By Elizabeth Rauner

Since its foundation in 2007, Tumblr has been a platform for sharing multitudes of odd internet phenomena. From creepy Supernatural fan-fiction to the frightening One Direction fandom, the site harbors pop culture fads in stupid-easy fashion. More recently, Tumblr has given promise to a large portion of its community via the emergence of wildly popular feminist and gender-aware bloggers. With blogs devoted to feminist art, queer cinema, and other mediums, Tumblr has emerged as a safer and safer space for teens and young adults to embrace their gender identities, whatever they may be, in an intellectual and expressive manner.

In mid-2013 I noticed a shift in the content of Tumblr-viral one-liner text posts. Amongst the slew of amusing phrases about being in love with pizza and not being Beyoncé were punchy retorts about ‘cis white boys’ and the virtues of being ‘femme queer.’ With media and political attention placed on gay rights, the Tumblr community obviously needed to react to everything happening in the world. And e v e r y o n e reacted. Those who reblogged photos of succulents and minimalist interior design now felt the need to discuss their personal quandaries with gender roles with their 562 followers.

The birth of the Tumblr Babies Gender Aware Association was warranted. Being accepted as a trans woman in your public high school is not the easiest task and penetrating gender roles is much easier said than done. For example, Tumblr youths were watching Laverne Cox on Orange Is The New Black and admiring her courage and intelligence so they did what Tumblr kids do best: they started talking about themselves incessantly while opening up the floor for discussion, learning and growth. Feminist values intact, members of the Tumblr community began discussing their transitions, experiences and sentiments with being genderqueer. Transgender youth need a town square just as we all do and what better outlet than Tumblr, the manic, frothy happy place of the World Wide Web.

Like clockwork, the uninformed, obtuse and bigoted responses come pouring into the message box of anyone with a large sum of followers. Sometimes it is a simple question about logistics that set off a sixteen-year-old to rant about triggers and acceptance. Often it’s basic hatred and stupidity in the form of ‘anons’ that angers those on their path of confusion and self-discovery. The virtual aura around some of these genderqueer bloggers can be hostile and even mean at times, causing some to point fingers and make blanket statements about the entirety of a specific gender which can sometimes just defeat their entire purpose overall.

Dramatic as it may be, the development and popularity of gender identity discussions within a large forum can only benefit those who need internet asylum and inform those blissfully unaware of what cisgender even means. And yes, I’m referring to myself circa early 2013. Personally, I am thankful for the masses of assertive gender-sensitive teenagers because otherwise I would not be painfully aware of my advantages in the world as a cisgender white girl. (I thought ‘white guilt’ was bad enough??) No need to register for the Gender Studies course I wasn’t going to take anyways because I have no electives left. Everything I’ll need to know I can learn from Tumblr babies, a self-taught population that is apt to take over the world, one gif’d exclamation at a time.

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