Cited by 175LGBTQ Health, Identity, and PolicyMedia and Digital CommunicationGender, Feminism, and Media

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 89 of the 89 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; none of the 55 sources its claims cite is checked for support yet.

Social Media as Social Transition Machinery

Open access
Haimson, Oliver·2018·Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Abstract

Social media, and people's online self-presentations and social networks, add complexity to people's experiences managing changing identities during life transitions. I use gender transition as a case study to understand how people experience liminality on social media. I qualitatively analyzed data from transition blogs on Tumblr (n=240), a social media blogging site on which people document their gender transitions, and in-depth interviews with transgender bloggers (n=20). I apply ethnographer van Gennep's liminality framework to a social media context and contribute a new understanding of liminality by arguing that reconstructing one's online identity during life transitions is a rite of passage. During life transitions, people present multiple identities simultaneously on different social media sites that together comprise what I call social transition machinery. Social transition machinery describes the ways that, for people facing life transitions, multiple social media sites and networks o"en remain separate, yet work together to facilitate life transitions.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

Haimson analyzes Tumblr transition blogs and interviews to argue that during gender transition, social media act as “social transition machinery”: separate sites and networks work together to support identity reconstruction as a rite of passage. The paper argues that liminality online is multiple, not neutral or identity-less.

Key findings

  • Across 240 Tumblr transition blogs (84,481 posts) and 20 interviews, participants used Tumblr for transition work—expressive writing, self-documentation, and identity exploration—while 19 of 20 also used Facebook and often kept identities and networks separate.
  • Facebook was used for mass trans identity disclosure when participants were ready, converting transition into an event; Tumblr was a self-focused yet social space for autonomy, support, and transition work.
  • The paper argues that liminality on social media is multiple rather than neutral, and that reconstructing one’s online identity is a rite of passage; “social transition machinery” describes separate sites that remain separate yet work together.
  • Blog sample demographics: 47% female-to-male/FTM/trans men, 46% male-to-female/MTF/trans women, 7% nonbinary; interview sample was 50% trans women, 35% trans men, and 15% nonbinary trans people, with average age 26.65.

Methods

  • Collected text data from 240 Tumblr transition blogs via Tumblr’s API, from each blog’s first post through January 4, 2017, totaling 84,481 posts; used an opt-out approach after messaging 257 bloggers.
  • Conducted qualitative content analysis on 3,200 manually coded Tumblr posts, combining conventional and directed content analysis, alongside exploratory immersion and memoing.
  • Conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 bloggers (19 video chat, 1 phone; average 60 minutes, SD = 13.8, range 40–88 minutes), transcribed and analyzed with inductive open coding, axial coding, and memoing; reached data saturation after approximately 15 interviews.

Limitations

  • The paper states that all participants were avid Tumblr users, so results may not generalize to non-Tumblr users, those more invested in other sites, those documenting transitions elsewhere, or those who do not document transitions; participants may also be more “open” than others.
  • The paper states that those most distressed may have been less likely to respond to interview requests, though blog data still captured some of their experiences.
  • Evident from the text: the blog sample skewed young (63% aged 18–24), most bloggers did not specify race/ethnicity (93%), visual content was not collected, and the opt-out approach may miss bloggers who did not see or respond to messages.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1145/3274332

Cites

89 of 89 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

62 Own interpretation · 31 Sources not found · 31 Own result · 21 Own method · 17 No basis given · 4 Not checked yet

Show all 86 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 46
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 49
  • The quote only partly states this claim. 1
  • Borderline: one of the tests for a substantial claim is unclear. 1
80 of 80
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Tumblr transition blogs and interviews with bloggers accurately reflect people's experiences of gender transition on social media.

    “I examined trans people's transition experiences using content analysis of data from transition blogs on Tumblr (n = 240 blogs), a social media blogging site on which people document their gender transitions, and qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews with a subset of bloggers (n = 20).”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    People's online self-presentations on different social media sites correspond to their actual identities and transition stages.

    “People's particular presentation on the two sites varied, but each person described presenting a pretransition name, gender, and appearance on Facebook while presenting a different name, gender, and appearance on their transition blog.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Networked societies lack formal rites of passage for many life transitions.

    “Because networked societies lack formal rites of passage for many life transitions, for social media users, social media fill this gap by acting as social transition machinery for life transitions.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Social media sites and services constantly urge users to connect across sites and networks that may be discordant.

    “However, social media sites and services constantly urge users to connect across sites and networks that may be discordant.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Every person experiences multiple life transitions throughout their lives, and sometimes several in tandem.

    “Life transitions are not only a marginal state; every person experiences multiple life transitions throughout their lives, and sometimes several in tandem.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Previous literature characterized transitional periods in people's lives as neutral or identity-less.

    “My description of liminality is a substantial departure from previous literature, which characterized transitional periods in people's lives as neutral or identity-less -which, in my view, further marginalizes transitional populations.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The blog data was public.

    “An opt-out approach was ethically appropriate given that I paraphrased blog post quotes to reduce traceability, the data was public, some bloggers may not have logged in to view messages or may have chosen not to respond to my message, and the benefit of analyzing a large rich dataset outweighed the minimal potential harm to participants.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The benefit of analyzing a large rich dataset outweighed the minimal potential harm to participants.

    “An opt-out approach was ethically appropriate given that I paraphrased blog post quotes to reduce traceability, the data was public, some bloggers may not have logged in to view messages or may have chosen not to respond to my message, and the benefit of analyzing a large rich dataset outweighed the minimal potential harm to participants.”
8 of 8

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

2 of 2

Citations

Cites

Show all 88 references

Research works printed but not linked: 10

  1. Amy S. Bruckman. 1993. Gender Swapping on the Internet. In Proceedings of INET '93
  2. Judith Butler. 1999. Gender Trouble. Taylor & Francis.
  3. 10.5555/2621981 · DOI
  4. Danielle Lottridge, Joy Kim, Joseph "Jofish" Kaye, and Nazanin Andalibi. Frontstage, Backstage, Midstage: Identity Performance on Social Media. under review.
  5. Carolyn R. Miller and Dawn Shepherd. 2004. Blogging as social action: A genre analysis of the weblog. Into the blogosphere: Rhetoric, community, and culture of weblogs 18, 1: 1--24.
  6. Tobias Raun. 2010. Screen-Births: Exploring the Transformative Potential in Trans Video Blogs. Graduate Journal of Social Science 7, 2: 113--30.
  7. Kathryn E. Ringland. 2018. Exploring Virtual Worlds as a Support for Social Play in Children with Disabilities. University of California, Irvine.
  8. 10.5555/206748 · DOI
  9. Susan Stryker. 2009. Transgender History. Seal Press.
  10. Bjørn Thomassen. 2009. The uses and meanings of liminality. International Political Anthropology 2, 1: 5--27.

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Metadata

Authors
Haimson, O.
Affiliations
University of Michigan (US)
Corresponding author
Haimson, Oliver
Venue
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Published
2018-11
Volume
2
Issue
CSCW
Pages
1-21
ISSN
2573-0142 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2899321560
Cited by
175
References
88
Citations by year
2026: 23 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 18 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 22 · 2019: 12
FWCI
18.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (publishedVersion)
  • Deep Blue (University of Michigan) (submittedVersion)
Funders
National Science Foundation
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy
  • Social Sciences › Communication › Media and Digital Communication
  • Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender, Feminism, and Media
Keywords
social media, gender transition, transgender people, liminality, Van Gennep, rites of passage, online identity, self-presentation, Tumblr, life transitions, multiple identities

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