ABSTRACT
Based on 18 months of fieldwork with Chilean trans activists between 2013 and 2018, this chapter argues that social media functions as simultaneously a queer and normative force in the lives of some trans Chilean activists, existing in a reciprocal relationship with the embodied self. That is, social media is neither simply a space of gender freedom nor gender policing. Rather, social media—and the people who use it—exist in a constant state of feedback and flux, leading to moments of both radical possibility and the solidification of normative gender expressions. Additionally, drawing on Daniel Miller’s theorization of the material mirror through which subjectivity is negotiated, the chapter accounts for the polyvocal nature of social media by suggesting that the relationship between the subject and social media might be more akin to a hall of mirrors, complete with false starts, dead ends, and distorted reflections of the self.
