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?

  • Florencia (she/her)@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    3·
    11 hours ago

    I remind myself that reddit wants to resell a list of trans people to ICE. While @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone will tell data brokers to get wrecked.

    Seriously though, from a data perspective Reddit can just delete whole subreddits because a rich person will tell them to. While a weird question you have and a correct answer somebody gives will stay accessible via the fediverse.

    • MystValkyrie@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
      2·
      4 hours ago

      Wow, they really do that? I’ve been out of the loop. After DOGE got everyone’s social security information, ICE probably already has me on a list, which has made me think less about internet privacy in the last few months 🤷‍♀️

      But I’m not surprised at all. Reddit has never really cared about user privacy.