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?

  • KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    9·
    1 day ago

    They way I’ve broken off every website I no longer want to support is to delete my account (if there is one), then wipe it from my browser – right click on a page from the site in my history, and select “Forget about this site…”. Then remove any bookmarks, if I have them. It feels like burning a literal bridge. I no longer see the icon or page titles in my history, and no longer have a one-click entry back into that place.