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?
Go post something anti-Elon and pro-Palestine and they’ll permanently ban you. Problem solved
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.
when I’m feeling sad, I find myself going on r/terf_trans_alliance, and then I feel worse.
That sub exists specifically to prey on folk like you. Folk that are struggling with internalised transphobia and self worth issues.
Transphobes (and bigots in general) actively seek people they can demonstrate their bigotry against. It’s performative, to improve their in group cohesion, and it addresses their own self worth issues and let’s them feel empowered.
That sub exists purely to attract people for them to prey on.
They’re preying on you, because hurting you and folk like you brings them joy.
You stop going, because even though dealing with your own self image can be a long battle, it’s a battle you can navigate without empowering them.
Piggy-backing off of Ada’s excellent advice, here…
Op, do you know what a troll is? It’s a shitty monster under a bridge, that lives under a bridge, and attacks you or tries to get a toll, or payment from you when you get close or try to cross the bridge.
The analogy here is that if you find yourself feeling shitty, the last place you should go should be to go see the trolls. They’re always going to be there, and they’re always going to be shitty. You aren’t going to win, because they’re trolls, it’s what they do, it’s why they exist. The damn subreddit name is even a euphemism for a bridge, for crying out loud.
So, when I say, “don’t feed the trolls”, it means, without food, the trolls will just be quietly living under their little bridges, waiting.
Go to a park. Watch some anime. Make a casserole. Watch the clouds. Be anywhere but where the trolls are. DON’T FEED THE TROLLS.
If you don’t want to hurt, stop going to where it hurts. I know this is sometimes easier said than done, but you ARE worth more, and you don’t deserve that kind of abuse, no matter what they, or your hurt subconscious tells you. You gotta make the decision, consciously, maybe even VERBALLY (I have to do this sometimes) that you don’t want to be miserable and to try your best, consciously, to figure out what is best for you.
Invest in yourself. Invest in your future. Drink water, get as much fresh air as you can, and maybe even some sunlight (hsssssss). Music that makes you feel good is always a plus. I’ve been trying to remember to listen to music, lately. It’s too easy to forget what makes you happy. Sometimes, what makes you happy changes, and that’s okay, it just means you need to explore your feelings a little bit.
Also, trans community is generally good. I find that when I spend too much time around only cis people or anybody not woke enough, I get like this weird stress in my chest and throat from having a constant low-key panic from hiding what I’m worried about and putting on a brave face. Don’t do that. Do your best to try to find your people, if you haven’t already.
Please take care of yourself, op. And, when in doubt, consider what yourself in the future would appreciate you spending your time on. It may suck, but at least future-you might appreciate it.
I know a lot of this is cliche as hell, but all of this is advice that I’ve personally found that works and is the best I can give you publicly.
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.
doesn’t work for me. it’s so easy to just make another reddit account.
i use screen time features on ios and that works okay on my phone, at least.
👆 This is the way
I remind myself of the API drama and just straight up don’t visit Reddit.
There are good reddit subs but I don’t visit those anymore either because of the CEO being corrupt.
I also have problems with moments where I stray back to reddit and even 4chan occasionally. I’m the same as you and do this when I feel sad or doubtful about my life. As the others have said, this is exactly what the hateful people there want. I don’t have any advice that hasn’t been said but what I do is just be very very conscious of that fact. They want you to come back, they want you to feel bad. You can just not do it. It’s not always easy. But making coffee, going for a walk, reading a book, doing some silly computer thing etc. are all things that make me happier than going back to those websites. They show me that I have a life worth living regardless of what people online think about me.
Like an ex, just go no contact. Time heals all wounds.
Yeah, there are so many other things to do in the world to use your remaining time on. Literally billions of things. Do literally anything else because that one thing doesn’t matter for beans. Sometimes all it takes is to realize what you’re doing, take a step back, take a deep breath, think about sailing a ship through a tropical storm, or closing your eyes and imagine seeing yourself sitting there, smiling and content, and suddenly BAM you can feel your toes again.
I use uBlock Origin and add reddit to the filter list. I also have blocked reddit using my
/etc/hostsfile.I have also setup redirector plugins that can be used to redirect when I go to a particularly toxic subreddit, e.g. redirecting something like /r/terf_trans_alliance to /r/sewing or whatever community you enjoy that is more wholesome (that’s just one of mine - I also love /r/OUTFITS).
Also, if you’re in the US you should probably be using a VPN no matter what, and in that case Reddit will (usually) block you, easy!
Mostly it’s just psychology, though - why do you go to read that place to hurt yourself? Are there healthier ways to hurt yourself?
content warning: self harm
Sometimes when I want to cut and beat myself, I will instead go into a stress position like a plank, and then I’ll hold it until it really hurts and my impulses to self harm are “satisfied”.
You might consider if there are harm reducing alternatives like this for you?
I’m not sure what that might look like for you, since it’s particular to your psychology, but there are plenty of places to find transphobia, hell you could self-flagellate by watching Sex and the City episodes.
Even better would be to find ways to work on the underlying reasons that motivate you to hurt yourself, in the long term that’s where the focus should be, I would imagine. Maybe something to see a therapist about?
By going and observing you are implicitly endorsing that there is some value in what they do there. You might ideologically disagree, but even by observing it you’re showing that what they do is worth observing.
I use a similar logic with fascists. Its not a bad thing to be informed on how fascists and terfs think. As a community we can best protect ourselves by understanding who seeks to attack us and defending ourselves accordingly. Thats one of the reasons communities like blahaj.zone are so important. No corporations can come here, and terfs and fascists are banned wherever they appear.
There is nothing of value in what happens in that community. TERFs dont hate us because they have a rational framework of disagreement with us, they hate us because we are trans. They despise that very core of who we are. It’s not like there are any grounds for discussion with them. I can’t convince someone who hates trans people that trans people do not deserve hate. They weren’t convinced to begin with. They hated people who are different from them, people who do not fit into the boundaries of sexuality and gender they see as sacred. There is nothing to be gained from speaking with them. There is nothing to be gained from debating them. There is nothing to be gained from paying attention to them. I can tell you right now what you will find there. You already know what you will find there yourself. It serves nothing to look. You’re only inflicting actual real psychological harm on yourself by going there, and giving them attention only feeds their desire to cause you pain. They hate us. They want to call us slurs to our faces to make us feel bad about ourselves. They delight in our suffering. They know that trans people go there, that is ostensibly the point, and they love that, they love that trans people go to that community and suffer real psychological harm from engaging with them.
Ive argued with many a terf and transphobe in my day. Along with loads of racists and misogynists and homophobes and fascists. I spent a significant part of my early 20s arguing with them. And I’ll be honest and tell you that frequently engaging with and seeing and hearing the things they say hurt me and traumatized me on deep foundational levels that I am still working to heal from. It is categorically not worth it. It’s not worth it. They dont care what you think, they want you to read what they say and be in pain because of it.
You have to respect yourself enough to stop. I know that sounds harsh, and I genuinely dont mean to be harsh. It just comes down to that. You are worth more than a source of pain for ravenous bigots. You dont deserve to be subjected to that every day. The world is full of joy too. Trans joy is real. I find my time far better spent engaging with trans solidarity and joy. You should block the site and move on. The temptation fades with time. You have to choose to look at better things.
Well your already on Lemmy so why do you go back to reddit? If you can answer that question then you have your answer. I much prefer it here where where you can actually interact with people instead of ai and NPCs
You’re describing self harm, look up resources for dealing with it.
- Lemmy is libre federated Reddit. What more do you want? You don’t need the shitware that Reddit runs or its toxic communities.
- TERF-trans alliance? I used to imagine the idea that, in a million-monkeys way, there was bound to be a small “trans 4 Trump” contingent on Twitter. Later I heard about Caitlyn Jenner’s politics, and the reification of the unlikely took its innocence. You know well enough to stay away from those groups.
- If you’re looking for transphobic self-flagellation, there are many routes you could take that don’t endanger the community. There are shows - one person recommended Sex and the City, and the recent Ed Gein streaming series seems to make some reprehensible parallels between us and serial killers, despite the queer tastes of its creators. You could also get into an abusive relationship and get called an ugly fag that roleplays as a tranny, like the last relationship I was in. You could make a Grindr profile and call yourself a “sissy” to attract the wrong kind of people, and don’t forget to mention you have a high pain tolerance.
- We all love you and support you in spirit. The impetus to make decisions that are right for you is ultimately on you, and if it’s an issue of self-control, therapy isn’t a bad idea. I’m in therapy to address my feelings of lonelines, failure, and emotional/empathetic/relationship maintenance inadequacy. Whatever you do, you will probably be fine.
“I don’t know what drives them to participate” Do you not consider your going there participation? Why are you participating?
I got banned for supporting Palestinian workers rather than the Zionist occupation
I have the website on my piHole block list. This forces me to either enable VPN and hope I can get through their filters, or I have to manually unblock the site thru PiHole if i want to browse. Which honestly seeing as I set up that block during the API fiasco? I flat-out stopped visiting anyways. Its just … slop now.
Recently, when reverse image searching, Google feeds me a shitton of Reddit, Instagram, Facebook or Pinterest. The first three either refuse to let you see the image or refuse to let you download it, and the fourth is a wasteful link to a link that usually doesn’t exist. I shall block those with my AGH and see how it performs lol
