Identity through images: How gay and lesbian youth depict their self-representation
Lozano-Verduzco, I., Hernández-Dominicis, S., Craig, S. L., & Mendoza-Pérez, J. C. (2026). Identity through images: How gay and lesbian youth depict their self-representation. Sexuality & Culture. Advance Online Publication. DOI: 10.1007/s12119-026-10564-z.
Background
Identity is understood as an ongoing social and relational process through which individuals construct narratives about themselves in interaction with their cultural and social environments.
Most identity scholarship has emphasized linguistic and verbal narratives, despite images becoming central to contemporary communication through smartphones, social media, and other ICTs.
Images can mediate identity construction and meaning-making, providing cultural and symbolic resources through which people understand themselves.
This is particularly relevant to LGBTQ+ youth, whose online environments provide opportunities for identity exploration, representation, community-building, disclosure, and activism.
Mexican gay and lesbian youth negotiate these identities within a social context marked simultaneously by:
Significant sexual-orientation discrimination.
Heteronormative gender expectations.
LGBTQ+ activism and increasing legal recognition.
Expanding LGBTQ+ digital communities.
Globalized symbols such as the rainbow flag.
Little research has examined how Mexican gay and lesbian youth visually represent their own identities.
Study Description
Digital photo-elicitation interviews with 14 cisgender participants in Mexico City were conducted:
Eight gay men.
Six lesbian women.
Ages ranged from:
Gay men: 16–25 (M = 20).
Lesbian women: 18–29 (M = 26.5).
Participants were asked to submit an image that "represented identity" to them.
Participants discussed their images in gender-specific focus groups, generating verbal explanations of what the images represented.
Analysis used Morriña's three-stage image-analysis process:
Denotative analysis of formal visual elements such as composition, framing, color, shape, and texture.
Connotative analysis of signs, symbols, cultural context, and participants' descriptions.
Hermeneutic analysis integrating visual and contextual meanings to identify broader ideas and values.
Unique Findings
Four overarching visual themes emerged:
1. Selfies
Selfies—shared exclusively by gay participants—positioned the participants' bodies and faces as sites of identity representation.
Images frequently linked the individual to LGBTQ+ symbols, relationships, communities, or personally meaningful experiences.
Participants described selfies in relation to:
Happiness.
Pride.
Sexual self-acceptance.
Coming out.
Visibility.
Sharing identity with significant others.
2. The power of collectivity
Images depicting Pride events, LGBTQ+ groups, sports teams, public spaces, and flags represented community, belonging, visibility, resistance, and collective identity.
Pride marches and other collective gatherings allowed participants to position themselves as members of a larger community resisting heteronormative and gendered expectations.
Gay sports participation was similarly meaningful: LGBTQ+ identity intersected with sport, friendship, geography, and public visibility.
Collectivity offered participants strength through belonging and made resistance more visible than in individual images.
3. Intimacy
A third set of images—shared exclusively by lesbian participants— centered on intimacy, eroticism, affection, and sexuality.
These images emphasized:
Same-gender sexuality.
Affect and intimacy.
Anonymity.
Femininity.
Resistance to stereotypes of lesbian women as necessarily masculine.
The intersection of eroticism and anonymity may reflecting both constraints surrounding lesbian visibility and possibilities for pleasure and sexual expression.
Images also challenged rigid gender expectations: femininity could itself become a means of resisting stereotyped representations of lesbian identity.
4. The simple complexity of the rainbow
Rainbow imagery emerged repeatedly but carried multiple and sometimes contradictory meanings.
The rainbow represented:
LGBTQ+ identity.
Pride.
Community.
Political resistance.
Visibility.
Social struggle.
At the same time, its broadness could obscure individual differences: a single recognizable LGBTQ+ symbol can make sexuality visible while simultaneously concealing the complexity of the individual behind the collective identity.
Some participants expressed a desire for a society in which LGBTQ+ categories would eventually cease to carry such social significance.
The rainbow therefore functioned simultaneously as a powerful organizing symbol and an imperfect representation of highly diverse identities.
Conclusions
Images function as active mediators through which identity is constructed, communicated, negotiated, and made meaningful.
Participants' identities emerged through a blurred online/offline or "onlife" process:
Youth consume images and cultural meanings.
Integrate them into their understanding of themselves.
Produce new representations.
Share those representations with others.
Receive recognition and meaning through social relationships.
LGBTQ+ collectivity fostered joy, pride, resistance, self-acceptance, and visible identity, while relationships with affirming heterosexual friends and family also remained important.
The rainbow flag condensed many of these processes into one symbol, representing "pride, groupness, resistance, visibility, and identity."
Practical implications include strengthening affirming public and educational environments, increasing authentic visual representation of lesbian women in public spaces, using LGBTQ+ imagery to facilitate community access and stigma-buffering, and developing media representations that balance collective LGBTQ+ identity with individual diversity.
