Fed up with social media censorship, Esther Godoy imagines a brand new digital area for queer storytelling

Esther Godoy’s venture “Butch is Not a Dirty Word” is in danger of disappearing.

“Every month that goes by, I get more and more stressed out that it could just [get taken away] at any time,” Godoy stated. “That’s where we’re at. We have a bunch of flags. We have a bunch of warnings. Literally could be any day. It might not happen. Might happen tomorrow.”

Godoy, who was not too long ago featured on OPB’s Oregon Art Beat, has been sharing her work that options queer individuals who establish with the phrase “Butch” in digital areas and on social media platforms like Instagram for over a decade.

Godoy’s venture is a set of pictures and storytelling that she says “intimately documents, celebrates and uplifts Butch voices and Butch identity.”

The images are a mix of portrait pictures and picture journalism, typically capturing individuals of their properties or in bodily settings which are necessary to them.

Godoy typically leans into softness, playfulness, and different traits which are much less typically related to stereotypical masculinity.

In the subsequent section of her venture, Godoy is aiming to take energy again from conventional social media websites which are censoring queer artwork and tales, by constructing her personal impartial digital platform.

Ultimately Godoy hopes to create a freely accessible archive that shares queer artwork and paperwork queer historical past.

LGBTQ communities’ uneasy relationship with social media

Social media was by no means an ideal match for this work.

“Our intent was never to have that be the hub for what we do,” Godoy stated, “but as things slowly progressed, that’s where people’s attention was, that’s just where everyone was consuming media. And so we followed suit.”

In latest months, Godoy began to note an alarming enhance within the censorship of queer tales.

“Since November (2024), I’ve seen it escalate so intensely,” she stated. “We can’t really even use the words butch, lesbian, or dyke in any context without getting flagged [as sexually explicit].”

To illustrate the extent of the censorship, Godoy factors to a latest “Butch is Not a Dirty Word” story she posted on Instagram a few highschool trainer named Eva Gonzales-Ruskiewicz.

“[The post] used some of those words [like butch, lesbian and dyke] in the context of the story,” stated Godoy, “and it got flagged as sexually explicit, which is crazy because there was nothing to do with sex in the story at all. They were talking about professionalism and their identity, and how that translates into their work life… Totally G-rated, completely G-rated.”

Though Godoy has seen a latest escalation of censorship, this isn’t a brand new phenomenon in on-line areas.

For instance, in recent times the lesbian community on TikTok started to use the coded term “le$bean” to keep away from content material moderation and censorship of their tales.

This new web slang time period unfold onto different social media platforms and can be sometimes spoken aloud (pronounced “le dollar bean”). It could sound foolish — and can be utilized in a joking manner — however, it factors to a disturbing development.

“When those words are deemed as offensive on their own or they’re deemed as sexually explicit on their own, like literally the way we’re allowed to talk about ourselves… what we’re allowed to document changes,” Godoy stated.

And within the case of Godoy’s work, it’s a darkly ironic growth for a venture referred to as “Butch is Not a Dirty Word.”

These efforts to dam or conceal sure expressions remind Godoy of a darker time in latest historical past.

“It’s oddly reminiscent of how people used to think about queer people in general, which was, like, sexually deviant and sordid and pedophiles…”

Godoy’s venture has additionally documented the way in which conversations round gender and identification have damaged into mainstream society and media during the last 10 years.

More broadly, “Butch is Not a Dirty Word” has develop into a novel historic report and archive of queer and trans historical past.

“Each story is its own individual story, but you really start to see these larger themes, that paint a portrait of the last 10 years and including culture and gender and how those things have progressed,” stated Godoy.

A brand new platform that celebrates queer storytelling

With amplified strain to avoid wasting her venture, Godoy returned to an concept she first began to work on in her spare time a couple of years in the past: constructing her personal platform and leaving established social media.

“What is a way we can divest from that as the centerpiece of what we do and go out on our own, and lead by example, and create an example of what’s possible?” she requested.

“Because I know all queer creatives are feeling this,” stated Godoy, “but we’re also kind of sitting there passively logging into social media anyway, even though we know we’re being used.”

Godoy stated it’s an unfair alternate between LGBTQ artists and the companies that management the social media platforms that tens of millions of individuals are utilizing.

“All the people’s attention that we are able to curate, all of the content, all of the art, all of the energy… we’re not making any money,” stated Godoy. “I’m feeding it right into the big tech machine. So somebody is making money off of it.”

And now Godoy feels a way of urgency to transition her venture to a brand new dwelling.

“Looking at the censorship and the [Trump] administration and the way trans people are being spoken about, I’d like to try and get this done by the end of the year.”

Godoy is actively working to create this new, impartial digital platform, the place she will be able to showcase pictures and tales: half artwork, half archive and freely accessible to everyone.

“I have this vision for ‘Butch is Not a Dirty Word’ being a living archive effectively, that interviews and documents hundreds, thousands of people, in the most honest way possible,” she defined.

Divesting from platforms like Instagram offers Godoy the facility to protect queer historical past.

And, Godoy’s background within the inventive and tech industries means they’ve the talents to see this imaginative and prescient by.

“That’s where my work has always lived, in the middle, like, where does the technical and the artistic collide? There’s no reason why we can’t be using the internet as a canvas in that way, as an art canvas,” she stated.

“I can open up a website and I see, you know, hundreds or thousands of people that look like me, and I can easily filter between people that have the same ethnic identities, or maybe the same class background or the same gender identity…”

Ideally, Godoy says the long run archive might present clever, gallery like experiences for audiences throughout the globe.

“If I do an art gallery show in Portland, Oregon, no one in Barcelona can see it,” they stated, “but if I can present it online beautifully in a way that you would consume it in an art gallery, then so many more people all over the world get to have that really beautiful experience of integrating something and experiencing the work and the art, not just scrolling through it.”

“We were here and this is what we looked like. This is what we sounded like. This is what our lives were like. No one can really rewrite that if we own that.”

To study extra about Godoy’s venture, you’ll be able to try the Oregon Art Beat episode. Or see it play on the QDoc Film Festival on Sunday, Oct. 26.