#trans technology

This Open Access journal article has become one of the most cited and most influential articles about Tumblr. From earliest scholarship, Tumblr was recognized as an important site for trans and nonbinary users in terms of both identity and community formation/curation. Quinn Miller and Marty Fink’s article “Trans Media Moments” (2014) was among the first and most influential, followed by the wok of scholars including Avery Dame (also an author here), Moya Bailey, Abigail Oakley, Andre Calvacante, Kai Jacobsen, and the scholars of the Scrolling Beyond Binaries Project. This article’s significance comes from the authors’ claim of Tumblr as a trans technology in the structural and economic sense as well, demonstrating how those aspects facilitated trans community and identity development through the porn ban of 2018. Here, the authors offer a concept of Tumblr as a structurally queer space along the lines first discussed by Fink and Miller as Alexander Cho in his chapter “Queer Reverb.” 

This is one of the most compelling scholarly articles about Tumblr, by Oliver Haimson, Avery Dame-Griff, Elias Capello & Zachari Richter. Their study is in the tradition of Alex Cho’s foundational 2015 essay, “Queer Reverb: Tumblr, Affect, Time,” that explores the structure of Tumblr’s technology and interface in relation to broader conceptions of queer aesthetics. Here, the authors argue that Tumblr’s design functions as a particular “social technology that meets the needs of trans users,” therefore a “trans technlogy.” They demonstrate that Tumblr became a platform that served (pre-porn ban) LGBTQ+ users and produced specific LGBTQ+ content because of particular technological affordances. Note: Avery Dame-Griff is also one of the contributors to a Tumblr book, where he discusses the development of trans identities and counterpublics on Tumblr. 

Trans*H4ck is a tech company that is geared towards helping create technological, economic and overall safe spaces for trans and gender non-conforming people. The goals of Trans*H4ck is to empower trans and gender non-conforming communities economically as well as, “improve access to social services, promote gender safety and community sustainability, while bringing visibility to trans* tech innovator and entrepreneurs. In essence Trans*H4ck is a tech company devoted to using technology to improve the quality of life for people in the trans and gender non-conforming community, as they are at a great risk for homelessness, poverty, discrimination and violence. They have multiple different apps: YO Restrooms, which is an app that locates gender safe bathrooms, Transgress, which is an app that allows people to bypass web filters and be able to access sites abut transgender issues and only transgender issues, and GenderOverFlow, which is a site where people can ask, and answer questions about everything Trans. All of these apps help to not only build community but also allow trans and gender non-conforming people places where they can continue to be themselves at a lower risk. They also all work to improve the quality of life and bring attention to the things that put Trans and gender non-conforming people and risk, and try to counter that in some way.