Fluid Homes: Navigating Gender, Sexuality, and Housing Insecurity Discourses on Social Media

Abstract As part of the Sexuality Summer Research Fellowship organized and facilitated by the California Institute for Integral Studies, this dataset focuses on 2SLGBTQI+ experiences and perceptions of housing insecurity and homelessness. Housing and rental affordability pressures, particularly for low-income earners, have become a pressing issue worldwide, especially as inflation has escalated over the past three years (Barrett, 2022). Much of this can be attributed to the build-up and fallout of the global financial crisis of 2008, where the culmination of stagnant growth in real wages and a sustained reduction in access to social security and welfare provisions has pushed many households into poverty and caused rising homelessness (Delclós & Vidal 2021; Broadbent, et al., 2023). The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated much of these pre-existing pressures, as measures to curb the spread of the virus such as lockdowns, revealed the absence of safe and secure housing, especially for vulnerable groups such as the 2SLGBTQI+ community (Salerno, et al., 2020; Lederer et al., 2021). According to Cox et al. (2017), housing insecurity exists on a continuum of multidimensional housing-related issues, including stability, affordability, quality, safety, neighborhood safety, and neighborhood quality. Homelessness also exists on the continuum as the most extreme form of housing insecurity, which consists of the lack of a fixed, regular, and nighttime residence (Broton & Goldrick-Rab, 2018; Cox et al., 2017). Queer-and-trans youth are disproportionately overrepresented in such experiences as 28% of 2SLGBTQI+ youth reported experiencing homelessness or housing instability at some point in their lives in the United States while 24% of youth experiencing homelessness in the UK identify as 2SLGBTQI+ (Bhandal & Horwood, 2021; DeChants, et al. 2021). Family rejection when “coming out” or being “outed” is a leading factor in causing 2SLGBTQI+ homelessness, leading to many queer-and-trans folx to rely on informal support networks for temporary shelter such as couch surfing (Abramovich, 2012; Petry, et al. 2021). Those who do end up on the streets can be exposed to dangerous and harmful situations such as substance misuse and violence. Furthermore, living on the streets can have a longer-term impact on the emotional, physical, and psychological well-being of queer-and-trans folx, especially for youth (Abramovich, 2012). As shelter services predominantly operate on a cisheteronormative basis, it means that systemic and cultural barriers prevent queer-and-trans folx from accessing safe and supportive services that cater to their specific needs (Abramovich, 2017; Fraser, et al. 2019)