Gender Discourse Beyond the Binary: The construction of gender identity in social media

In Western thinking the binary system has traditionally played a pivotal role, with the binary categorization of gender being no exception. Research often neglected to take into consideration those identities that fall outside the binary (Dee, 2015); however, in recent years, gender non-conformity gradually has became a significant area of interest (Gratton, 2016) and gender binarism has started increasingly being challenged. The world of social media constitutes a playground for non-binary identities to proliferate and communicatively enact gender performance (Butler, 1990) freely. At the same time, however, it can be argued that the protracted lack of consideration of non-conforming identities led to the need of being seen and heard, in a way that appeals to the audience by resulting “authentic” (Angouri, 2021). In this regard, the power of social media represents a significant means (Angouri, 2021) that can be deployed to construct and express authentic and non-binary gender identities online. Based on the above, this study analyses a selection of multimodal texts which could be considered, by virtue of their content and stated purpose, as explicit non-binary communicative gender performances presenting different degrees of “stagedness” across different media. Materials posted by non-binary individuals on social network platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr and focusing explicitly on selfrepresentation were analysed with a view to identifying recurring linguistic discursive patterns as well as potential differences across both individual performers and different media. Methodologically, the study relies on Computer Mediated Discourse Analysis (Herring, 2004) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 2014) tools in order to cover the macro and micro level of linguistic analysis of the data in question. The linguistic choices of users allowed a distinction between “solicited” and “unsolicited” gender performances, as performances on Instagram and YouTube presented relevantly structured elements of discourse which highlighted an index of “stagedness” in the attempt of carrying out an authentic performance in front of a large audience. This study represents a starting point to investigate to what extent the demand for validation of non-binary identities can influence the discursive means through which gender non-conforming influencers attempt to result authentic in staged online performances, and to what degree validation from a large audience plays a role in the process.