The role of social media in sex education: Dispatches from queer,trans,and racialized communities

Abstract

Social media is a well-established communication method, but little academic literature explores the psychological and social benefits for sexuality education. Particularly for queer, trans, and racialized communities – who have been historically maligned by state-based sex education – social media has become a tool to build internal capacity and psychological well-being as well as democratize, amplify, and share experiences around sexuality. Informed by intersectionality and health literacy frameworks, this commentary provides concrete examples of how and why these communities are taking advantage of social media as a means of liberation and form of sexuality education in and of itself. We also provide practical strategies for researchers, educators, and organizations seeking to utilize the power of social media.

Keywords

social media LGBTQ racialized intersectionality sex education sexual health

This is not just a story about technology, it’s about what technology allows us to do, converging with what we want to do. (Zeynep Tufekci, 2015)

Introduction

Social media is an umbrella term describing social networking sites where users create their personal profiles and share content with others. With nearly 65% of American adults using social media (90% of whom are between the ages of 19 and 29) (Perrin, 2015) and 95% of Canada youth holding a Facebook account by grade 11 (Media Smarts, 2014), it is no surprise that social media plays a notable role in politics, journalism, dating, and psychological well-being. There is a growing body of evidence to show that digital spaces have been positively linked with social support, self-esteem, and reduced loneliness (Shaw & Gant, 2002) by allowing members to improve knowledge, express emotions, and develop interpersonal relationships (Barak, Boniel-Nissim, & Suler, 2008).

This is particularly true for LGBTQIA+ youth (see Table 1). Though many young people in the US report feeling comfortable accessing sexual health information online (Lim, Vella, Sack-Davis, & Hellard, 2014), LGBTQIA+ youth are significantly more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to turn to these sources, as they often lack alternatives (Mitchell, Ybarra, Korchmaros, & Kosciw, 2014). As authors who themselves identify as queer, trans, and racialized, we know the importance of comprehensive sexuality education, and we wish to pay specific attention to the positive role of social media in amplifying sexual health in Canada and the United States. As mentioned by Pillow (2003), reflexivity is a powerful tool in qualitative research, to bring to the surface ideas and perspectives that are often not represented in mainstream conversations. In the context of this summary, we will be using it as a means of translating our lived experience in different realms to the intersection of social media with sexual education.

Table 1.

Definition of terms.

Queer	An umbrella term for individuals whose sexual orientation is nonheterosexual.
Trans	Someone whose gender assigned at birth is not the same as, or does not fully encompass, their current gender.
LGBTQIA+	Referring to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, asexual, and other identities that are not heterosexual and/or cisgender.
POC	An acronym that stands for “people of color,” an umbrella term for a variety of non-white individuals and communities. Current usage often, but not always, has political connotations and associates these communities to social justice movements and solidarity around shared racial and/or ethnic oppression.
QTPOC	An acronym to refer to people of color who are queer (for this purpose, meaning any sexual orientation other than heterosexual) and/or trans.
Indigenous	Indigenous people are recognized through international and national legislation as having a set of specific rights based on their linguistic and historical ties to a particular territory. In Canada, this includes Inuit, Metis, and First Nations people. In the US, this includes Apache, Blackfeet, and Cherokee people.
Latinx	A gender-inclusive way of referring to people of Latin American descent.
Racialized/ Racialization	Racialization is “the process by which societies construct races as real, different and unequal in ways that matter to economic, political and social life.”
Oppression	Unjust exercise of power by a dominant group over people who have less power such that the dominant group is privileged at the other group’s expense.
Marginalization	Deliberate and willful rejection of an out-group by in-group members.
By and for	Describes organizations that are founded and operated by people from a certain marginalized community, for the benefit of that community.

We see our contributions as a resource not only for academics in psychology, but also community members – specifically nonprofit organizations and sex educators. This article aims to help these groups understand social media’s current context and its potential to disrupt traditional ways of producing, sharing, and understanding sexuality information. Although social media disrupts notions of community requiring geographic proximity, we have chosen to focus on the countries where we work and live as a way to craft a manageable scope for discussion and keep a certain level of cultural specificity. Still, we believe the underlying lessons here can be transferred to other contexts, though the specific communities and experiences of marginalization may be different. We must also note that some countries have imposed various bans on social media (e.g. China, North Korea, Bangladesh, Iran) due to fear of political organizing and many of the liberatory practices described herein, which limits exporting certain strategies.

We bring an intersectional feminist perspective to this topic, not only drawing from our own experiences as practitioners, but also in building our arguments from intersectional theories and examples. We begin our discussion by outlining the historical account of state-based and by-and-for sex education initiatives, as well as the rise of Web 2.0. We chose to include this information largely following Fine (2016, p. 362) and Weis’s idea of critical bifocality, that “scholarship on unequal outcomes, without theoretical attention to structure and history, will reverberate against the very victims we intend to support.” With this context showing the historical drives and structures that necessitated by-and-for sex education through social media, we conclude with a section of notable examples of social media strategies in action.

Conceptual underpinnings

Two primary concepts heavily used in both feminist discourse and psychology provide the foundation for this paper’s analysis: (1) intersectionality, and (2) health literacy as applied to sexuality, which encompasses issues of sexualization, reproduction, health, intimacy, sensuality, power, and sexual identities.

Intersectionality is a theoretical framework that describes how multiple social identities – such as race, gender, and sexual orientation – operate at micro and macro levels to reflect and create interlocking systems of privilege and oppression. The term, first coined by black feminist scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (1991) to describe the exclusion of black women from both white feminism and antiracist discourse, provides a unifying framework to conceptualize, investigate, and analyze disparities in health (Bowleg, 2012; Hankivsky & Christoffersen, 2008). Intersectionality theory has also been adapted in psychology, both in the more traditional scholarship of reconstructing social identity (Deaux, 1993), as well as in contemporary feminist discourses that connect individual experience to structural inequalities (Fine, 2016; Greene, 1995; Weber, 1998).

Our work is further informed by health literacy – here defined as “the ability to access, understand, evaluate, and communicate information as a way to promote, maintain, and improve health in a variety of settings across the life course” (Rootman & Gordon-El-Bihbety, 2008, p. 11). Health literacy recognizes sexual health as a component of overall well-being connecting health information to broader systems of power. Intersectionality also maps onto current perspectives of health literacy because intersecting identities of privilege and oppression directly determine tangible health outcomes, such as access to services, resources, and care without stigma or shame (Tan et al., 2016; Veenstra & Patterson, 2016). Health literacy stems from contemporary public health scholarship and has been successfully applied in health psychology to explain the relationship between social cognition and health actions (Jorm, 2012; Von Wagner, Steptoe, Wolf, & Wardle, 2009).

Health literacy and intersectionality as theoretical concepts both acknowledge the political, historical, and economic systems that govern and regulate health. Together, they position the internet both as a system, independent of and impacted by political and economic systems, and a tool to complement other forms of information dissemination. A key part of applying these frameworks to issues of sexuality education and health information dissemination is first looking at how sexual health information has been created, shared, and weaponized. Thus, a historical exploration of how sex education has been framed and conducted can provide insight into not just sexuality topics and their development, but how sociopolitical factors impacted the information and dissemination.

The history of state-based sex education

Before the late 1800s, delivering sex education in the United States and Canada was primarily seen as a parent’s responsibility (Carter, 2001; Comacchio, 2006). This allowed communities of color to pass on essential information relevant to their sexual health, but also limited what people learned to what was accessible and socially acceptable in their communities. When medical institutions and government schools supplanted parents, they pathologized and misinformed minority groups (Adams, 1994; Carter, 2001). The legacy of erasure and distrust that manifested through these programs has led marginalized communities to create by-and-for sex education initiatives, many of which incorporate social media. In digital spaces, individuals can connect and share knowledge directly rather than relying solely on top-down information streams.

In the early to mid-1900s, school-based sex education began in both the United States and Canada, highly influenced by eugenics and the social hygiene movement. Initial sex education efforts aimed to increase the birth rate for white, middle-class people without disabilities – a response to higher birth rates in communities of color, which many feared would lead to the decline of the white middle class (Adams, 1994; Carter, 2001; Comacchio, 2006). From the 1910s to 1950s, sex education in schools was often delivered by medical professionals and focused on biology (Adams, 1994; Carter, 2001). These lectures did not include culturally specific issues, and their medical language made lessons inaccessible for many students who spoke English as a second language. Less than 10 years after sex education began in Ontario, values education was added to combat “sexual delinquency.” This concept considered premarital sex, sexual assault, and homosexuality as equal concerns (Adams, 1994). Rather than provide frameworks for youth to clarify their values, this education was directive, and underlaid by very specific and exclusionary understandings of what “appropriate sexuality” looked like – an approach that is unfortunately mirrored in the US and many other countries. As we will see, by-and-for sex education and advocacy on social media aims to heal this damage and challenge these lasting ideals.

Although various mainstream sex education programs have taken steps to include diverse voices and realities, most still fall short. Several organizations focusing on by-and-for LGBTQIA+ and POC empowerment have created their own curricula for classroom-based education (Scenarios USA, 2014a). However, many sex education organizations without these foundations answered calls for inclusivity by merely becoming “colorized.” They adjusted their materials to include images of POC without adding any information about the values or family dynamics that inform their decisions around sex and relationships (Ward & Taylor, 1992). While representation is important, true restructuring for inclusivity necessitates a deeper analysis and reflection of those communities, as well as the information they have to contribute.

As of March 2016, only eight states in the US require culturally relevant sex education and only nine require teachers to include sexual orientation (Guttmacher Institute, 2016). When American millennials were surveyed in 2015, only 12% said that their sex education covered same-sex relationships (Cox & Jones, 2015). In fact, several states have passed legislation that forbids teachers from discussing gay and transgender issues (including sexual health and HIV/AIDS awareness) in a positive light – if at all. Eight states even require that teachers only portray LGBTQIA+ people negatively (“No Promo Homo Laws”, 2016).

In Canada, sex education varies by province and there are no national guidelines. There is evidence that many provinces leave out specific information necessary for minority groups and do not reflect students’ sexualities or ethnic diversity (Phillips & Martinez, 2010). Furthermore, in 1999 only 15.5% of Faculties of Education across Canada required sexuality training (McKay & Barrett, 1999). While more recent information is not available, this means the majority of today’s teachers did not receive training to effectively address these issues. In this absence, many groups have created their own by-and-for initiatives.

Challenging dominant paradigms through by-and-for sex education

Since sex education became institutionalized, LGBTQIA+ people, POC, and QTPOC have been filling knowledge gaps and addressing the damage that school-based sex education has created. We offer a small sample of by-and-for sex education initiatives as context for the needs of marginalized groups, and to show how this work has adapted to new technologies.

In the early 1950s, when LGBTQIA+ experiences were widely pathologized, transgender people were already sharing vital information. During this time, US-based transgender pioneer Louise Lawrence created a correspondence network of transgender women by placing personal ads and contacting people who had been arrested for public cross-dressing (Stryker, 2008). This network allowed transgender women to share experiences and expertise with each other. Through Lawrence’s connections with sex researchers, including Alfred Kinsey, the network also let trans women anonymously describe their experiences to academic audiences and advocate for their needs (Stryker, 2008).

More recently, in the absence of Canadian studies on transgender issues, Ontario’s Trans PULSE was founded in 2004 to research a wide variety of issues regarding transgender health, safety, and activism and share it for free for the benefit of trans Ontarians (“Project History”, 2016). Their research includes intersectional studies on racism experienced by trans Ontarians (Marcellin, Scheim, Bauer, & Redman, 2013) and the unique barriers facing Aboriginal gender-diverse people (Scheim et al., 2013).

The Women of Color Sexual Health Network (WOCSHN) is another example of by-and-for sex education initiatives born to address gaps in the field (“About: How it all Began”, 2016). The network was founded by women of color who attended the 2009 AASECT (American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists) conference, in response to the overwhelming whiteness of the conference and its speakers. Following these conversations, they continued supporting each other on a Yahoo! listserv and, eventually, a Facebook group. Founded by three black women (Trina Scott, Mariotta Gary-Smith, and Bianca Laureano), WOCSHN now has over 300 members and delivers trainings, provides media commentary, and organizes online spaces to uplift the voices of POC.

Whether as researchers, educators, or people with their own experiences, LGBTQIA+ communities, POC, and QTPOC have always found ways to share essential information about their sexual and reproductive health and rights, even as government-run sex education programs continue to exclude or pathologize them. Social media is the latest site where this work continues, and where notions of geographic community get destabilized by virtue of a globalized internet. Thus, underrepresented groups facing international marginalization can connect across a distance and gain access to a wider variety of knowledge, though this is complicated by the fact that every country has its own barriers and cultural specificities.

Modernizing education through Web 2.0 and beyond

In tandem, educational theory has a long history of critical pedagogy, a great deal of which calls for alternative structures similar to those found in peer-created social media. Critical pedagogy frameworks developed by theorists like Paulo Freire (2000) and bell hooks (2003) suggest types of education that challenge dominant myths and structures, and empower learners to challenge normative ideas through knowledge sharing and activism. Online spaces allow LGBTQIA+ people to do just that by authentically expressing and exploring their identities (GLSEN, 2013). Where depictions of minority groups in classroom-based sex education are often inaccurate or incomplete, the voices they gain on social media create space for them to engage with each other and take control of their environment (DeHaan, Kuper, Magee, Bigelow, & Mustanski, 2013). As critical historian Ramón Gutiérrez notes (2011, p. 73), “virtual sexual education programs radically shift the dynamics of sexual knowledge and power, offering young people options other than those dictated by parental norms or religious doctrine.”

These dynamics changed most when online spaces shifted from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. The concept of “Web 2.0” emerged around 2003, used as a marketing term to describe websites and applications that positioned users as both active users and content creators (Cormode & Krishnamurthy, 2008). This differed from the hierarchical models of Web 1.0, in which a select few typically generated content and audience members were seen as passive consumers (Cormode & Krishnamurthy, 2008). The democratic nature and social connectivity of Web 2.0 are attractive features for sex education and serve to distinguish it further from top-down classroom education.

While social media creates these spaces for many people, it is important to recognize that not everyone has equal access. Digital literacy (the ability to understand how to use technology) as well as media literacy highlights the skills needed to communicate on these platforms. Auditory and visual impairments can also alter some users’ experiences. Many people also cannot access the internet due to economic issues, creating disparities known as the digital divide.

Many LGBTQIA+ people and POC go online more often than their peers. Today, LGBTQIA+ youth in the US are five times as likely to search for health information online in comparison to non-LGBTQIA+ youth, and these numbers are even higher for QTPOC youth (Craig, McInroy, McCready, DiCesare, & Pettaway, 2015; GLSEN, 2013). African-American and Hispanic youth also go online more often than their white peers and are more likely to have social media profiles on nearly every major social network (Lenhart, 2015). While research on these trends is not available in Canada, Egale Canada Human Rights Trust (Taylor & Peter, 2011) shows that 48% of youth of color do not know any teachers or school staff who are supportive of LGBTQIA+ issues. Thirty-eight percent of Indigenous students and 31% of white youth feel the same. This makes the internet a critical source of sex education in general, but specifically for LGBTQIA+ youth and young POC.

The power of social media and strategies in action

As illustrated thus far, education and programming initiated by queer, trans, and racialized communities have not required outside facilitation and catalysts, and they are created with the communities’ needs in mind. In this section, we discuss four key features of social media and demonstrate how they support dissemination of sexuality knowledge.

Social media increases visibility and interactivity of an issue

By positioning users as critical and even central, social media platforms prioritize users in ways that traditional media do not. Their interactive and fast-paced nature allows for wider collaboration, especially for topics deemed “unfit” or unprofitable by mainstream media. Beyond the user focus, other strategies that increase the visibility, interactivity, and shareability of content include specific features, such as the abilities to search for names and titles, and to post images, quotable links, and hashtags. Information is further spread by making the content easily shareable, enhancing the “viral” or popular nature of content.

QTPOC demonstrated the effectiveness of these tools in their use of social media during and after the Latin Night shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub in June 2016. During the massacre, Pulse posted a warning to their Facebook page. People were also able to ask about their friends’ and family’s safety through social media (Nielsen, 2016). After news broke and mainstream coverage started, Zoe Colon of the Hispanic Federation criticized the media for ignoring that fact that 90% of the victims were Latinx (Thrasher, 2016). In light of the events and their coverage, many QTPOC took to social media to express their grief and a GoFundMe page was launched, raising over $7 million (“Support Victims of Pulse Shooting”, 2016). Simultaneously, social media became a space to combat the whitewashed nature of mainstream news and challenge reactions from white LGBTQIA+ people that ignored the specificity and history of violence against QTPOC.

Another site for challenging dominant narratives and increasing visibility is video-blogging (vlogging) – a popular means for authentic representation and documenting transformational experiences. For example, there are a variety of YouTube channels made by-and-for transgender individuals, where many document their process of transitioning. MacKinnon (2016) has spoken to their multiple purposes, including both physical documentation and fulfilling an artistic process, making it nuanced and visible in ways that can aid and inform others. Duguay (2016) also found that creating short videos on Vine, compared to sharing selfies on Instagram, encourages creativity and sharing personal experiences, potentially creating narratives that are more relatable. The public availability and searchability of video stories online, combined with the options for personal interaction with content creators, allow isolated experiences to aggregate and become tools for community building.

Increased visibility also increases exposure to dangers such as harassment, doxxing (wherein people look for and publish personal information about an individual, such as their home address or passwords), hacking (wherein people attempt to gain secret access to a person’s computer or web profiles with intent to steal information, cause harm, tamper with content, etc.), and trolling (wherein someone is purposefully offensive and/or inflammatory with intent to upset, overwhelm, and/or cause conflict). Relatedly, as the web both reflects and creates the offline world, the systems of oppression found in person are also found online (e.g. racism, sexism, homophobia, etc.) and thus the frequent targets of such actions are people from oppressed groups. Two famous targets in recent years have been Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn, both of whom who have been victimized in myriad ways (e.g. receiving death threats, being stalked, having personal pictures leaked online, etc.) for their feminist work and have even gone to speak about gendered cyberviolence at the United Nations as a result (The UN Web TV, 2015). To address this, in part, Quinn founded The Crash Override Network, “a crisis helpline, advocacy group, and resource center for people who are experiencing online abuse” (“Crash Override Network”, 2015).

Those invested in sexuality education should consider whether aspects of their projects or programs, like testimonials or personal experiences, could benefit from being visible online. The shareability of online platforms can be leveraged to meet communities that are not yet connected with the project as a means to build solidarity. These narratives can also serve as an alternative or addition to classroom-based sex education. However, when working with and for marginalized communities, it is critical to ensure that people understand how and where their information is being shared, who will be able to see it, and what the possible impact on their lives could be if any piece goes viral.

Social media helps us find community and mobilize

Certain platforms are more popular within certain demographics and allow for more engaged interactions. For example, Twitter is particularly popular among racialized communities and has been central to revolutionary actions across the globe such as the Arab Spring (Perrin, 2015). A notable American example of this is the #BlackLivesMatter movement and its grounding in “Black Twitter” – a “collective of active, primarily African-American Twitter users who have created a virtual community that participates in continuous real-time conversations about systemic racism, equity, and inclusion” (Jones, 2013).

In social justice and health education spheres, Twitter has explicitly been used as a vehicle for sharing information and creating participatory and nontraditional online learning communities through efforts like #SaturdaySchool. Created by Rhonda Ragsdale, Saturday School is a weekly Twitter teach-in about rights-based issues (ProfRagsdale, 2013). Every Saturday, a topic and resource list are announced (much like assigned reading in a lecture-style classroom), and an interactive conversation takes place on Twitter the next Saturday. In addition to personal learning, participants are encouraged to share their own ideas and resources during the discussion, and to diffuse their learnings within their networks. Ragsdale considers this teaching method an “excellent form of protest because it is non-violent and inexpensive, but it’s also powerful because it takes advantage of our collective and invaluable resources of knowledge” (ProfRagsdale, 2013).

Individually each post can have impact but the true power of social media lies in its capacity to leverage the individual actions of millions and cultivate influence at a societal level. When columnist George Will wrote in the Washington Post that victimhood after sexual violence is a “coveted status that confers privileges,” Wagatwe Wanjuki created the hashtag #SurvivorPrivilege to allow people to share their stories and challenge such statements (Warren, 2014). Similarly, Beverly Gooden started the hashtag #WhenIStayed shortly after a video surfaced showing NFL player Ray Rice violently attacking Janay Palmer, his then-fiancée and now wife. Alongside other conversations that emerged, the hashtag was used to challenge inaccurate and simplistic portrayals of abusive relationship dynamics (Ramsey, 2014). Retweeting, commenting, or contributing to these types of conversations are some of the many ways one can show solidarity online, collectively amplifying a message.

Thanks to the popularization of hashtags on Twitter, they have spread to other platforms and have become a powerful way of linking conversations across social media. Additionally, when hashtags are used to track content at specific events (through actions like live tweeting – tweeting notable learning and experiences from an offline event as it happens), they can help broaden audience engagement beyond geographic constraints and the “paywalls” of professional spaces with high ticket prices that keep lower income people out.

All this noted, however, social media is not a neutral set of platforms; there are corporate interests at play that impact free speech, user privacy, transparency over terms of service, and more. This affects who gets censored, what ads get promoted, what kind of content is highlighted or buried through a website’s algorithms, what kind of user data is gathered and often sold, and more. For example, Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr have all been criticized for allowing hate speech and harassment while censoring activists working on feminist, antiracist, and LGBTQIA focused issues. Beyond what content is allowable on any given platform, corporate interests affect how users can represent themselves and how that connects (or does not) to their offline lives. Facebook’s push toward using birth names on the platform and suspending the accounts of people using aliases (or changing users’ listed names to reveal their birth names without their consent) endangered survivors hiding from their abusers, LGBTQIA people with chosen names, and other marginalized communities. After substantial community pushback, Facebook revised its guidelines but the problems still persist.

When looking to contribute to online conversations, researchers and activists should consider which audiences tend to gravitate toward which platforms, and what tools (e.g. hashtags, or online events) have been used to link conversations across platforms. This allows them to combine and create hashtags that might catalyze new conversations and increase the reach of preexisting work. Additionally, it is wise (particularly when discussing sexuality content) to see how a platform’s corporate interests will affect the way content will be disseminated.

Social media is a form of civic engagement

In the past several years, a great deal of online activism has been dismissed as “slacktivism” or “clicktivism.” This is often defined as low-cost and low-impact online actions, such as changing a profile picture or signing an online petition (Christensen, 2011). Most of the rhetoric around slacktivism often conflates and oversimplifies online organizing and is predicated on the idea that it may supplant more traditional forms of activism (Christensen, 2011), much in the same way social media is seen to supplant more traditional forms of education. Furthermore, this view tends to ignore how “traditional” activist strategies are not, and have never been, universally accessible (e.g. long marches in huge crowds are not friendly to those with mobility issues and/or panic disorders, direct actions with chance of arrest have higher risk for undocumented and previously incarcerated participants, etc.).

According to Georgetown University’s Center for Social Impact Communication (2011), Americans who support causes through social media (e.g. by joining a cause group or posting an icon on a social profile) are twice as likely to support activities both online and offline in comparison to their nonsocial media peers. Zeynep Tufekci (2015) argues that while social media can make logistical planning easier, it does not always provide the same gumption as offline mobilizing, and thus multiple forms of activism are most effective when they work together. There is also no clear evidence that low-cost online interactions do not reach their political goals (Christensen, 2011).

Furthermore, working with social media fosters skills that are transferable to a variety of professional disciplines, including psychology, public health, and social work. Posting videos to YouTube requires skills in acting, script writing, editing, and using production software, all of which are possible to develop with a smartphone and a laptop. Event planning using social media fosters project management skills, which require individuals to manage time, create and monitor posts, and communicate with various online and offline groups. By leveraging platforms that are accessible and available, young people can learn many skills that foster both personal and professional advancement.

One organization that helps develop these skills is Scenarios USA, an NGO based out of New York City. It offers programs that help students identify and analyze social norms around sexuality by providing them with supports and tools to share their own stories through creative writing, film production, and playwriting (Scenarios USA, 2014a). One of Scenarios’ initiatives encourages students to submit short stories to a nationwide contest; the winner is offered the opportunity to develop this story into a script and shoot a short film. The films are shot on location, often within schools and communities, and encourage youth to be part of the filmmaking process both in front of and behind the camera. Acquiring and applying these skills has been meaningful for professional advancement – some participants pursued careers in film and nonprofit management based on these experiences (Scenarios USA, 2014b).

The ability to use and communicate effectively on social media is often undervalued. Sex educators and activists can improve their work by looking at ways that classroom learning can invite young people to write blogs, make vlogs, or engage on social media to share their personal stories around sexuality, race, and gender. Capitalizing on the collaborative nature of social media through its inclusion in classroom projects, community initiatives, and even research can further foster skill sharing and intra- and cross-cultural exchange.

Social media offers participatory approaches to research

Many marginalized communities justifiably do not trust researchers who try to come into their communities to quantify their experiences. Across the globe, colonizing powers have often seen this type of research as benefiting “mankind,” inherently valuing their authorship and Western academic training as the sole route to well-being for all people while denying the validity of other ways of knowing. Often, these same studies have been used to justify harmful policies that were then imposed on colonized communities without consultation (Smith, 1999). It is clear, however, that data about these communities are needed in social change efforts. “Being counted” can be dangerous, but it can also enable a degree of political power and presence, demonstrating a need and providing proof for governmental investment.

One way to combat erasure and the harms of top-down research is through community-based participatory research and participatory action research – approaches that emphasize collaboration, reflection, and intersectionality. By grounding the work in the lived experiences of those “being studied” and by working with – rather than for or around – a community, “the participatory research process enables co-researchers to step back cognitively from familiar routines, forms of interaction, and power relationships in order to fundamentally question and rethink established interpretations of situations and strategies” (Bergold & Thomas, 2012). Here, social media can be a key component of data collection in of itself.

Putting research tools in the hands of the people “being studied” via digital means allows for rich work to emerge. An example of this is the online AfrxLatinx Sex Survey, created by Bianca Laureano – a Puerto Rican sexologist, radical educator, and independent scholar – “to see how people acquire knowledge, and how that information impacts the ways people build relationships with each other and act out their desire” (Manduley, 2013, p. 31). It launched in April 2013, spread via social media, and was conceived partly in reaction to the dearth of accessible, culturally relevant research about sexuality for LatiNegrxs (people at the intersection of blackness and a Latinx identity). Notably, this foundation is shared with decolonizing research models created by the Kaupapa Maori, among other colonized groups. Like the AfrxLatinx study, these models center improving the communities that are studied, legitimizing marginalized experiences, and self-determination (Smith, 1999). Laureano, who often operates outside academia, has been able to present the findings from this survey at various conferences in America and increase visibility about AfrxLatinx sexuality.

Radical research methodologies also destabilize ideas of ownership and authorship – specifically in the AfrxLatinx Sex Survey:

Bianca is aiming to give ‘communal citation’ powers to everyone who participates in the project. In other words, anyone who contributes to the survey by filling it out will be credited as an author, and can claim partial ownership over the entire work and its results. […] With this model of citation, people will not be able to follow it in a very linear way, but that’s okay because we do not live in a linear society. (Manduley, 2013, p. 33)

This kind of bottom-up approach can revolutionize the role data play in the lives of young people. Rather than seeing science and research as things done “to” them, youth can grow up with a new understanding of research methodology as applied to their lives. Filtered through the lens of sexuality, participatory research provides a space to rewrite scripts that pathologize nondominant sexual identities (Laureano, 2015). Additionally, this kind of approach and its social media components expand the image of researchers to include public intellectuals, community scholars, and other stakeholders.

However, this approach also raises questions about protocol, usability of data, and validity, especially when convenience sampling strategies are used and when surveys have not gone through an ethical approval process. While Institutional Review Board protocols have been developed in response to abuses of power in the world of research, they also add barriers that prevent marginalized people from accessing the means needed to conduct “academically valid” research that can be published in peer-reviewed journals. To ensure that people’s rights and confidentiality are protected, it is vital that there is complementary education about research methodology made accessible to these communities so that it is more consistently applied while also critiquing the methodologies themselves.

The power asymmetries imposed by academic institutions that dictate who collects information and what information is valued resonates with the work of Michelle Fine (1992), who considers how acts of feminism and disruption serve to transform the institutions. In Disruptive Voices (1992), she claims that the study of gender must also include a study of power, and feminist research that ignores power risks essentializing and perpetuating dualistic beliefs on gender, sexuality, and race. Bowleg (2008) takes this one step further as she explores the methodological and analytic challenges of integrating intersectionality theory into research, building off the lessons learned through two studies that evaluated multiple minority stresses and resilience among black LGBT communities based in Washington, DC. In many ways, the AfrxLatinx Sex Survey corroborates both with Fine’s theoretical interpretation of feminist research and Bowleg's methodological queries because it rejects the interpretation that heterogeneous data are ‘noisy’ and makes connections between individual level patterns and macro structural shifts.

Concluding thoughts

Overall, social media is a valuable tool for community building and meaningfully contributes to the feminist discourse. If practitioners want to listen and work with communities to respond to their sexual health needs, they need to be listening online. Similar to offline spaces, practitioners must also pay attention to how the online conversation unfolds, who is sitting at the table, and who makes up the audience, and who is being ignored. When integrating social media into their work, practitioners must also be reflexive in how they collect evidence, what kinds of evidence are captured, and what is valued.

As sex educators, researchers, and community members, we position ourselves as social media advocates for both personal and professional reasons. We recognize that using social media comes with new ethical challenges and questions, but we ultimately celebrate its presence because of the overarching benefit it can have in uplifting voices that are traditionally left out of sex education. Thus, we situate this paper as a starting point to understand why social media holds power and how it is being deployed for sex education. Furthermore, sexual health literacy can vary depending on geographic location, historical movements, and political processes, which implies that social media might play different, while still relevant, roles in communities outside this paper’s scope. Recognizing the evolution of sex education and its history of undervaluing and misrepresenting marginalized voices, this paper has described the ways in which members of queer, trans, and racialized communities have been critically developing and promoting educational content created by and for the communities they serve and are part of.

We see the next phase of social media-based sex education as one where there will be more collaboration across communities, perhaps most aptly elucidated by the Special Issue on Feminism and Social Media that explicitly welcomed proposals from both activists and practitioners as well as academics. This allows people outside of queer and feminist academia to support and amplify the voices of marginalized communities, and to do so in a way that allows all parties to benefit from the synergies. We hope bonds of solidarity will ultimately strengthen sexual health equity for all, and we know that social media will be a critical component of that future success.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

Much like the communities that build stories together online, this article could not have been made possible without a few notable people (and the magic of Google Drive). We would like to extend our gratitude to Corey Flanders and Luc Rinaldi for their thoughtful contributions.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Aida E Manduley is an award-winning Latinx activist, clinician, and sexuality educator known for big earrings and building bridges. Raised in Puerto Rico, they graduated with their Bachelor's in Gender and Sexuality Studies from Brown University and their Master's in Social Work from Boston University. Manduley's therapeutic work focuses on underrepresented populations and trauma, and is deeply informed by radical frameworks for change, such as Liberation Health. Queer in both gender and sexuality, and with a wild love of technology, they challenge traditional understandings of clinical positionality and seek to make education about sex available to a variety of audiences that are traditionally underresourced. Other areas of their expertise include organizational development, racial justice, sexual stigma, nonmonogamy, kink/BDSM, and youth education. Currently, Manduley serves as a clinician at The Meeting Point, an Executive Committee Member of the Women of Color Sexual Health Network, and the Special Projects Consultant for The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health.

Andrea Mertens is a trans, bisexual, white educator who is interested in the potential for sex education through smartphones as well as sex education language that includes LGBTQIA+ people. Since completing her Bachelor of Education at McGill, she has focused primarily on sexual health education, working with Sexpressions and Healthy McGill. She currently coordinates SextEd, a sexual health texting helpline for anglophone youth run by ACCM (AIDS Community Care Montreal). As part of this role, she supports youth-led sex education initiatives and trains Education students in inclusive sex education.

Iradele Plante is a sex educator in spirit and a public health researcher by trade. She’s interested in the role that the internet can have for sexual health and health literacy, and has been fortunate enough to explore this intersection in both academic and community contexts in Canada, the United States, and the Netherlands. During her studies, Iradele joined Re:Searching for LGBTQ Health, that looks at how LGBTQ people experience physical and emotional health and how they access services. She’s also had the opportunity to work with the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, AIDS Community Care Montreal, The Center for Sexual Pleasure and Health and Head & Hands. She identifies as a bisexual white woman and a survivor of sexual violence.

Anjum Sultana is a public health professional with interests at the intersection of health, politics, and equity. In the past, Anjum has been involved in qualitative community-based research focused on sexual health education and intervention development for racialized women in the Greater Toronto Area, with various organizations including the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP). In addition, she has worked on conducting research as well as developing interventions focused on the social determinants of health, with particular interest in immigrant, refugee and newcomer health as well as racial health equity more broadly. She has recently completed her Masters of Public Health at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She identifies as a heterosexual South Asian Canadian Muslim woman.

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