Fritz publishes study about privacy, crowdfunding in transgender community
A study by doctoral candidate Niki Fritz in the International Journal of Communication looks at the tension between privacy and crowdfunding in the transgender community.
“Not the Normal Trans Story: Negotiating Trans Narratives While Crowdfunding at the Margins,” by Fritz and former Media School professor Amy Gonzales, uses in-depth interviews with 20 transgender individuals to understand how they negotiate privacy while crowdfunding to pay for top surgery.
The study found that while subjects had fears and concerns associated with crowdfunding, they embraced it as an opportunity to share their stories and reject what they viewed as the normal, too-narrow trans narrative.
The findings suggest an intensification of privacy calculus theory as it applies to individuals from marginalized communities: Perceived costs and benefits of online disclosure may be greater when publicizing an identity that is often subject to attack.
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