cw: TERFs and general transphobia
For the most part, I avoid Reddit like the plague, but when I’m feeling sad, I find myself going on r/terf_trans_alliance, and then I feel worse.
I don’t know what drives them to participate, but the minority of trans posters are ridiculed, subjected to abusive comments, and mass downvoted for any attempt to get through to them in a way that isn’t absolute self-flagellating placation. Some things I noticed after just a minute or two of scrolling:
spoiler
- The term “TRA”
- Accusations of male socialization, with some gaslighting when trans people try to discuss their personal experiences about their upbringings that do not fit the narrative
- Accusations of “mansplaining”
- Assumptions that trans women are predatory
- Assumptions that trans women have an entitlement complex
- Accusations that trans women conform to rigid misogynist stereotypes, but also that trans women are too masculine to embody what they identify as
- Assertions that trans women defending themselves need to accept male privilege, comparisons to white fragility
- The comparison of being trans to a cultist religion
- The insinuation that upvotes or kind words “shields trans people from reality”
- Casual references to trans women, whether indirectly or directly to trans commenters/OPs, as men or males
- The likening of trans women to white supremacists
There’s this stereotype that Reddit is this liberal echo chamber, but I seem to know all of the many places where it’s not, and I seek out those places when I know they’ll hurt me.
For those of you just on Lemmy, what are your strategies not to stray back to Reddit?
Oh wow cool to know im not the only one that does something like this. I actually didnt know that reddit existed but when im like already in a deppressy mood I usually just lurk like hardcore right wing reddits and spaces and online like those conservative twitter accounts just to like soak up a lot of transphobic stuffs(r/4tran and the such is good for this to lol). I used to do that with like racist stuff too back when I was cis. I guess its some sorta way to keep me grounded from believing im anything other than a man or somethin idk. I don’t have a reddit (or twitter) account but best thing I do to prevent doing that to much is just reminding myself that internet interactions are usually meaningless and a waste of time and most accounts on the bigger sites are just bots and trolls anyways so the time doomscrolling can be spent doing something more productive. And anyone who is supposed being real probably trans stuff as some sorta monolith which is just wrong the same way its wrong to treat women or any group of people based on identity as one so one thing that can be true for one person doesn’t make it true for another in that group. Thats prolly shit advice but it’s all I got (ToT).