Sexualities, Ahead of Print.
Recent research shows a sharp increase in the number of queer-identified young people in the United States, along with an expansion of terms people use to describe their queer identities. Using semi-structured interview data collected from 30 queer-identified non-male 18-23-year-olds, we examine how young people today use terminology, identity, and appearance to communicate their sexual and/or gender identity. We find that the two most salient factors in how participants describe their sexual and gender identities are presentation and labelling. We then propose a distinction between one’s autonym and exonym, where an autonym is the identity label one uses to describe oneself and an exonym is the identity label others use to describe a person.