Understanding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender individuals’ gender and sexual identity construction and expression through entertainment media: a qualitative study Name: Alexandra Cacovean Baciu Student ID: 12098310 Supervisor: Chei Billedo Entertainment Communication Graduate School of Communication University of Amsterdam Master’s Thesis 31-01-2020 Abstract This study aimed to explore how the portrayal of gender roles on entertainment media has shaped the formation of gender and sexual identities of LGBT individuals. Moreover, we wanted to understand how these individuals perceived entertainment media from their childhood to their adult life. The sample consisted of 12 LGBT young adults from different cultural backgrounds. The interviews were divided into three themes that matched key developmental stages: childhood, adolescence, and emerging adulthood. Participants revealed similar consumption patterns, preference towards strong female characters, and perceiving gender stereotypes in retrospect. Strikingly, participants also discussed LGBT stereotypes that were portrayed in media. Results also indicated that entertainment media, although it could have been a very important factor in the gender and sexual identity construction of individuals, was limited during their childhood and early adolescence. Due to this, most of the participants used the Internet to get answers for their questions and for content more related to their gender and sexual identity struggles during their adolescence. Accordingly, the LGBT young adults we interviewed use mostly Internet streaming-on- demand platforms such as Netflix or social media platforms to seek for entertainment media. Entertainment media has changed drastically in the lifespan of these young adults, and although the participants also pointed out good practices of new LGBT shows, the lack of representation and diversity, especially mainstream media, is still a common problem in today’s media landscape. To finalize, this study provided practical implications for media companies and helped on expanding the research on identifying more suitable content for LGBT individuals in entertainment media. Keywords: LGBT, sexual identity, gender identity, entertainment media, childhood, adolescence, young adults 2 Introduction The rise of feminism in the ‘80s put a focus on the academic development of gender studies. As a result, many scholars have centered their work on the conceptualization of the components that conform gender. Gender identity was found to be a socially constructed role that is highly influenced by society, institutions or entertainment media. These sociological factors reinforce traditional gender role beliefs where certain groups of individuals might be misrepresented. Extreme-gender role beliefs have been crucial to understanding how media can emphasize gender stereotypes beliefs. Research reveals that, especially television, has great power in reinforcing more sexist views of women’s role in society (Signorielli, 1989). More recent research by Coyne, Linder, Rasmussen, Nelson, and Birkbeck (2016) found that girls engaged with Disney Princess media had higher levels of female stereotypical behaviors. Similarly, Valkenburg and Piotrowski (2017) argue that, especially during adolescence, girls and boys imitate and learn from entertainment media appropriate behavioral options such as the feminine or the macho ideal for boys. Qualitative analysis on adolescent boys analyzed how this group perceived hypermasculine media stereotypes (Millington & Wilson, 2010), or the development of masculinity through the media memories of heterosexual males (Dunlap & Johnson, 2013). Overall, there seems to be a general agreement over the fact that certain types of media consumption portraying traits such as male dominance and aggression, or female subordination and sexualization, can impact our socialization of gender beliefs for heterosexual women and men (van Oosten, 2017). Despite the development of this field of research, little is known about how entertainment media cultivates beliefs on LGBT individuals. Likewise, studies analyzing the different media portrayals of LGBT characters are neglected (Yan, 2019). As we mentioned previously, entertainment media replicates hypergender ideologies that reinforce homophobic beliefs (Hamburger, Hogben, McGowan, and Dawson, 1996). For LGBT individuals, the depiction of these stereotypes can be more harmful than to 3 heterosexual populations. Moreover, the members of this collective do not belong to the prescribed heterosexual roles and have to construct their own identity development across their lifespan (Page & Peacock, 2013). Thus, in this study, we aim to explore how the portrayal of gender roles on entertainment media has shaped the formation of gender and sexual identities of LGBT individuals. Additionally, we want to understand how these individuals perceived their media entertainment choices, from their childhood to their adult life. On one hand, research on LGBT individuals will help on the development of research on the role of entertainment media in the formation of gender and sexual identities. On the other hand, it will benefit the entertainment media industry on comprehending how to bring more relatable content for non-heteronormative audiences. Consequently, we propose the following research questions: What are the entertainment media-related experiences of LGBT individuals that were crucial in their gender and sexual identity development and expression? How do LGBT individuals perceive entertainment media, from their childhood to their adulthood and in the present media landscape? Theoretical background Sex versus gender role Sex is the biological factor that is defined by our sex chromosome pair. The current definition of sex is classified into two dichotomous categories: male and female (Broughton, Branning, and Omurtag, 2017). However, it is argued in the medical and LGBT academia the existence of an umbrella category, defined as intersex, that includes individuals that are born with different biological variations that not fit the binary notion of male and female (United Nations, 2015). The concept of gender role was established by Money, Hampson, and Hampson (1957) when studying the sexual psychology of hermaphroditic patients. In their work, it was found that gender was something that patients started building from their childhood through the use of pronouns, haircuts, dresses, or personal 4 adornments. According to Money et. al (1957), gender role was something that the patients acquired in an early developmental stage. The rise of feminism studies in the ‘80s helped the current conceptualization of gender studies, converging the contrast between socially constructed gender roles and the biologically determined sex of the individuals (Haig, 2003). Gender studies found that gender role was, in fact, more environmental than mere individual characteristics that we acquire when we are children, and something that we learn or achieve throughout our life (Ingraham, 1994). To sum up, in this study it is important to understand that gender role is the socially constructed behavior or appearance that a society considers appropriate for males and females (Broughton et al., 2017), while sex is purely biological. Gender identity and construction Gender role socialization is a major component of overall socialization. Furthermore, it is the process through which individuals learn to perform certain roles that are considered appropriate for each sex (Erden, 2009). The gender schema theory posits that children, from a very early developmental age, are expected to have or to acquire culturally established sex-specific self-concepts and personality attributes (Bem, 1981; Trepanier-Street, Romatowski, and Mcnair, 1990). The cognitive- developmental theory explains that gender identity is formed from the stereotypic conceptions of gender roles that children learn in the society they are born. It is important to make a distinction between gender role socialization, which is how we disclose our status of being a male or a female to other people (Haig, 2003), and gender identity, the ability of children to label themselves and others as males or females (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). In general, gender roles vary among individuals and their cultural identity, while gender identities are influenced by different sociological factors such as family, peers, cultural frameworks, or countries (Almy & Sanatullova- Allison, 2016; Goldberg, 2017). 5 Gender stereotypes are the key elements of this gender role socialization process. People are producers as well as products of these stereotypes (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Gender role stereotypes help shape the perception, evaluation, and treatment of males and females. Hypergender theories operationalize these concepts. On one hand, hypermasculinity is defined as a set of stereotypical behaviors such as “aggressiveness, power or dominance” (Mosher & Sirkin, 1984, p.151) that conform the macho personality constellation scale. On the other hand, hyperfemininity is the exaggerated adherence to stereotypic feminine gender roles, such as girls having to be “sexually available for men” (Murnen & Byrne, 1991, p.488). Masculine gender roles in Western society include traits such as being “dominant, assertive, and strong” (Weisgram, Dinella, and Fulcher, 2011, p.2444). In the case of women, some examples can be being “warm, sympathetic, sensitive, and soft-spoken” (Weisgram, et al., 2011, p. 245). Children reinforce