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 1 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 2 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 3 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.