The internet has been a space for exploration since its inception. But over the past decade, it has also become a hub for LGBT+ youth to fearlessly discover community and themselves.
LGBT+ youth are coming out at a younger age than previous generations, according to a Science Daily article. In 2013, the PEW Research Centre estimated the average age of “coming out” for lesbian, gay and bisexual people was 12.
On the internet, these youth can take on any identity. The web can be an anonymous space offering a fresh slate and the opportunity to say things that can’t be traced back to them.
The popularity of websites offering anonymity among LGBT+ people reflects the desire for anonymity. The Scrolling Beyond Binaries Project reported that on Tumblr, which operates completely anonymously, users are up to three to six times more likely to identify as LGBT+ than any other social media platform.
Christian Wright, founder of the Rainbow Ottawa Student Experience (ROSE), said LGBT+ people have encountered increased feelings of isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Founded during the pandemic, ROSE includes a Discord server with almost 500 members. Wright says the growing membership is in part due to LGBT+ people wanting a safe space to connect with their community during COVID-19.
Comfort and support in exploring through anonymity
Online LGBT+ safe spaces are integral to the wellbeing of LGBT+ youth, according to a survey by The Trevor Project, the world’s largest LGBT+ suicide and crisis prevention organization.
While it can be difficult for some youth to find a trusted in-person community, there are countless servers, group chats and forums online for LGBT+ youth to connect and find support from each other. Access to these spaces is proven to lower the rates of attempted suicide among LGBT+ youth, the survey found.
Linda Charmaraman is a senior research scientist at the Wellesley Centers for Women, which specializes in studying youth and the intersection of identity and media. Charmaraman conducted a study on the presence of LGBT+ youth on social media and found they’re more likely to be online than their cisgender heterosexual peers.
“[People] need to connect with communities that they aren’t normally able to connect with offline, especially during the pandemic,” Charmaraman said. “It could actually be a lifeline for some vulnerable groups.”
This is reflected in the Trevor Project’s survey—96 per cent of LGBT+ youth surveyed said social media has positively impacted their well-being.
Tamara Carnevale, an 18-year-old non-binary bisexual person from Toronto, says the anonymity of the internet creates a safe environment for them.
“It’s a lot easier to express yourself and talk about things that normally would give you a lot of anxiety to talk about in person,” Carnevale said. “In person, some of the consequences to being explicit about your thoughts, feelings and identity is often negative and [comes with] alienation from peers and family.”
For Mahal Perez, a 21-year-old non-binary person from Florida, the best part of being online in LGBT+ spaces is finding people across the country with similar views.
“It’s that feeling when you realize that someone who’s far away from you is under the same moon,” Perez said. “You’re looking up at the night sky and you’re like, ‘Oh, someone in California says the same thing.’”
Claire Gale, a 17-year-old transgender woman from Utah, finds the anonymity in these online spaces makes it easy to explore and experience new things in a safe way.
“If you’re trans, you don’t have to go through four years of [hormone replacement therapy], you just change your name and profile picture,” Gale said. “It’s the best place to start since there’s no risk involved and you can easily try anything.”
The freedom and range of resources on the internet
Besides anonymity, one of the biggest draws to the internet and its social media platforms is the wide range of people, resources and information.
Lauren Bradley, a 16-year-old queer person from Northern Virginia, first started searching for information about sexuality and gender on the internet at the age of 10. Its wide range of resources was a huge advantage for them.
“There were no barriers really. If you had a question, you can just find the answer,” Bradley said. “The internet doesn’t owe you anything and you don’t owe the internet anything.”
Being around LGBT+ people helped questioning youth like Carnevale better understand their own identity. Carnevale started to explore her gender identity by seeing queer creators on TikTok talk about their own experiences, seeing an openness not often present in-person.
“Everyone [on TikTok] talks about being gay much more openly, engaging in queer culture and doing things specifically with the intention of not being seen as heteronormative,” Carnevale said. “It’s what helped me understand my gender … and that was a really affirming experience.”
Along with the range of answers and information available online from the LGBT+ community, Carnevale said it’s also easier to find other LGBT+ people as their identity is one of the first things they share.
“Online, there are definitely a lot more LGBT+ people that I know of,” Carnevale said. “When you’re meeting someone new, going to their blog and looking at their introductions, one of the first things you know about someone is their LGBT+ identity.”
This contributed to Perez finding it easier to connect with LGBT+ people online.
“In person, it was honestly terrible. I’d be in a place where it’s like, ‘Oh, this is the church my parents go to, here’s the only other trans person, we’re friends out of necessity,” Perez said. “But online … I can be friends with people who I actually like and are LGBT+.”
Translating online experiences to in-person
Beyond the screen, these online communities can have a profoundly positive effect on the offline lives of LGBT+ youth.
Jackson Machesky, a 21-year-old gay man from Massachusetts, was granted an invaluable experience of creativity and connection through people he met online. He formed a band with other LGBT+ people in an online community and then had the chance to meet online friends in-person.
“Being a queer in an online space has afforded me more freedom than any experiences that I’ve had in real life,” Machesky said. “It’s allowed me to experiment and figure things out about myself and not feel shame in doing so.”
Machesky isn’t the only one who has benefited from this online sphere.
Previously, Gale had no in-person LGBT+ community. She grew up in a hostile environment with a Mormon family, but through support from online friends she was able to make enough connections to form an in-person community.
Missing important voices
The internet isn’t always perfect. Machesky, Gale, Perez, Bradley and Carnevale all echoed that drawbacks still exist, such as community infighting and a lack of intersectionality and nuance in discussions.
Carnevale added one key element missing from these seemingly safe online spaces is the lived experiences of older LGBT+ people since the spaces are primarily created by and for youth.
In the Statistics Canada census questionnaire, specific questions about gender and sex “at birth” appeared for the first time in 2021. This is a testament to the gaps in Canadian data on LGBTQ+ people.
Despite these gaps, today’s online community offers LGBT+ youth space to discover themselves and build connections that can last years, much-needed support in their real life that LGBT+ youth, like Gale, do not always have access to.
“To improve the online LGBT+ experience, it wouldn’t be an overnight change, but moreso a shift in how we research and store information,” Carnevale said. “We disproportionally prioritize digital records of LGBT+ history over what can be found in offline spaces, like oral histories, physical records, and lived experience.”
Carnevale said the main ways to improve the LGBT+ experience and fill in the gaps have to do with sharing available information and emphasizing the importance of digital archives.
“It’s kind of this big collaboration from everyone to create a second world,” Gale said. “It’s this second world that breaks down physical barriers and lets people express themselves fully.”
Featured graphic by Angel Xing.
