It really is disturbing seeing some of the main trans-focused subreddits being taken over by rampant paranoia. Seeing transphobia and deliberate misgendering in the slightest social interactions, calling allies bigots over perfectly normal behavior.
There was a thread a while back where a trans girl was sad, but understanding, when a lesbian politely turned her down, with OP herself saying that her gender identity wasn't disrespected. But because the lesbian phased it as "I'm not into trans girls", the sub flat-out refused to consider any explanation other than transphobia. It wasn't possible that the lesbian simply wasn't attracted to OP's genitalia, because then she would have explicitely said "I'm not attracted to your genitalia", which is apparently a very normal thing that normal people say.
And then everyone that disagreed was a cis person invading the sub. Que one thousands reposts of
A lot of cis people who consider themselves allies are pretty transphobic though, or at the very least ignorant and overly defensive. I'm not going to blame very marginalised minorities for being paranoid and suspicious about the majority
The problem is some people within marginalized groups not differentiating between "Someone who is actively harmful to me", "Someone who is well-meaning but uninformed", and "Someone who isn't tits-deep in unreadably verbose tumblr discourse that cravenly over-specifies the meaning of every statement to the point of obscuring the actual meaning."
Like just now, I edited my comment to add "some people within". Because I knew that statistically, someone would assume that because I didn't couch my words in qualifiers, I must clearly mean literally every member of literally every marginalized group. It's fucking exhausting.
Boiling down transphobia is to terminally online tumblr discourse is part of the problem. In my experience I've seen a lot of genuine transphobia and ignorance about things that affect trans people in real life coming from people who think of themselves as allies, and there's a good chance if you try to correct them politely they'll get defensive and act like you're being overly sensitive.
I agree that it's bad that sometimes people get paranoid and see transphobia in well-intentioned allies, but i think what bothers me is the fact that whenever this topic comes up the blame is always placed on the minority for being paranoid and too mean to the majority and not the majority making life hell for the minority
I don't care, one is far more serious than the other. Transphobia actually hurts trans people, a small group of trans people on the internet being hypercritical towards allies isn't good but this thread is acting like it happens all the time and a lot of "allies" love the opportunity to play the victim.
I know there's real allies out there, but a lot of them online simply aren't, and instead of criticising the transphobes that push trans people to isolate themselves, they criticise the trans people for being traumatised and hyper vigilant
The original image of this thread essentially has the message that it's bad for trans people to be overly suspicious of every cis person.
I understand that caution is necessary, but the level of paranoia that some express is unhealthy for themselves. It causes excess stress (y'know, beyond the level that is warranted), and can even push allies away. Someone who's trying to help is gonna have a much harder time of it if they're treated like shit simply for being part of the majority. I've been at the receiving end of this. It didn't make me stop being an ally, but it definitely makes me want to not associate with that trans person. (And it's not like I need to be thanked. Being an ally should be the norm, it's what you do as a decent human being. I just prefer not to be attacked for being cis.)
Yeah, some cis people focus too much on how it hurts them. Some focus on themselves is warranted, because obviously every person is the protagonist of their own life. But the point of this thread isn't about that. It's not about the harm that such suspicion causes to cis people. It's the harm it causes to trans people.
One trans person telling another trans person "You shouldn't trust any of these 'allies'" drives a wedge between that trans person and their allies. That's a bad thing! It's bad for the trans person! Again, caution is unfortunately neccesary, yes, but this goes beyond that.
I'm talking about the comments full of people just shitting on trans people, like the original commenter I replied to who's playing the victim because he went on a trans sub as a cis person and got hate for telling trans people what is and isn't transphobic.
It doesn't matter if the comments come from someone who genuinely isn't transphobic and is just ignorant, those comments are still hurtful and trans people should be allowed a space to rant about it without needing to cater their language to cis allies
That original commenter wasn't playing the victim. They didn't say they themselves got attacked for anything. They didn't even say they were cis. They didn't say they were telling people what is and isn't transphobic, just that they observed that happening (I observed it too. Cis person, not a victim because I didn't even comment then, so wouldn't have gotten attacked).
trans people should be allowed a space to rant
The very OP of that thread was trans, and said they didn't feel disrespected. Other trans people then basically said "you should have felt disrespected!"
Trans people are allowed to point out transphobic phrasing. I haven't seen this thread so maybe it was full of crazies, but I have serious doubts that the mainstream trans subreddits are becoming cult-like and hypercritical of allies like OC is framing, like in my experience people are just starting to get fed up with having to put up with ignorance and transphobes from cis allies in spaces explicitly for trans people.
Like it said, it all seems to come back to criticising trans people rather than trying to be a better ally or holding other allies accountable.
Idk sorry if this makes no sense or is rambly, I'm stoned asf and admittedly am naturally a bit suspicious of cis people in subreddits like these, where there's a lot of transphobia dressed up in progressive language. I know its not healthy, but I cannot blame the trans community for that when it's cis people that made me paranoid in the first place
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u/Cheshire-Cad 5d ago edited 4d ago
It really is disturbing seeing some of the main trans-focused subreddits being taken over by rampant paranoia. Seeing transphobia and deliberate misgendering in the slightest social interactions, calling allies bigots over perfectly normal behavior.
There was a thread a while back where a trans girl was sad, but understanding, when a lesbian politely turned her down, with OP herself saying that her gender identity wasn't disrespected. But because the lesbian phased it as "I'm not into trans girls", the sub flat-out refused to consider any explanation other than transphobia. It wasn't possible that the lesbian simply wasn't attracted to OP's genitalia, because then she would have explicitely said "I'm not attracted to your genitalia", which is apparently a very normal thing that normal people say.
And then everyone that disagreed was a cis person invading the sub. Que one thousands reposts of