Navigating Survival: The Role of Information in the Lives of Trans adults in South Carolina

This community-based action research dissertation interrogates how trans people in South Carolina use information to survive. I am conducting 25 semi-structured interviews with trans people across the state to ask what information they need to survive, what barriers to information access they encounter, and how they overcome those barriers. I am working with an advisory board of five trans people to bring community input into my research. The board has pilot tested the interview protocol and given their feedback. In a practical part of the research, we are identifying a challenge trans people experience in their daily lives. The board collectively chose the lack of resources for trans people as the problem we will address. Together we are building an informational resource to fill those gaps and ease information seeking. Early themes from the interviews indicate that trans people rely on their peers for information over experts. However, trans people do not always have access to trans community, and it can be dangerous to ask friends and family, leaving their information needs unfilled. Overall, participants found a lack of resources related to transness. In response to this lack, participants created their own information resources for themselves and their communities.