What’s the Story? Exploring Narratives of Non-binary Gender Identities in the Blogosphere

Currently, people with non-binary gender identities – those who identify as either both genders or neither - are gaining more social visibility, suggesting that changes in social understandings of gender are beginning to occur. Facebook, for example, has introduced a range of gender options for user profile pages, Australia has introduced the option for "non-specific" gender on Australian passports and India now legally recognises "third gender" identities. Internet blogs, forums, and other social media are typical spaces where narratives of non-binary gender identities are being constructed. However, these have yet to be explored. This paper begins to address this gap through a discussion of research findings from a qualitative study of non-binary gender identity narratives in the blogosphere. The paper outlines a rationale for doing social research on internet blogs, which remain an under-used resource within the social sciences, and highlights some of the issues that need to be considered in relation to the research process. It then explores some key features of non-binary gender identity narratives as they appear within a sample of blogs, and critically discusses how the stories told there have implications for "performance" understandings of gender identity that remain popular within transgender studies and gender studies more broadly.