The following project is a compilation of a series of interviews, conducted over the course of the fall semester, in which I spoke with fourteen individuals who have experienced significant changes to their gender identities, performances of gender, and sexualities, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was initially inspired to enact this process due to personal observations that I made in my peer groups and through my engagement on various social media platforms. Specifically, I noticed an increase in the amount of openly queer people in both of these circles, as well as significant evolutions in the identities and appearances of many such peers who already identified as queer. This suggested to me that the pandemic and its ensuing quarantine granted many individuals unprecedented access to both resources encouraging the development of personal identity, and abundant free time in which to contemplate one's identity and its ideal physical manifestations. My work was further influenced by my prior knowledge of foundational social science theories emphasizing the importance of social interaction and existence in public space in the curation of personal identity (both as this pertains specifically to queerness and more broadly). Since such elements were so drastically altered by the pandemic, I predicted that the development of individual identity would be stimulated during this period on the grounds that its removal of existing pressure to perform oneself publicly would allow for in-depth consideration and reevaluation of one's individual desires regarding their identity and appearance. This project also explores the significant role of social and digital media in facilitating personal identity discovery and experimentation, which I theorize was amplified throughout the quarantine period due to increased engagement with such outlets as methods of social connection and distraction from global tragedy. In order to further analyze the power of social media in inspiring personal identity development, three of the subjects with whom I spoke for this project are individuals who have garnered significant social media followings since the start of the pandemic due to their documentation of their various transitions regarding their gender identities and sexualities on TikTok, a social media app whose cultural relevance widely expanded at the pandemic's onset. Ultimately, the vast majority of the experiences shared by the subjects in this project confirmed my hypothesis. Even those for whom my theory did not completely apply suggested several potential areas of further research, which are outlined in the paper's conclusion.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Author-supplied Keywords","value":["COVID-19","Queer identity","Social media"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 23871