That's My Gender and I Need It Now!!!

Or, how the TikTok FYP does more than a high school GSA meeting ever could

Mar 07, 2022

At a time when anti-trans legislation is spreading across the country like Covid amongst the unvaccinated, accepting communities like those found on TikTok have become more important than ever.

You heard me right: that silly little app you have wasted literal days scrolling through is actually an incredible resource for trans and non-binary individuals.

Over the last two years, the progress the app has made has been monumental: in 2020, the BBC reported that many trans creators were being shadowbanned (a form of censorship that hides content to decrease interaction); in 2021, Business Insider shared stories from creators facing transphobia with little support from the app; but just last month, TikTok banned misgendering, deadnaming, and any content that promotes conversion therapy in their updated community guidelines.

The app is just catching up with the developments that have already taken place: in early 2020, the Washington Post wrote that “scrolling your way into LGBTQ TikTok is more like going backstage, where young LGBTQ users have found a place to share their raw feelings with each other. Although TikTok is public, and although there are questions about censorship of LGBTQ content, the videos in that space are supportive and sometimes surprisingly confessional.”

During quarantine, TikTok became the go-to spot for escaping the fact that we were in quarantine but it also offered queer and questioning individuals not only the language and community but the simple time and space to experiment with and find comfort in their gender identity and expression. (A sidebar for anyone confused on proper language regarding gender identity: take a look at this really great guide from NPR.)

This week, I spoke with Mon Sucic about this trend, what TikTok has come to offer the trans community, and how quarantine might have actually been a good thing????

Mon is just some guy who unfortunately loves living in Boston. They made the mistake of being too attached to Vampire Weekend when they were younger, which probably explains why they’re now working in higher ed. They majored in Advertising at Boston University where they also DJ’d, photographed, and were a zine contributor for WTBU. Trying to stay true to their indie brand, Mon is now a hobbyist concert photographer and wannabe merch designer in their spare time. They are in a love-hate relationship with most Adobe products, and in the same pool as every 20-something where they think about going to grad school after every minor inconvenience. If you want to see their silly little concert photos, you can pop over to monicasucic.com.

TikTok on the Clock

If you’ve never heard of TikTok before, I was wondering if it would be possible to rent out the rock you’re living under like an Airbnb so that I can take a nap for a couple of days.

Assuming we’re all on the same page regarding Popular Apps and the Internet, I’m moving right into my first question for Mon, which was:

Emily: What is the number one way TikTok has impacted Gen Z's notions of gender presentation?
Mon: It’s shown queer kids that there’s more of them out there and that everyone has their own unique way of expressing their gender. Through the For You Page, people get exposed to the same topics consistently from creators that are usually just like them or who are speaking on topics they’re interested in.
Emily: How has TikTok changed or reshaped the notion of community amongst trans and gender-nonconforming members of Gen Z?
Mon: A lot of queer teens find it easier to make/meet friends online, and TikTok is another way for people to do that. The app puts names to faces, or at least usernames to faces, and gives kids a (somewhat) tangible sense that there’s someone else experiencing the same things that they are.
Emily: What kind of impact can hearing about a variety of gender experiences have on someone who is grappling with their gender identity? How has TikTok shaped the way Gen Z experiments with gender presentation?
Mon: I think just the sheer exposure to and abundance of content allows people to see the different options available to them. It’s almost speedrunning the experiences that queer kids usually have to wait until college to experience; they’re learning about a plethora of identifiers and having the limits of what they knew on gender expanded.

In a deleted section of the Emily For President C-SPAN Presidential Ranking President's Day Special in which I attempted to do math for some stupid reason, we discussed how the percentage of Americans who identify as members of the LGBTQIA+ community has risen from 4.5% in 2017 to 5.6% in 2020, according to Gallup.1

Gallup noted in the findings that

one of the main reasons LGBT identification has been increasing over time is that younger generations are far more likely to consider themselves to be something other than heterosexual. This includes about one in six adult members of Generation Z (those aged 18 to 23 in 2020).

However, the caveat here is the line “adult member of Generation Z” as that is only a percentage of the whole Gen Z population. More importantly, it excludes the part of the generation that is still in high school. What Mon noted throughout our conversation is the impact TikTok has had on queer kids who have the language to discuss their identities as well as peers and role models to look up to at a much younger age.

Therefore, these numbers reflect a fraction of the growing trans and non-binary community. This became especially clear when I asked:

Emily: How does quarantine fit into all of this?
Mon: I think being at home and being isolated allowed a lot of people to look inward and feel more comfortable exploring their personal beliefs of gender. Without having to worry about being under the close eyes of peers or mentors, kids who have been at home are sometimes afforded a more comfortable environment to play with fluidity in expression. They’re able to paint their nails, try different hairstyles, and experiment with clothing styles without as much social restraint on them.
This notion of freedom obviously didn’t apply to all queer kids and young adults, especially those who lived with more traditional or conservative guardians.
Emily: Do you think we would see as much acceptance, as well as increased gender presentation diversity amongst Gen Z, had it not been for the perfect storm of TikTok and quarantine?
Mon: Personally, I think the increased diversity would’ve happened anyway, but the exposure might’ve been more gradual.
Any form of social media over the past 5 years has had an increase of queer influencers and a subsequent acceptance of queer influencers. Thinking back on trends in the early 2010s —like YouTuber coming out videos or other viral coming out posts— social media, in general, has made queer people more visible. With the reboot of Queer Eye, Drag Race, and even cable sitcoms just having queer characters, the presence of authentic non-straight people has come to be more palatable to a typical straight person.
I think where TikTok is particularly accelerating exposure is with the ideas of fluidity, experimentation, and authenticity. It’s less about outright saying who you are and what you identify as, but more about showing your journey with self-discovery and educating others.

The Vibe Online

You might be wondering, “Ok, I get what TikTok is… but how did it even get so popular?” According to a Forbes article published just before Covid when TikTok was just gaining dominance over our lives,

“TikTok’s success can simply be attributed to how it flips what we think of as social media on its head, while at the same time returning us all to roots of the original appeal–the ability to go viral. We've all gotten so caught up in maximizing reach by growing a massive fan base through subscribers or followers, so it's refreshing to have a platform with an algorithm that rewards content above all else. Because of that, it's pushing meme culture to new heights, giving Gen Z a visible place to be themselves while allowing brands to inspire their fans in authentic, entertaining ways.”

Look, I’m not crazy about the idea of pushing meme culture to new heights either, but I have said countless times (in therapy, mainly) that TikTok feels far more genuine than Instagram. Confirmation bias? Perhaps, but there might be something to be said for that:

Emily: Why do we see a much greater impact on Gen Z from TikTok versus other social media platforms?
Mon: Many people have said this about TikTok as a whole, but it’s a platform that can spotlight ordinary people. You don’t necessarily need to be attractive or have an inspiring life story to gain popularity on TikTok as you would with Instagram or YouTube. Influencers seem to blend in or even get lost among the fray of the For You Page.
The app almost fuses the parasocial connections teens in the early 2010s felt with their favorite YouTubers with the approachability and high volume of content that’s seen on Snapchat or Instagram. It has a way of giving everyone their five minutes (or in this case 1-3 minutes) of fame just for being themselves.
Emily: Is there a Tumblr to TikTok pipeline for us older Gen Zs?
Mon: I’m not sure if there’s a total pipeline as opposed to experiencing common trends.
For those of us who were on Tumblr a chronic amount back in the early 2010s (rest in peace to my multiple indie band blogs), what I’ve seen a bit of is the idea of “regressing” to consuming a form of comfort media again. Similarly, I see a lot of older Gen Z TikTokers bringing up trends or fads from Tumblr to reminisce or talk about how much they’ve grown since then.
A bit of a branch from the question but to tie to the main topic, Queer TikTok —at least in my experience— seems to be a bit of a similar animal to the queer facets of Tumblr. Early-mid 2010s queer Tumblr focused a lot on the different branches of sexuality; identifiers like demisexual, asexual, and pansexual popped up often in discussion and became more commonplace. On TikTok, there seems to be a branch off that discussion with older Gen Z: people are either realizing that their initial sexual identification was a result of repression, guilt, or lack of knowledge, or they’re reflecting back on having social media to help them find the words for their identity.
The way I see it now, TikTok focuses more on gender expression over explicitly defining one’s sexuality, and the overarching content is more broad and experimental.

ce n'est pas erica @sourhoestarter

you'd do well on 2014 tumblr (derogatory)

A Vox article from last August discussed how exactly TikTok became a safe haven for so many queer and questioning kids in particular: one of the reasons offered was that

it’s a social media app that doesn’t necessarily connect you with the people you know in real life. Unlike on Facebook and Instagram, you could end up going massively viral on the app without your friends and family having any idea, which could allow you to speak more freely than you might otherwise. The other important part is its algorithm, which is legendarily good (and legendarily quick) at figuring out what you like and want to watch — sometimes before even you might know yourself.

If you’re like me and have crippling anxiety over things outside of your control, I suggest you don’t look too deeply into exactly what The Algorithm is. For the sake of our conversation, all we really need to know is that TikTok’s algorithm is likely the most precise of all social media platforms which means it provides the most targeted content to your specific interests.

I asked Mon:

Emily: What role does the TikTok algorithm play in sharing this content with the right people? What role does it play in sharing it with the wrong people?
Mon: The way the algorithm works is by feeding you content that you spend a lot of time on, whether you’re watching something because you dislike it or because it resonates with you. The same goes for saving audio clips or filters that you like. Liking or commenting on a video also plays into influencing what’s shown to you on the For You Page. The positives that the algorithm presents is giving creators a more equal playing field; “normal” people can gain popularity just by posting with certain keywords or hashtags.
The downsides of this are that the algorithm also promotes showing a user content that they might hate-watch or videos that they post negative comments on. Personally, I saw this happening in my following page a lot over my For You Page, where trans creators I was following would often say “I ended up on the wrong side of TikTok.” This would often mean that right-wing men had been harassing the creator in their comments, dueting or stitching the videos with negative remarks, especially misgendering the creator or calling them slurs.

Although TikTok’s enforcement of their community guidelines has —how shall we say it— historically not been great, it’s hard not to hope that just maybe the new explicit language outlining what is now banned might actually protect the trans and larger LGBTQIA+ community on TikTok. If for truly no other more empathetic reason, TikTok has a vested interest in not losing LGBTQIA+ creators and need to make amends after GLAAD and UltraViolet declared the app and four others “effectively unsafe for LGBTQ users” last year. Thank God for capitalism, am I right???

Someone Unfollowed Me on Instagram For Talking Shit About Greg Abbott But That’s Just Who I Am So Here’s More of my Beef with Greg Abbott

Offline, things are feeling a little dark for the trans community. In Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton wrote an opinion stating that “certain gender-affirming treatments for transgender children —including gender reassignment surgery and puberty-blocking medications— ‘can legally constitute child abuse.’” Because there is truly nothing more important going on in Texas that a governor would need to focus on, local villain Greg Abbott issued a directive to the to state agencies, including the Department of Family and Protective Services, “calling on teachers, doctors and other professionals to report parents who provide their transgender children with gender-affirming care. One investigation has already begun.”

It’s truly baffling that it is 2022 on Dolly Parton’s green earth and men still can’t just mind their fucking business.

While an online community can’t stop Greg Abbott from being a bitch, it can offer support, especially to younger members of Gen Z. As we’ve discussed before, Gen Z spends an incredible (derogatory) amount of time on social media but maybe it’s all for a good reason.

I asked Mon:

Emily: What are some tangible resources you've found on TikTok that might be helpful to share here?
Mon: I learned about Folx Health through TikTok, which is a company that seeks to make HRT (hormone replacement therapy) more accessible via mail delivery. Folx Health saw the leap in telehealth and teletherapy services that became more common in 2020 with the start of the pandemic, and they sought to apply this to serving trans people who may not otherwise have access to gender-affirming healthcare.
Emily: What are some emotionally supportive resources?
Mon: I will always refer people to the Trevor Project. Psychology Today also helps people connect with therapists who specialize in specific issues, including LGBTQ+ help.
Emily: If you're comfortable sharing, how has TikTok and quarantine impacted you specifically?
Mon: For me, it was both an eye-opening and isolating experience during 2020 and early 2021.
I didn’t use TikTok as a platform to post on and was really just watching other people, which exposed me to many high school aged kids who were able to play around with their gender expression without repercussions. I felt really restricted, almost like time had passed me by, when I saw some of these kids getting to explore their identities so openly. I had this itch of constant thoughts like, “Should I go on T?” “Do I really identify a certain way?” “Will posting on TikTok make me feel more connected to other people like me, or will some people still see me as not trans/non-binary enough?”
While living in my hometown, I kept being reminded of all the ways I wasn’t able to experiment like these kids could. In high school, I felt so restricted because I didn’t really know how to label my relationship with my gender. I was going through the normal growing pains and self-discovery that everyone else was, but I felt lost without a label for how I really wanted to identify. I had to wait until college where I became close friends with people who identified as non-binary, transmasc, transfemme, and more labels that I hadn’t been exposed to. When I finally tried labelling myself as non-binary, something clicked and felt right. That feeling continued when I discovered the more detailed identifiers of genderfluid and genderqueer, which is how I choose to identify today.
Being able to understand that other people have similar views of their gender as me helped validate the internal turmoil that couldn’t be settled by the labels shown in mainstream media or queerness. While I felt like I hadn’t been true to myself for years and that I was behind, I realized that it’s a really positive thing that so many kids got to experience that feeling of finding an identity so much earlier than I did thanks to trans TikTok during the 2020 era of quarantine. I loved being able to see younger people exercise fluid expression, show off their transitions, or just make a relatable video over some niche audio.
One thing I could’ve never expected to see on TikTok was a bunch of nerdy transmascs all relating to this one album that resurrected something deep in my psyche: Lemon Demon’s Spirit Phone. When the album came out in 2016, I didn’t really think much of how it related to my gender identity— I just thought that it was unique, and I kept the weird songs tucked away in my head as I moved from high school to college. It wasn’t until the song “Eighth Wonder” started popping up on my For You Page did I remember that other people even knew of the album. There were transmascs in high school and college all having this experience of latching onto Lemon Demon’s (for lack of a better phrase) electronically quirky ballads. People were showing off albums that they would call “trans music” or the prompt that was created for “put a finger down: non-binary manipulator music” which was full of a ton of great artists that I have been listening to for years. (Am I the non-binary manipulator? I guess only TikTok can tell...)
Part of trans TikTok that I really relished in was this sharing of music that wasn’t explicitly trans but instead trans by nature. Trans artists like SOPHIE (our literal angel), Kim Petras, Arca, and Laura Les all had spotlights, but zooming in people found these other albums that we all just happened to have an affinity for that made them part of the shared trans experience for older Gen Z’s. Even if they were by cisgender artists like Lemon Demon, Car Seat Headrest, or Charli XCX, there was something about these songs that made them Trans Approved enough to embody this collective experience we didn’t know we all had.
(Substack doesn’t support TikTok embeds, so just follow this link to get the conclusive statement on this section.)

Especially after the last two years, we can see that anything that brings a community together and creates a collective experience is something that should never be underestimated.

So many thank you’s to Mon for being so open and willing to have a nearly hour and a half long convo with me and answer all of these questions!!!! Follow this footnote2 for a handful of further reading and resource links Mon has provided!!!

Also, a quick reminder that 2022 is a midterm election year and Abbott is up against Politician I Would Swipe Right On Beto O’Rouke in Texas. Even if your state does not feature as high-stakes of an election as this showdown, you can start getting involved all over the country with Vote Save America.

Greg Abbott and his besties across America have gone after people’s literal lives, and for what? If I lose another Instagram follower for saying it, fuck them and vote them out.