’s mom as an issue. Thus, in this specific video the attention of viewers is redirected, as this video distracted and entertained by exploiting the sensational and provocative issue of transgender teen Arianna not being accepted and supported by her mother. Dr. Phil reaches millions of people and it is by depicting these sensational and provocative aspects of trans life in the tabloid talk show format that this issue can be staged as a public concern.

Figure 5: Arianne, her mom and a friend are guests on the Dr. Phil show. 36

Figure 6: Overview of hateful comments Arianna’s mom made towards her.

Figure 7: Audience member is shocked by the comments Arianna’s mom has made.

Figure 8: Arianna’s friend claims Mom had been unsupportive toward Arianna.

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5.4.3 Transgender issues as fun Another example of how YouTube actors operate in creating issues from transgender topics in the ‘entertainment’ content category is that of actor TheTalko, which uses the infotainment format, which is generally identified by its entertaining and informative nature by using flashy graphics, music, sensationalism and celebrity gossip. On their website, TheTalko confirms being a growing authority in infotainment, as they provide their audience of about 72 million readers with news and entertainment related to designer and affordable fashion, make-up and skincare, celebrities and health and fitness. To explain how TheTalko exploits the format of infotainment to make transgender issues into consumable content, consider their YouTube video, ‘10 Transgender Celebrities We All Admire’, that appeared on the study’s video list and was watched over 26 million times. The video dealt with the issue that being trans is not easy at all. In the video’s description, TheTalko argued that trans life is rough since trans people face ignorance, transphobia and the consequences of transitioning. TheTalko makes use of the infotainment format by using trans celebrities as examples; using celebrities is a way to stage issues in an entertaining way, as these celebrities work in the entertainment business and are famous. In the video, TheTalko argued that there was a trend in which more trans celebrities are publicly coming out to fight for the rights of trans people everywhere and listed their top ten favourite trans celebrities. TheTalko also exploited the infotainment format by using a narrated voice-over to guide the viewer throughout the video. The narrator had an important function in staging trans issues, as the video solely comprised flashy, fast moving pictures. These pictures also had an important function, as they emphasized in an entertaining way the argument being made by the narrator. For instance, the narrator stated: ‘Life is hard for average people, but imagine how much harder it is for people who are transgender.’ They had to face ignorant people, go through transitioning and deal with feelings of isolation, the video explained. The issue of ‘life being hard for transgender people’, was emphasized by the video’s background picture (see Figure 9) that symbolised how trans people are judged and the issues they have directed toward them. Throughout the video, background information was given about the trans celebrities and the specific issues they faced growing up. For example, the voice-over told the viewer the story of Laverne Cox, who was an actress, known for her work in the hit series, Orange is the New Black. Cox was bullied as a child for being too feminine, was not allowed to do girly things and eventually tried killing herself. However, the voiceover tells the viewer that Cox was able to overcome these issues and was now a successful celebrity 38 who advocated for trans rights (see Figure 10). Reaching a state of a celebrity meant in this video overcoming the issues faced while being transgender. TheTalko asks in the video for viewers to subscribe to their channel if they want to see more ‘fun’ videos. Although trans issues are serious in nature, for these issues to be made into content that viewers like, the video would be presented to the audience as fun. In this way, trans issues can be consumed through an entertaining matter.

Figure 9: Voiceover explaining what transgender people have to go through.

Figure 10: Transgender celebrity Laverne Cox advocating for transgender rights.

5.5 When trans life becomes personal

The findings show that trans vloggers upload trans content in different content categories: 1) people and blogs; 2) how to and style; 3) education; and 4) film and animation (see Table 2).

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However, transgender vloggers tend to be most successful in the ‘people and blogs’ category. In these vlogs they sit in front of their cameras and directly address their audiences. Vlogs tend to be funny and snappy, however some YouTube vloggers address more serious topics like mental disorders and physical abuse in their vlogs. Research has already shown that trans vloggers engage in a digital autobiographical act, which involve re-creating and re-manifesting the self (Raun 102-103). Their vlogs function as ‘sites for memory preservation as well as experiential identity communication and negotiation’ (102). The trans vlog as part of the media genre may function as a diary that documents the bodily and emotional changes over time 102). Also, the trans vlog may be used by trans vloggers as a try out to publicly adjust their appearance (103). This makes the vlogger the centre of and vulnerable to other people’s feedback (103). As mentioned earlier, trans vloggers are expected to be transparent, open and authentic. Therefore, they need to reveal personal information. So how do trans vloggers use the format of the vlog to stage trans issues? To answer this question consider Gigi Gorgeous’ video, ‘I Am Transgender | Gigi’, that appeared in the list of most-watched videos with almost four million views. In ‘I Am Transgender | Gigi’, Gigi came out as being a trans woman. For many trans people, coming out is an issue since they have to deal with issues of acceptance, transphobia and prejudice. By exploiting the format of the vlog, Gigi was able to come out to her viewers in a personal manner and address the issue of acceptance. The video was shot in a typical talking-head concept, which means that Gigi talked directly into the camera, as if she was having a personal conversion with her viewers. The personal relationship, which Gigi carefully tried to construct with her viewer, was emphasized in the video, as Gigi laid bare her emotions, such as being nervous when she told her story, getting emotional when she told her viewers about the loss of her mother and how she missed her mom in this period of coming out and transitioning (see Figure 11). The personal relationship with Gigi’s viewers was emphasized, as Gigi apologised that she was sorry for not uploading any personal videos. The vlog format allowed Gigi not only to lay bare personal aspects of her life and her emotions, but also allowed the viewer to identify with her, as through her vlogs they became a part of her life. Viewers were not expected to be passive. Instead, Gigi asked her viewers for their reactions and feedback to her becoming a woman. It is through this personal and active relationship, through which Gigi was able to make her viewers aware that it was not right to make comments to people who identify as transgender such as ‘You were not born as woman, so you should not be a woman’ or ‘Just stay a man. The way God created you’. According to Gigi, people should accept one another regardless of the changes they make. 40

To conclude, in this section I examined how trans vloggers use the vlog format to highlight the personal aspects of trans existence. By examining Gigi’s coming out video, I found that she was able to stage transgender issues as public concern through the personal and active relationships that she developed with her viewers. This personal and active relationship was significant to her issue-making capabilities, as it allowed for other people who have similar experiences (or even heterosexual people) to identify with her through an emotional understanding. Due to the personal relationship Gigi had with her followings, perhaps her followers were part of her life and thus could connect to the issues and problems Gigi introduced.

Figure 11: Gigi Gorgeous coming out as transgender.

5.6 Six content categories, four formats and three discourses

In this chapter, I examined the question of when trans life becomes a matter of public concern on YouTube. The findings demonstrate that YouTube, as a space for transgender issue- making, requires specific knowledge of the different content categories and the related formats. The success of staging transgender issues is very much tied to the way actors can exploit the formats in the content category in which they wish to operate and stage trans life as a matter of public concern. As previously mentioned, YouTube argues that viewers expect that videos to be delivered to them in specific formats normal to particular content categories. Hence, I argue that formats and content category are of significant value in staging transgender issues as public concerns, as they are the framework through which transgender issues are understood and consumed.

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Lastly, the common denominator in all the different types of discourses is that transgender issues staged as a public concern construct an emotional understanding and identification with the viewer, and that throughout the video discourses actors stage transgender issues as public concerns by invoking feelings of empathy, shock, sensation and fun.

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6. Trans Agenda: The Case of Trans Beauty and Dating

6.1 How do trans vloggers influence trans agenda?

In mainstream media, trans issue-making is not done by trans people themselves. However, trans vloggers on YouTube are able to self-represent through the vlog format and use personal aspects of their lives to gain the attention of audiences. Therefore, now that trans people have the means to self-represent and reach millions of people, what issues are introduced? And how are trans people themselves influencing trans agenda? To answer such questions, this case study maps the issues that trans vloggers address in their vlogs and how they are able to influence trans agenda. The findings suggest that transgender vloggers introduce issues of trans beauty and dating by highlighting and giving tips on the challenges they have faced concerning these topics. In doing so, this case study argues that trans beauty is negotiated through beauty vlogs in the form of facial feminisation tutorials. However, trans dating is staged as problematic because trans vloggers face challenges such as rejection and ‘getting clocked’. Trans vloggers can influence trans agenda, since because of their self-representation they can address and make these issues matter to millions of people on YouTube.

6.2 From keywords to mapping trans agenda on YouTube

To identify the trans issues that are introduced by trans vloggers, it is worthwhile to examine the choice of words used by the trans content producers to map the trans agenda on YouTube. This allows examining what issues are influenced by trans vloggers and how trans vloggers contribute to the trans agenda. But, it also sets ground (for the next case study in Chapter 7) to examine how the trans content producers position and align themselves in issues. To map the trans agenda, trans content producers’ channels were queried (based on relevance) in combination with ‘transgender’ search term in the video list module of the YouTube Data Tool. The YouTube Data Tool generated a list with a maximum of 50 search results for each trans content producer. Next, I eliminated every search result that contained information about a video that was not uploaded by the actors who appeared on the initial most watched list. Subsequently, I made an inventory based on the words used in the description of each video that appeared in the list (see Figures 12 and 13). I used those

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keywords as input to trace the most watched issues on the trans agenda on YouTube (see Figure 14). The findings suggest that trans content producers address an array of transgender issues on YouTube, varying from transgender rights to issues with sex. In many cases there are overlaps in the issues that trans vloggers and mainstream media focus on. However, when one looks at the keywords used by both mainstream media and trans vloggers one can see how mainstream media is shaping YouTube as an issue space by highlighting trans rights issues in the military and sports, while transgender vloggers more frequently address topics such as beauty and dating. Therefore, in the coming sections, I discuss how trans vloggers influence the trans agenda by addressing trans beauty and dating issues.

Figure 12: Keywords found in the video description of mainstream content producers.

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Figure 13: Keywords found in the video description of transgender vloggers.

Figure 14: Trans content producers and the trans agenda on YouTube.

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6.3 Trans beauty is when one looks feminine

6.3.1 YouTube: a space to stage trans beauty issues Creating beauty videos has become a common practice on YouTube. To help content creators develop successful beauty channels, YouTube offers courses on how to create beauty content in their Creators Academy. Over the years, beauty content has increased rapidly on YouTube, generating over 169 billion views in 2018. Beauty vlogging has become significant to the beauty industry, as, according to Orbis Research, 97 percent of the marketing buzz of this billion dollar industry is generated by YouTube beauty videos. This has led the beauty industry to reconsider how they interact with consumers, but also to recognise beauty vlogging as a serious business (Coursaris and Van Osch 2016). As everyone can make beauty videos on YouTube, it did not take long before trans beauty vloggers hit the stage. Trans beauty is complicated and many transgender people struggle with beauty issues. For instance, a beauty problem for a trans woman could be her facial hair. In trans beauty vlogs these problems are addressed, as beauty vlogging involves instruction in beauty practices with the aim of becoming beautiful. In this instruction, A-list beauty vloggers, who are physically attractive and represent diverse beauty norms, inform and teach their viewers how to become beautiful, showing their viewers what kind of steps need to be taken and products that need to be used to become beautiful. Therefore, this case study indicates that YouTube has become a space to stage trans beauty issues.

6.3.2 Hegemonic trans beauty As YouTube has become a site to stage trans beauty issues and beauty vlogging entails the practice of educating others on how to become beautiful, one might ask: What is beautiful? And according to which beauty standards? To answer these questions I considered the aesthetic architectures of beauty in transgender beauty vlogging to be a hegemonic beauty by building on Bennet’s definition of Gramsci’s perspective of hegemony as ‘moral, cultural, intellectual and thereby political leadership over the whole of society’ (Bennett 95). In this sense, hegemonic beauty is the temporally and geographically determined, dominant cultural standards of beauty. It is through this understanding that we can understand that access to beauty is layered in diverse modes of power—stratified by class, race, age and gender. I argue that trans beauty (for trans women) is negotiated in trans beauty vlogs, according to dominant feminine beauty ideals. As trans women are born biologically as men, they face issues of not passing as females, since their biological features do not conform to dominant

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feminine beauty ideals. Therefore, I argue in this section that transgender beauty vlogs are of significant value in a neoliberal sense, as they teach others how to become more feminine. For instance, one type of trans beauty vlogging is the facial feminization make-up tutorial, in which vloggers give their viewers make-up tips on how to alter and shape male facial characteristics into more feminine features. Altering one’s face to look more feminine is not unknown to trans women, who as part of their transitioning might consider facial feminisation surgery that involves a set of bone and soft tissue reconstructive surgical procedures. These surgeries are intended to feminise the faces of trans women to make their identities as women recognisable to others. This is also called ‘passing’. By examining the beauty vlogs in which trans vloggers give facial feminization make- up tips, it provides understanding in how transgender vloggers negotiate between the beauty standards of femininity. To do so, I examine three trans beauty vlogs: 1) ‘Transgender Makeup Tips and Tricks’ by Casey Blake 2) ‘Facial Feminization With Makeup (mtf)’ by Ava Cassandra and 3) ‘Transgender Face Feminizing Makeup | Tips And Tricks’ by Corey Bilous. Each of these transgender beauty vloggers have over 10,000 followers and each of the videos on their channels have reached a total of over a million views.

6.3.3 How to fix trans beauty problem areas with make-up The findings show that in trans facial feminisation beauty videos, male facial characteristics are staged as an issue for trans women. Male characteristics are problematic, relating to the degree to which one can pass as a female and contributing to feelings of gender dysmorphia. Each of the trans vloggers has stated that they have had their own struggles trying to cover up male facial characteristics (e.g., hard jawlines and facial hair). Therefore, the trans vloggers upload facial feminisation videos for those who are struggling with the issue of male facial characteristics and to teach them what they have learned themselves over the years. In the videos, the trans beauty vloggers sit in front of their cameras in their rooms, addressing their followers as if they were personally speaking to them. To demonstrate the male characteristics in their own faces and show the potential of using make-up to feminize one’s face, the trans vloggers start the videos without make-up (see Figures 15 and 16). In the videos, the transgender beauty vloggers specifically refer to some part of their faces that would need extra attention so they could appear as more feminine than masculine. For example, Blake referred to the place where her moustache and beard grow as one of her problem areas. To correct these problem areas, she taught her audiences how to apply concealer that will cover up even the darkest facial hair (see Figure 17). For Cassandra, she 47

said her cheekbones needed some adjustment because her cheeks were hollow and made her appear to look more masculine. She demonstrated to her audience how they could shape their cheeks to appear higher, which according to Cassandra would be more feminine and glamorous (see Figure 18). Bilous said her nose was not feminine because it was too big and had a bump on it, her sharp jawline appeared masculine and her lips were too small (see Figure 19). Additionally, the transgender vloggers gave make-up tips such as how to draw one’s eyebrows to make them look fuller or how one can appear to have bigger lips by applying lipstick over lip lines. To conclude, transgender beauty vlogs stage issues of transgender beauty through facial feminisation videos. In these videos, beauty is defined according to the degree one has feminine features and could pass as naturally born females. Therefore, femininity is seen as a sign of beauty and masculinity is seen as a lack of beauty. With the right tools and by following the steps provided in the beauty tutorial, beauty is available to everyone. Within this issue, the human male body is adjustable to meet desired changes. This line of thought is very much rooted in the neoliberalism in which individuals use digital technologies such as YouTube to cultivate themselves according to their own and society's liking.

Figure 15: Casey Blake starting her video barefaced to show others how to cover up male features in their faces.

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Figure 16: Ava Cassandra starting her video barefaced to show others how to cover up male features in their faces.

Figure 17: Casey Blake covering up her face and moustache area with concealer.

Figure 18: Ava Cassandra showcasing how she shapes her hallow masculine cheekbones.

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Figure 19: Corey Bilous shaping her nose to make it appear smaller and more feminine.

6.4 How is dating an issue for transgender YouTube vloggers?

6.4.1 Being transgender makes dating hard When taken from a historical perspective, finding love has been dictated by social norms. Having a personal choice in choosing for example who to marry is relatively modern and has only been commonplace over the past 250 years (Coontz 2006). Society has been slow to warm up to same sex relationships, let alone trans relationships. Perhaps the last decade showed signs of acceptance toward trans individuals. However, trans people are still a considerably marginalised community within society. Regarding relationships, trans people may have concerns about whether, how and when to come out to their potential partner (Iantaffi & Bockting 2011). Transgender people (especially transgender women) have a greater chance in developing anxieties about being discriminated or to experience feelings of self-consciousness after coming out to their dating partner as transgender (Riggs et al. 2015). Therefore, this section is concerned with the question of how transgender female vloggers stage dating as an issue and the challenges they face while dating. I examine how transgender vloggers Nikita Dragun, Maya and Eden The Doll address issues regarding dating and look specifically at two unique topics within the issue of dating: being clocked and rejection.

6.4.2 Being clocked: ‘Hey… that is a dude’ For many transgender women to become who they are, they make a lot of changes to their physical appearance. This might include hormone treatments, reassignment surgery, facial

50 feminisation surgery, wearing women’s clothing and applying make-up—all to pass and thus to be recognised as female. However, trans women might fear being ‘clocked’ when dating, (being exposed as transgender among people who were unaware if this). For trans women, being clocked is an unpleasant experience, as most times it denotes that although trans women have put much effort into becoming women they are still regarded as being male. After being clocked trans women might face safety issues, and it causes feelings of rejection, shame and frustration. For example, in her video, ‘He Didn't Know I Was Transgender!’, Nikita Dragun tells her audience that people often ask her if she tells her dating partner that she is trans. She points out that dating has not always been a pleasant experience for her. For instance, there was this one time when Nikita went out to a fancy restaurant in New York with her girlfriends. There was a group of guys at the restaurant they met and hung out with. To pass, Nikita said that she did not flex her muscles because she wanted to appear more feminine. As the night went by, she and one of the guys paired up and were having a good time. Then she got clocked, as she heard someone saying ‘Hey… that is a dude’ (see Figure 20). According to Nikita, being publicly clocked was a terrible experience as she was singled out and publicly shamed. Nikita stated that after being clocked transgender women become a target for violence and sexual harassment. She told her viewers that after being clocked, the guy with whom she was pairing up with grabbed her by her genitalia to see if she had a vagina. To Nikita, being clocked set her back to questioning herself and if all her effort to become a woman had been in vain, as people still identified her as being a man. Thus, the risk of being clocked has far-reaching consequences for transgender people such as Nikita Dragun who face challenges while dating such as rejection, shame, safety, violence and it makes them question their transitioning progress.

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Figure 20: Nikita Dragun’s video ‘He Didn't Know I Was Transgender!’.

6.4.3 ‘Oohw … (Y)ou are trans?! I am not attracted to trans people’ While the previous subsection focused on transgender women getting clocked, this section focuses on the rejection that trans people face after coming out to their dating partner. To do so, I examined the vlogs ‘Refusing to Date Me Is Transphobic!?’ by transgender vlogger Maya and ‘Telling Guys We’re Trans!! *Live Reactions*’ by transgender vlogger Eden The Doll. Trans vlogger Maya questioned in her vlog whether it is transphobic to say ‘I am not attracted to trans people’ (see Figure 21). She argued that one of the biggest issues that transgender people face when dating is this argument. According to Maya, she never had problems with passing (when people are unaware that a person is transgender). Maya said that since she was able to pass, she had experienced mostly very positive dates—similar to what a date would be like for heterosexuals. She pointed out that this is the case until she tells her dates she is transgender. After finding out, Maya said that men say ‘I am not attracted to transgender people’, while before she came out as transgender they actually were. For Maya, this argument is ignorant as transgender people are so diverse and could have the genitalia to which a person would be attracted. In the video ‘Telling Guys We’re Trans!! *Live Reactions*’, transgender vlogger Eden The Doll and her friend Elena Genevinne (who is also a transgender vlogger) tell guys they have dated that they are trans (see Figure 22). Surprisingly, Eden The Doll got some accepting responses while Elena Genevinne did not enjoy the same love and acceptance from the guys she had dated. When Elena called guy number nine and explained to him she was

52 transgender, he immediately started to call her ‘Bro’, disavowing her choice of gender identification. He argued that he is not into guys, to which Elena said that she is not a guy. Thus, by examining these vlogs even when transgender people do not get clocked, but come out themselves to their dating partners, they still face being rejected for being transgender. Therefore, to be transgender and to date concerns questions of whether, how and when to come out to their potential partner.

Figure 21: Maya in her vlog ‘Refusing to Date Me Is Transphobic!?’.

Figure 22: Eden The Doll and Elena Genevinne in their vlog ‘Telling Guys Were Trans!! *Live Reactions*’.

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6.5 YouTube empowers and emancipates to influence the transgender agenda

This chapter was devoted to examining the issues introduced by transgender vloggers in their YouTube vlogs and how they can influence the trans agenda. By looking at the keywords used by trans content producers, I mapped out this agenda and further examined the unique issues such as dating and beauty that trans vloggers discussed. The findings indicate that through facial feminisation beauty vlogs the issue of having male facial features is staged as a concern for trans woman, which is met by educating others how to feminise one’s face. Therefore, staging beauty issues on YouTube allows for trans woman not only to negotiate trans beauty ideals but also to help others to cultivate themselves to pass as the gender they identify with. The findings demonstrate that for transgender people, dating is an issue that involves the risk of being clocked and rejected. To conclude, the findings of this study concerning what is of significant value among transgender people is that YouTube has emancipated transgender people from the limitations of self-representation in mainstream media. On YouTube transgender vloggers are empowered to self-represent, reach large audiences, educate and to be educated to alter their bodies and to have an active say in staging trans issues as public concerns. Trans people can contribute to and influence the transgender agenda, as they now have the means to bring trans issues into the digital light and make them matter to millions of people.

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7. When Trans Life Creates Alignment and Dispute: The Case of the Transgender United States Military Ban

7.1 The issue of being transgender in the United States military

The military in the United States has had a long and tenuous relationship with the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer or questioning) community and over the years has received a great deal of backlash from LGBTQ advocates. For example, until 1993, non- heterosexuals could not serve in the military. This changed with the ‘Don't ask, don't tell’ (DADT) policy instituted by the Clinton administration. According to the DADT, people who identified other than as heterosexual could serve in the military as long as they remained closeted. If one could not meet those terms, he or she would be prohibited from joining or would be forced to leave the military. DADT was rescinded in 2011, but it was only until 2016 (under the administration of former President Obama) that LGBTQ members could join the military openly. More recent developments indicate that the United States’ military is returning to the era of DADT, particularly after President Trump enacted new rules that ban trans people from serving in the military. President Trump first made his plans public in 2016 in a tweet, stating that transgender people are not allowed in the military, because of the military being burdened with heavy medical costs (see Figure 23). This led to a backlash from the LGBTQ community and organised protests in front of the White House (see Figure 24). Being trans in the military of the United States is an ongoing issue. With the most recent developments, it’s not surprising to see that the keyword ‘military’ is used by YouTube trans content producers in discourse concerning transgender rights (see Figure 12). The choice of words can offer insights into how actors denote and discuss a matter of public concern, particularly if they are part of an international or national agenda. If either anti- and pro-discrimination programmes are formed, they are based on how the actors position themselves. Therefore, this chapter is devoted to the question of to what extent do trans content producers align with and/or dispute against issues when they discuss trans people in the military. The findings in this case study suggest that regarding the transgender military ban in the United States ABC News, RT, The Rebel Media, TheEllenShow, Channel 4 and Nikita Dragun formed various pro- and anti-group channels. In doing so, they produce content in which aspects of trans life are introduced to support their pro- or anti-group stances. This content varied from high to negligible transgender medical costs, 55

unemployment, inequality, and Trump’s contradicting statements on mental health and safety issues. In the coming sections, I discuss how the trans content producers for the pro- and anti- discrimination programmes articulated their views based on how they frame the issue and the meanings of their word choices.

Figure 23: President Trump announces via a tweet he will ban transgender from the military.

Figure 24: Protest in front of the White House after President Trump announced he was banning transgender people from joining the military.

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7.2 Anti-transgender military ban stances

7.2.1 Forming an anti-discrimination program Regarding the Trump ban against transgender people joining the military, the study’s findings indicate that ABC News, RT, TheEllenShow, Channel 4 and Nikita Dragun formed an anti- discrimination programme where issues were introduced through discourses concerning negligible medical costs, transgender inequality and backlash about Trump’s earlier campaign statements. Therefore, this section examines how trans content producers might have different stances but still align as an anti-group.

7.2.2 Negligible transgender military costs According to President Trump, trans people should be banned from the military because of high medical costs the military covered. The military is funded by the taxes that U.S. citizens pay. President Trump staged that being trans was a public concern because it constituted a national financial problem. This study’s findings indicate that relating to this issue ABC News and RT were part of an anti-programme. According to these actors, the medical costs of transgender in the military were negligible. So, how do ABC News and RT stage military transgender costs as negligible? Both ABC News and RT staged transgender costs as negligible by claiming that President Trump was basing his claims on the wrong information and focused on the wrong expenditures. In an interview that ABC News did in the video, ‘Transgender retired army veteran interview on recent military ban’ with Laila Ireland, a military veteran married to an active trans service duty member, the argument was made that according to RAND and the English Journal of Medicine trans costs in the military are negligible (see Figure 25). According to USA Today, the military spends up to $8 million on transgender costs from its total budget of $716 million. This means that approximately one percent of the total budget was spent on trans medical health care—an amount President Trump framed as an issue that burdened the military and which ABC News framed as negligible. RT supported this claim, as they argued in their video ‘WATJ 2: Military Spending, Transgender Troops & Veteran’s Affair’, that not only was President Trump basing his claim on the wrong information since trans costs are negligible, but he was also placing his focus on the wrong expenditures. In their video, former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura and producer Brigida Santos explained how the military spends up to $41 million on Viagra. Indeed, by comparing the

57 expenditures RT tried to redirect the attention of the audience by invalidating claims of high transgender costs. Thus, ABC News and RT took a stance in an anti-discrimination programme regarding President Trump’s military transgender ban, by explaining that transgender military costs can be marginalised and by pointing to other questionable expenditures.

Figure 25: ABC News interview with Laila Ireland about the negligible transgender costs in the military.

7.2.3 Trans unemployment because of the military transgender ban ABC News staged the issue of banning transgender people from the military by pointing to the far-reaching consequences, which would entail unemployment for thousands of trans active service duty members. In the ABC News interview, Laila Ireland argues that President Trump’s policy change brought up the issue that trans service duty members face the uncertainties of losing their jobs. This claim was supported by other transgender active service duty members, who appeared in another news special ABC News did on Trump’s transgender ban (‘Under review: Transgender troops on Trump's proposed ban’). According to these transgender service members, what appeared as a simple tweet became an unemployment issue that would have a deep impact on their lives. Kiera Walker, a trans woman and a service duty member, argued that she was good at her job. Being part of the military makes her and her family proud. But this did not matter, because she was transgender and was about to lose her job in the military.

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Another transgender woman in the interview reacted to the argument being made in the discussion that transgender people only enlisted in the military to get reassignment surgery. She argued that the idea that people cannot enlist in the military if they might need healthcare somewhere down the road is a bad argument, as there is a whole range of healthcare needs that is rightfully available to the military, even after they retire. According to her, transgender people should not be carved out from getting the healthcare that they need, just because they are transgender. She said that the military should keep to the present standards for enlisting. However, denying transgender people the ability to join the military and firing them, just because they are transgender, should not be part of those standards. This issue was not a matter of if transgender people have the right capacity to serve, but rather was made into an issue of who transgender people are. Therefore, this issue became a constitutional question of whether you could discriminate and ban transgender people because they are transgender. Thus, the findings show that ABC News contributed to the anti-discrimination programme by staging the issue of transgender unemployment through a discourse in which transgender people could not support their families and were being treated unequally for who they are by President Trump’s transgender military ban.

7.2.4 Trans life in the military should be accepted and celebrated The findings indicate that TheEllenShow and Nikita Dragun could be seen as part of the anti- discrimination programme by their concerns about President Trump’s transgender ban, as they contradicted his statements by arguing that transgender life in the military should be accepted and celebrated. In the video, ‘Ellen Chats with Transgender Military Couple Logan & Laila Ireland’, talk show host Ellen DeGeneres argued that transgender people should not be banned from the military, but should be embraced, accepted and celebrated. Therefore, she invited the military couple Laila and Logan Ireland to her show, in which she thanked them for being brave in serving in the military (see Figure 26). She said that serving in the military was a selfless act. Laura said that being accepted in the military helped her during her coming-out period, as she got love and support from her military family. Also actor Nikita Dragun spoke on transgender equality in the military, when she interviewed people on the streets in her vlogs, asking them what they thought of the transgender military ban (see Figure 27). In the vlog, banning transgender people from the military was regarded as sexist and people said

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sexuality should not be regarded as a term that decided whether a person could or could not join the military. Thus, TheEllenShow and Nikita Dragun aligned their viewpoints when they pointed out that transgender life in the military should be celebrated and accepted. According to these actors, staging transgender military life as costly is wrong because the military is an essential part of some transgender people’s lives. Transgender life in the military symbolises the degree to which transgender people will sacrifice their lives for the safety of U.S. citizens. Therefore, it was not right to deny them the right to join the military.

Figure 26: Laura and Logan Ireland on TheEllenShow.

Figure 27: Nikita Dragun interviewing people on the streets of New York about the transgender military ban.

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7.2.5 Backlash regarding President Trump’s contradictory statements Lastly, in the anti-discrimination programmes regarding President Trump’s plan to ban to transgender people from the military, ABC news and RT discussed the backlash President Trump received for his contradicting statements toward the LGBTQ community. In 2016, after the Orlando shootings in the gay club, Pulse, presidential candidate Trump vowed at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland to protect LGBTQ rights, saying he would ‘do everything’ to protect LGBTQ communities (see Figure 28). Therefore, when President Trump announced that transgender people could not serve in the military, he received a strong backlash from that same LGBTQ community. ABC News and RT used President Trump’s contradicting statements to create videos against the issue of transgender people being banned from the military due to the high medical costs. For example, in their video, ‘Trump tweets sweeping ban of transgender people from serving in the military’, ABC News featured a tweet by television personality Caitlyn Jenner, a retired Olympic gold medal–winning decathlete, transgender woman and advocate. In the tweet, Jenner asks President Trump what happened to the promise that he made to protect the LGBTQ community and also referred to earlier tweets from President Trump (see Figure 29). During the election, Jenner openly supported President Trump. In an article in The Washington Post, Jenner stated that President Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate who had spoken openly about how he would support and value the LGBTQ community. Moved by his words, Jenner supported President Trump, but later she admitted that she was wrong in supporting President Trump. Jenner said the transgender community was being relentlessly attacked by President Trump, he showed no regard for an already marginalised and struggling community and ignored their humanity. President Trump had turned trans people into political pawns as he whipped up animus against transgender people to energize the most right-wing segment of his party. According to Jenner, adding that President Trump's claim that the anti-transgender policies affecting the military were meant to ‘protect the country” was ‘unacceptable and upsetting’. In the video, ‘Protesters march after Trump announces transgender military ban in San Francisco’, RT covered how about a thousand people rallied on the streets of San Francisco in response to U.S. President Donald Trump's Twitter announcement about the military’s transgender ban. One protester stated that since he was fighting in the military for his country and that he would like to see the same support back (see Figure 30). These examples demonstrate how YouTube actors ABC News and RT used President Trump’s earlier statements to question his plans to ban transgender people from the military. 61

By referring to those statements in which President Trump vowed to protect the LGTBQ communities, these actors held President Trump accountable for keeping his promise.

Figure 28: Presidential candidate Trump vowing at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland to protect the rights of the LGBTQ community.

Figure 29: Caitlyn Jenner retweeting President Trump to remind him of his earlier promise to protect the LGBT (Q) community.

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Figure 30: Protesters speaking about inequality in the military.

7.3 Pro-transgender military ban stances

The findings identified The Rebel Media as an actor that was part of a pro-discrimination programme regarding the transgender military ban. The Rebel Media is a Canadian far-right political and social commentary media website. It argues that trans life in the military is unacceptable since being transgender should be considered a mental illness. Therefore, they framed banning transgender people from joining the military as a matter of safety and efficiency over diversity.

7.3.1 Trans people are mentally ill In the video, ‘Trump's trans ban: military no place for mental disorders’, The Rebel Media claimed that President Trump's decision to ban trans people from the military was the right thing to do. In the video, Canadian political commentator Faith Goldy referred to the backlash President Trump received in reaction to his policy change as a ‘delusional frenzy’. In this video, trans people were made into an issue by framing them as individuals with a mental health disorder. According to Goldy, the military had many standards for joining and good mental health was one of those conditions. She then strategically described some mental health disorders that would lead a military applicant to be denied from entering the military (see Figure 31). Goldy argued that, according to the research institution, the American Psychiatric Association, being trans is a mental disorder. They state that gender dysphoria involves a conflict between a person's physical or assigned gender and the gender which he/she/they identify with. Goldy uses this formulation to frame transgender people as having a history with mental health issues. She said that 85 percent of transgender people have faced 63

issues with their mental health or have been treated for mental health issues (e.g., depression, suicide and anxiety). Next, Goldy raised the question of why others are rejected by the military because of mental issues and why there should be an exception for trans people. Thus, The Rebel Media can be seen as part of a pro-discrimination programme regarding banning transgender people from the military, by staging the issue as being transgender is a mental illness. By doing so, The Rebel Media aimed to devalue the inequality issue of prohibiting transgender people from the military. Equality to The Rebel Media meant treating people with mental illness in the same manner with no exceptions when they wished to join the army. Therefore, if trans people could be regarded as having a mental illness, they should not be allowed to join the army.

Figure 31: Military disqualification list with regard to mental issues.

7.3.2 Safety and efficiency over diversity in the military This study’s findings demonstrate that The Rebel Media was part of a pro-discrimination programme concerning the issue of banning transgender people from the military, when regarding the staging of diversity in the military. According to The Rebel Media, focus on diversity is a threat for the military, and instead the military should keep its focus on safety and efficiency. The Rebel Media stressed in the video, ‘Trump's trans ban: military no place for mental disorders’, that after President Trump announced the ban on transgender people in military, the Canadian forces tweeted that they welcome people from different sexual orientations #diversityisourstrength (see Figure 32). According to Goldy, what became an issue was whether a military should keep its focus on safety and efficiency instead of

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diversity. Goldy praised President Trump for making this decision and for putting safety and efficiency above diversity and above his popularity. According to Goldy, the strength of the military is its actual strength and not the diversity of its active duty service members. She then critiqued Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his administration for wanting the Canadian military to reflect Canadian diversity ideals. Goldy said that war did not care about gender identities but was about psychical strength and emotional stability. According to Goldy, trans people do not have emotional stability because of their higher risk of having mental issues. Allowing transgender people to join the military also meant paying for their reassignment surgery and hormone treatment, which could cost over $300,000. As the medical costs are eventually paid by the taxpayer, Goldy argued that she would want this money to spend on replacing fighter jets. The Rebel Media staged transgender people in the military as an issue by focussing on diversity as a threat to the nation. Being transgender is a mental illness, according to The Rebel Media, and allowing transgender people in the military meant reducing the strength of the military. Hence, having a focus on safety and efficiency meant the need to exclude transgender people from joining the army.

Figure 32: Canadian military tweet in reaction to President Trump’s military ban.

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7.4 Trans life: A matter of individual and group issue-making capabilities

This chapter discussed the question of when trans life creates dispute and position alignment on YouTube. By examining the keywords actors have used in their video descriptions, this case study traced the issue of the transgender military ban and how actors formed anti- and pro-discrimination programmes. I argue that the significance of actors clashing and agreeing on issues is that YouTube creates a space where not only individual actors can stage transgender issues, but that it is also a place where actors implicitly form groups that align to particular viewpoints. Although YouTube is a space in which transgender issue-making involves hierarchies, dominant voices and questions of visibility (see Chapter 5), the findings of this study suggest that this process also involves the movement of actors who are constantly (re)assembling, (re)associating and (dis)agreeing through different discourses within an issue. Therefore, I argue that staging of transgender issues as public concerns on YouTube does not solely consist of the individual issue-making capabilities of the actors, but it also involves a process in which actors position, align and dispute. Transgender issues as public concerns on YouTube are staged, discussed, (re)evaluated and settled through individual issue-making capabilities and through collective efforts among actors.

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8. Trans Issue-Making on YouTube Is Dynamic and Complex

The aim of this research was to study how trans content producers deal, speak to and negotiate issues surrounding trans life on YouTube. Therefore, this research posed the questions: How are trans lives staged as matters of public concern on YouTube? Based on such staging, how may one describe the trans experience? And how is YouTube becoming a medium in which these issues are debated? This research has shown that trans issue-making is a matter of trans issues being discussed, addressed, defined and staged in media. Media set the rules for how, by whom and when trans issues matter. Trans issue-making in mainstream media is performed by mainstream actors and trans people and are often misrepresented, marginalized, under- covered and limited to self-representation. YouTube seems to be a space that promises new and exciting ways for increasing trans content, trans self-representation, and for staging trans issues and influencing the transgender agenda. By repurposing YouTube’s data by digital issue mapping with the aid of critical analytics. This study mapped how both transgender vloggers and mainstream media shape YouTube as an issue space and influence the transgender agenda. By mapping the visibility of these trans content producers, this research aimed to put into perspective how YouTube is a paradise for trans voices. When one search queries ‘transgender’ on YouTube, it is clear mainstream media are the most dominant channels in influencing and gatekeeping the transgender agenda and in reaching a large audience. Although mainstream media dominates the transgender agenda on YouTube, trans vloggers are able, to some extent, to offer unique trans issues. This research suggests that YouTube empowers trans vloggers to take part, discuss, negotiate and influence the trans agenda, as YouTube supplies the means for content creation and even teaches their users how to build successful channels. Furthermore, the findings of this research propose that the trans experience on YouTube is complex and is shaped by the strategies of trans content producers who seek to gain the attention of audiences. To make trans issues matter and be seen by millions of people, trans content producers make use of different content categories and their related formats. Trans-life is highlighted, introduced, standardised and produced in ways that align with audiences’ preferences. This approach is supported by YouTube as a non-human actor that matches videos to audiences’ intent and preferences. Hence, trans life on YouTube becomes sensational, provocative, fun, newsworthy and personal. Since YouTube is an attention economy that drives competition, transgender issue-making has become a matter of 67

exploiting content categories and formats with the goal of gaining attention and dominance in influencing the transgender agenda. In this research, the channels and videos that have the most views are the most impactful. Therefore, issue-making on YouTube focuses on competition, dominance, visibility, hierarchy and influence. This study’s findings demonstrate that although YouTube drives competition, when staging trans issues, trans content producers align and debate through anti- and pro- discrimination group formations. In both such formations viewpoints are introduced by highlighting trans lives by which group formations aim to settle an issue. This research demonstrated that YouTube is a space where issue-making is not a practice that solely depends on the individual issue-making capabilities of trans content producers, but it is also a place where collective issue-making takes place. It involves the movement of actors who are constantly re)assembling, (re)associating and (dis)agreeing in different discourses relating to an issue. With these finding this research has aimed at contributing to transgender and media studies, by broadening the understanding and knowledge of how online trans issue-making can be studied, how YouTube has become a space for trans issue-making, by giving insight about the spectrum of trans content producers and the issues they bring forward, and their issue-making capabilities. Digital issue mapping with the aid of critical analytics has provided great insight into trans issue-making by repurposing YouTube’s metric view count. However, there are some limitations when this method is applied to the study of trans issue making. YouTube is a platform on which a select group of content producers are highly visible, while the rest do not get the same amount of visibility. By focusing only on the most watched videos and their trans content producers, this study gave no attention to those who are less visible. For example, the study’s findings indicate that the trans vloggers who are highlighted by YouTube are white trans women. Trans people of colour and trans men do not get this same attention. Although trans people can self-represent on YouTube, a part of the trans community is still marginalised by the platform’s logics. This raises a variety of questions: Who is marginalised? How do marginalised channels stage trans issues? What is the trans experience according to marginalised trans vloggers? To answer such questions, a researcher could use the Video List Module of the YouTube Data Tool and extract data based on, for example, the search ‘transgender’ and the lowest view count or relevance. This can provide great insight about trans content producers and the issues they bring forward that become invisible and marginalised on the platform, due to the dominance of other trans content producers and YouTube video matching-mechanism. 68

Another limitation of this research is that although the findings reflect on how transgender content producers are able to address, discuss, dispute, stage, and could make transgender issues matter to millions of people, this research does not indicate the actual influence on the attitudes, behaviours and views of audiences towards transgender people. As mentioned earlier, it is said that media visibility could potentially alter negative attitudes and behaviours towards people and issues. However, when it comes to transgender people— whose existence is to constantly deal with, speak to and negotiate over their being—some might say that transgender representation does not per se means transgender liberation. As put in an article of Them: ‘Trans people’s visibility has skyrocketed [and] trans rights are debated more and more, frequently in major news outlets, but trans women who are Black, brown, and sex workers continue to be assaulted and murdered on a regular basis’ (Thom). Therefore, it would be complementary to this research to examine to what extent trans content producers on YouTube—who are able to reach millions of people and make trans issues matter—have a positive influence on the behaviours and attitudes of audiences towards transgender issues and people. One way in which such research could be conducted, is when a researcher would examine the comments made by viewers when trans content producers upload videos. By analysing those comments, it becomes possible to identify the different attitudes of audiences towards transgender issues. Such promising research would further deepen the understanding of the effects of the issue-making capabilities of transgender content producers. I would encourage further research to take up these questions.

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‘ASKING STRANGERS IF THEY THINK I'M TRANSGENDER! | Nikita Dragun.’ YouTube, uploaded by Nikita Dragun, 31 March 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me8jYR9Q0kw&t=325s. Accessed 18 May 2019.

‘Ellen Chats with Transgender Military Couple Logan & Laila Ireland.’ YouTube. uploaded by TheEllenShow. 22 September 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVB9i7xibOE&t=7s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

‘FACIAL FEMINIZATION WITH MAKEUP (mtf).’ YouTube, uploaded by Ava Cassandra. 25 may 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=_m7i1G1nLTk. Accessed 26 May 2019.

‘Female Privilege | Antifeminism.’ YouTube, uploaded by Blaire White, 2 December 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3pYjYxl86E&t=20s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

‘He Didn't Know I Was Transgender! | Nikita Dragun.’ YouTube, uploaded by Nikita Dragun, 14 October 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU5AcdmGHH0&t=88s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

I Am Transgender | Gigi.’ YouTube, uploaded by Gigi Gorgeous, 16 December 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srOsrIC9Gj8. Accessed 26 May 2019.

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‘REFUSING TO DATE ME IS TRANSPHOBIC!?.’ YouTube, uploaded by Maya, 29 November 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sMH7dSbKaA. Accessed 18 May 2019.

‘TELLING GUYS WERE TRANS!! *LIVE REACTIONS*.’ YouTube, uploaded by Eden The Doll, 12 April 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADtmnMjHYMA&t=997s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

‘Transgender at 11.’ YouTube, uploaded by ABC News, 19 January 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH4kbybo60Y&t=106s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

‘TRANSGENDER FACE FEMINIZING MAKEUP | TIPS AND TRICKS.’ YouTube, uploaded by Corey Bilous. 7 July 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkx0dWJLyJw. Accessed 26 May 2019.

‘Transgender Makeup Tips and Tricks | Casey Blake.’ YouTube, uploaded by Casey Blake, 3 June 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_p_tBD7neM&t=14s. Accessed 27 May 2019.

‘Transgender Teen Confronts Mom Who She Says Doesn’t Support Her.’ YouTube, uploaded by Dr. Phil, 20 October 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVtnsNDXuaY. Accessed 26 May 2019.

‘Trump's trans ban: military no place for mental disorders.’ YouTube, uploaded by The Rebel Media, 28 July 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZLDNUWFLas. Accessed 26 May 2019.

‘Trump tweets sweeping ban of transgender people from serving in the military.’ YouTube, uploaded by ABC News, 26 July 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvDfRkKnRB4&t=172s. Accessed on 26 May 2019.

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‘Under review: Transgender troops on Trump's proposed ban. YouTube, uploaded by ABC News, 16 November 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdZrgrk6s4A. Accessed on 26 May 2019.

‘WATJ 2: Military Spending, Transgender Troops & Veteran’s Affairs.’ YouTube, uploaded by RT, 15 September 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iGuTuP76Mc&t=184s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

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List of Tables

Table 1: Overview of the 22 most visible actors on the video list, based on the search ‘transgender’ and view count on YouTube.

Table 2: overview actors per content category.

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List of Figures

Figure 1: ‘Female Privilege | Antifeminism.’ YouTube, uploaded by Blaire White, 2 December 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3pYjYxl86E&t=20s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 2: ‘Content categories’ YouTube, 2019, https://creatoracademy.youtube.com/page/lesson/overview-categories?cid=platform &hl=en#strategies-zippy-link-1. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 3: ‘Transgender at 11.’ YouTube, uploaded by ABC News, 19 January 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH4kbybo60Y&t=106s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 4: ‘Transgender at 11.’ YouTube, uploaded by ABC News, 19 January 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH4kbybo60Y&t=106s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 5 -8: ‘Transgender Teen Confronts Mom Who She Says Doesn’t Support Her.’ YouTube, uploaded by Dr. Phil, 20 October 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVtnsNDXuaY. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 9-10: ‘10 Transgender Celebrities We All Admire.’ YouTube, uploaded by TheTalko, 15 January 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvM8bgweH74. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 11: ‘I Am Transgender | Gigi.’ YouTube, uploaded by Gigi Gorgeous, 16 December 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srOsrIC9Gj8. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 12: keywords found in the video description of mainstream content producers.

Figure 13: keywords found in the video description of transgender vloggers.

Figure 14: trans content producers and the trans agenda on YouTube.

Figure 15: ‘Transgender Makeup Tips and Tricks | Casey Blake.’ YouTube, uploaded by 80

Casey Blake, 3 June 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_p_tBD7neM&t=14s. Accessed 27 May 2019.

Figure 16: ‘FACIAL FEMINIZATION WITH MAKEUP (mtf).’ YouTube. uploaded by Ava Cassandra, 25 may 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=_m7i1G1nLTk. Accessed 26 may 2019.

Figure 17: ‘Transgender Makeup Tips and Tricks | Casey Blake.’ YouTube, uploaded by Casey Blake, 3 June 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_p_tBD7neM&t=14s. Accessed 27 May 2019.

Figure 18: ‘FACIAL FEMINIZATION WITH MAKEUP (mtf).’ YouTube. uploaded by Ava Cassandra, 25 may 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=_m7i1G1nLTk. Accessed 26 may 2019.

Figure 19: ‘TRANSGENDER FACE FEMINIZING MAKEUP | TIPS AND TRICKS.’ YouTube, uploaded by Corey Bilous, 7 July 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkx0dWJLyJw. Accessed 10 may 2019.

Figure 20: ‘He Didn't Know I Was Transgender! | Nikita Dragun.’ YouTube, uploaded by Nikita Dragun, 14 October 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU5AcdmGHH0&t=88s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 21: ‘REFUSING TO DATE ME IS TRANSPHOBIC!?.’ YouTube, uploaded by Maya 29 November 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sMH7dSbKaA. Accessed 18 May 2019.

Figure 22: ‘TELLING GUYS WERE TRANS!! *LIVE REACTIONS*.’ YouTube, uploaded by Eden The Doll, 12 April 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADtmnMjHYMA&t=997s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

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Figure 23: @NPR. ‘In a series of tweets, President Trump said no transgender individuals will be allowed to serve ‘in any capacity’ in the U.S. military.’ Twitter, 26 jul. 2017, 6:13, twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/816433590892429312.

Figure 24: ‘ Trans troops return to era of 'don't ask, don't tell' as Trump policy takes effect.’ The Guardian, 13 April 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/us- news/2019/apr/12/transgender-ban-military-trump-take-effect-dont-ask-dont-tell. Accessed on 26 May 2019.

Figure 25: ABC News. ‘Transgender retired army veteran interview on recent military ban.’ YouTube. 26 July 2017. 26 May 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4G6lht3-k0.

Figure 26: TheEllenShow. ‘Ellen Chats with Transgender Military Couple Logan & Laila Ireland.’ Youtube. 22 september 2017. 26 May 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVB9i7xibOE&t=7s.

Figure 27: Nikita Dragun. ‘ASKING STRANGERS IF THEY THINK I'M TRANSGENDER! | Nikita Dragun.’ YouTube. 31 March 2018. 26 May 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Me8jYR9Q0kw&t=325s.

Figure 28: ‘Trump in 2016: I 'will do everything' to protect LGBT communities.’ The Washington Post. 2016. 26 May 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/national/trump-says-he-will-protect-lgbt-co mmunities/2016/07/22/c845e608-4fc1-11e6-bf27-405106836f96_video.html?utm_ter m=.202c40294365.

Figure 29: ‘Trump tweets sweeping ban of transgender people from serving in the military.’ YouTube, uploaded by ABC News, 26 July 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvDfRkKnRB4&t=172s. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 30: ‘Protesters march after Trump announces transgender military ban in San Francisco.’ YouTube, uploaded by RT, 27 July 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syk5o3vtjEQ. Accessed 26 May 2019. 82

Figure 31: ‘Trump's trans ban: military no place for mental disorders.’ YouTube, uploaded by The Rebel Media. 28 July 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZLDNUWFLas. Accessed 26 May 2019.

Figure 32: @Canadian Forces. ‘We welcome Cdns of all sexual orientations and gender identities. Join us! #DiversityIsOurStrength #ForcesJobs.’ Twitter, 26 July 2017, 12:09, https://twitter.com/CanadianForces/status/890288099573600256.

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