When Pictures Speak Louder Than Words

Participants in a recent UNC Charlotte study on gender identity shifts during the COVID-19 pandemic were given the opportunity to share their personal stories through images not just interviews.     

Using a method called photo elicitation where photographs are used to stimulate culturally relevant reflections during interviews, Epidemiology and Community Health Associate Professor Jessamyn Moxie and her research team collected visual data from 25 people in addition to interviewing them about gender expansiveness during the height of the pandemic. 

“Especially for LGBTQ folks, bringing in visual information is a really useful way for some people to make sense of these abstract components of their experience,” said Moxie, whose work focuses on sexual health and gender and sexual minoritized populations. She is the faculty advisor for the University’s Peer Leader-Educators Advocating for Sexuality Education program, which encourages sexuality dialogues and safer sexual health practices.

As part of the research, participants were asked to provide five photos that symbolized any sort of gender transition they experienced during the pandemic. The research team asked questions based on what the participants revealed about the images. “The photos helped people share their experiences about how the pandemic had catalyzed some different movements across identity expression, roles, and any facets of gender,” Moxie said. 

“A lot of the photos were about internal transitions and how that was communicated with others,” said research assistant Kevin Benson, a Ph.D. student in Public Health Sciences. “In times of crises, like a pandemic, people start opening up to things that have been in the back of their consciousness about who they are.” 

One of Moxie’s favorite photo submissions was of the sun setting over a mountain range. “The participant’s connection to the photo was wanting a partner to see them for their holistic beauty,” Moxie explained. “As a sexual health researcher, that one really sticks with me. It calls to me all the time and what I might aspire to see myself as.”   

One participant submitted a photo of a Rubik’s cube, “which to them was symbolic of the trial and error of figuring out what feels good to them regarding their gender,” Benson said. “Many of the photos show the gravity of the time and why people wanted to get to know themselves better and be their authentic and genuine selves.”

According to Moxie, the broad outcome of the research project “was about helping people, whether they recognized their own gender shifts or not, to see the similarities for how we came out of the pandemic in different ways and the growth we experienced through that with a focus on gender diverse individuals and helping to bring some of that to light.”   

In addition to producing three manuscripts based on their study, the team — which also included Miguel Wilson, a Ph.D. student in Organizational Science, and Casey Mesaeh, a post-baccalaureate student with a Bachelor of Science in Public Health — also created a photo exhibition to serve as a gateway for understanding and conversation and to raise awareness in the community about gender expansiveness.

The exhibition, “Photos of a Moving Self: Examining Gender Expansiveness Through Art,” was first shown at the University’s student union art gallery last year. Within the exhibition, photos are grouped by thematic analysis and have excerpts from the interviews paired with them. 

“When you have all these photos, you have the option to share it with the public versus only  presenting an academic research article,” Benson said. “A photo exhibition has the ability to impact people who may not have thought about gender transition or may think it’s wrong. If you can get the exhibition in front of them and they can see these photos and comments, people might start to open their minds a little bit.”

Now through early January, the exhibition is on view at the North Star LGBT+ Community Center in Winston Salem, NC and Benson is in talks with Wake Forest University about showing the exhibition there.

“Being able to see themselves on the walls is powerful,” Moxie said.