ThemTech: Digital Menstrual Tracking Practices Among Transgender, Non-Binary and Gender Diverse Users

Abstract

This thesis is an evaluation of digital menstrual tracking practices among transgender, non-binary, and gender-diverse users, broadening the scope of sociotechnical studies (STS) to investigate how disaggregated populations affect the producer-consumer metric. Utilising the collective methodological framework pioneered by Frigga Haug and the West German Women’s Socialist Association in the 1980s, participants were invited to “live historically” by narrativising their memories related to menstrual tracking and their transgender identity. From their stories, three key areas were identified as platforms upon which transgender users are both reinforcing and disrupting existing understandings of self-tracking. Through a deconstructionist reading of configuration, an examination of how self-tracking conflates juxtaposed identities, and an investigation into the collaborative efforts of transgender users, technology companies and medical professionals, this thesis offers an alternate understanding of the self in relation to actor-network theory.