“Those are the Spaces Where I Feel Seen and Fully Understood”: Digital Counterspaces Fostering Community, Resistance, and Intersectional Identities Among Latinx LGBTQ+ Emerging Adults

Abstract

For Latinx LGBTQ+ emerging adults, forming a positive social identity involves intersectionally navigating ethnoracial prejudice and heterosexism. Social media contexts are essential for minoritized emerging adults to access information and social support and explore their identities. Our research examines how these contexts serve as counterspaces that promote positive identity development, where minoritized people resist marginalizing narratives and collectively reimagine their intersectional selves. Our qualitative case study spotlights how a self-identified gender fluid, assigned female at birth, bisexual Latinx emerging adult at a public university, used digital counterspaces to resist intersectional marginality and construct positive social identities. After conducting inductive and deductive thematic analyses of two semi-structured interviews, we identified three themes (1) Intersectional Discrimination, experiences related to gendered colorism and gendered heterosexism; (2) Identity Work Through Narratives, resistance through the use of online spaces to develop critical consciousness, and counternarratives; and (3) Intersectional Counterspaces, the development of a coherent sense of self through digital spaces that validate and affirm intersectional identities. Our study expands how researchers imagine counterspaces and provides recommendations for practitioners to increase their understanding of Latinx LGBTQ+ emerging adults’ social media use.