Transphobic Discourses on Sociodigital Networks: An Analysis of Comments in Facebook Groups

Abstract

Through digital ethnography and multimodal discourse analysis, we identified in Latin American Facebook groups the ways in which transphobic discourses are expressed in the verbal and non-verbal modalities of posts and memes in sociodigital networks, which serve to account for the common ways of presentation in pejorative language. The data showed the presence of transphobic discourse in comments and memes, which were organized as stereotypes and prejudices based on the positions of the interlocutors. The data allowed for the formulation of five registers to analyze transphobia expressed on sociodigital networks, organizing discourse as dehumanizing, biologistic, psychological, scientistic, and paternalistic. It was concluded that in virtual communities, there is a rejection towards trans individuals expressed through the use of pejorative language in both verbal and non-verbal modalities, shaping hate speech at different levels.