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?
Use an app or some other web blocker to stop yourself from loading the site. And when you have the addiction itch and get blocked, try to remember that you’re blocking it for a reason, and you don’t actually want to go there. It’ll take a while for your brain to adjust, but after a few days or weeks, you won’t even try to go there any more. YMMV, but that worked for me.