I honestly don’t have enough experience with it to really speak to it as a platform, but I do understand enough about how servers can be ran to agree that it can certainly be dangerous. That’s part of the problem with online spaces, it is difficult to regulate who enters a space while maintaining accountability on moderation.

I don’t even know what counts for that, does anyone have an example? I may lack self-awareness in a way that I could not have hoped to anticipate.

Yes, but I also think it’s important to specify that men will more often call misandry when women hold them individually accountable for their behaviour, rather than it normally being in response to women challenging the system.

Misandry is what they think it is when women tell them they’re not entitled to sex or to even express misogynistic, patriarchal values. I was called a misandrist once for saying I’m not comfortable with men because of trauma, and the overwhelming consistency in negative experiences with nearly every man I met until I was an adult (at which point I was more free to simply not interact with them).

Damn, never heard the term “disaster lesbian” before, and now I feel like I’ve been read to filth.

I’m definitely not comfortable sharing that online, and I don’t think it’s relevant to this. Discord is fairly anonymous, you could be 20 and still risk traumatizing someone underaged by forming a sexual relationship with them.

No please, these are all valuable perspectives that speak to a shared trans experience. It’s deeply unsettling to look at the current internet landscape and find that it seems even more threatening to young trans women than it was when I was young, and I think it’s understandable to want to avoid the dangers that reliably work their way into these communities.

Young trans women are understandably vulnerable to validation, and predators always seek out people like that. A major issue with online spaces is there is really no way of knowing that you are around other queer folks, and yeah, it isn’t like you don’t have to be wary of predatory queer people along with the usual suspects. Many victims of sexual violence also do not realize they’re traumatized until much later in life, especially when it was something that didn’t involve literal sexual assault from a stranger somewhere. Sexual violence prevention education is certainly more of a thing now than it was before, but of course, like most things, trans women are disproportionately affected by the persistent miseducation. It is extremely rare to see sexual violence prevention education programs address issues like the specificities of trans women’s experiences with isolation and internalized trans-misogyny.

I’m sorry you experienced that, and believe me, I understand the fear you’ve expressed here. It’s difficult to overstate just how prevalent these experiences are for trans women.

I honestly don’t think it’s unfair to react that way, and I don’t think we can reasonably ask members of vulnerable groups to respond with patience when respectability is so obviously not relevant to the people who wish us harm – even if just passively. As patient as I may be here, I have this outlook not out of sympathy for the groups that support the Democratic Party, but due to the practicality in empathizing with other subjects of this oppressive system in order to discern between active and passive threats.

Apathy is the engine of liberal oppression, which is why privileged groups like middle-class working people can be placated by so little when their own way of life is both precarious and compartmentalized from the violence this system requires to exist. Liberals use social justice rhetoric the same way they used labor and suffrage rhetoric; it works because most people are indeed uncomfortable with human suffering, but do not have the perspective or political literacy to understand when that suffering is arbitrary or what is actually required to end that suffering. I don’t think it is unreasonable to be frustrated or angry at people who do not develop that understanding at a point in time where so much information is literally at their fingertips, and I couldn’t in good conscience say that I don’t habour a deep resentment for people who can’t be bothered to try. Of course, I extend more sympathy to factory workers who work 50+ hour swing-shifts while raising children than I do white-collar suburbanites who feel entitled to define morality around the profitability of their rental properties.

Another form of violence inflicted on vulnerable groups is the expectation of respectability or candor as they defend themselves, as though that is required by anyone who argues that their privilege should exist. If you feel uncomfortable with that anger, that’s also completely valid since, again, most people don’t like hating others. It does feel gross, even when it’s warranted.

These are very reasonable concerns to have. It’s true that advocating against the Dems for this term may correlate with (not cause) more immediate suffering for vulnerable groups whose wellbeing the Party has been holding hostage for the better part of three decades now.

The problem with liberalism, and particularly neoliberalism in this case, is that it very effectively assimilates, appropriates, and disarms dissenting politicial or social justice movements through attritional tractics like marginal concessions aimed toward longterm erosion. Liberal institutions like the US Democratic Party succeed with those tactics because attrition is most favourable to the party with the most resources, and with a substanital amount of power over the US state they have, they naturally have access to immense resources.

On the other hand, we do not. Few trans people are in positions of power, our population is small, and most of our value to something like the Democratic Party is performative righteousness that comforts privileged liberal voters. The current moment of trans genocide and racial inequity in the US is very much a consequence of liberalism’s appropriation and subsequent disarmament of these respective social justice movements. These people are not our friends, and they clearly believe that they have exhausted our resources enough to more aggressively target us as they were always bound to.

warning: mentions of sexual and gender-based violence

I definitely don’t want to minimize this issue, and it is a very difficult topic to navigate within a community that is yeah, disproportionately impacted by online sexual violence, but also uniquely reliant on online spaces for sexual expression.

I don’t think this is the instance you’re referring to, but I made a post about the difficulties socializing with other trans women while managing trauma and neurodivergence, and received multiple replies advocating for Discord as a vector to simply meet other trans women. One of those replies was similar to what you outlined here, and aimed to normalize online kink spaces as social kink spaces (a pervasive issue all on its own), and assumed that I’d be open to forming relationships with random users in that setting. My response to that was discomfort with that notion even if just on the grounds that there would obviously be a possibility of harmful power dynamics due to no guarantee on the age of other users.

Now, I, as I’m sure some or even many of you are as well, am a survivor of sexual violence. I also would have never realized that I was trans if it wasn’t for online spaces where I could express myself sexually, and of course, trans women already have to deal with the intersecting violence of objectification as women, fetishization as trans women, and hyper-sexualization as queer people generally. Oppression and the sexualized construction of trans women forces many of us into dangerous private (online) spaces where our only vector of validation is to engage in a markedly trans-misogynist performativity.

Naturally, for many young, repressed trans women, myself included, that validation as sexual women is too relieving to discard out of hand, and our education on sexual violence and capacity to give consent under these conditions results in a large number of those young trans women being victimized without even understanding that they are experiencing sexual violence. ** As always, it is never the victims’ fault that they are victimized, only the perpetrators.**

I agree completely that any responsible trans woman in this community is obligated to address these vectors of sexual violence that I’m sure many of us have already been traumatized by. The difficulty is in how we do that without expelling trans women who expect that behaviour, as they are likely to think this is merely how trans women are treated, and have internalized the notion that they deserve to be treated that way. At the same time, that form of expression may be the only way they feel comfortable expressing their gender identity as, again, it may be the only way they’ve been afforded to. I’m sure many of you also know the pain that comes from taking yourself seriously as a woman, and challenging internalized trans- and typical-misogyny while still struggling to feel valid.

I think the examples you use here are great to demonstrate this difficulty, as one appears to be a clear cut instance of fetishization, and the other potentially a reproduction of those norms that victimized trans women may believe to be expected. It’s easy to say they don’t belong here on the grounds discussed above, but if we’re having a discussion on the tolerability of sexualization in this vulnerable community, we do have to then discuss the nuance that there will be trans women who come here with harmful internalized values, and it will be very difficult to distinguish them from predatory bad actors much of the time.

sorry for the long comment, this is a topic I obviously struggle with quite a lot

That is really painful and bewildering to experience the sort of (or any) transphobia that you experienced in what should be an accepting space.

I think it is important for trans people especially to approach queer spaces with the understanding that a unified queer culture is very much not a thing, and what exists within reach is subject to the material and social relations of your locality. It is not unusual to discover that there are harmful classist, racist, sexist, ableist, and yeah, queerphobic elements within a local queer culture, regardless of what is imagined as a universal ground for queer solidarity.

The reason why I say trans or gnc people specifically is that most people unfortunately often still subscribe to simplistic and compartmentalized constructions of queerness that does not allow them to understand that transness is not just transness, but also the unique experiences of socioeconomic inequities and disability through trauma that trans and gnc people are effected by, and therefore how they interact with those communities,

I find I can be too intense for a lot of queer people too, and that may be the result of say, my personality or neurodivergence (and is certainly in relation to those things), but how could I possibly say that this is why when I, like very many trans women, have lived a very intense life, and carry those experiences with me into any interaction. That puts responsibility onto me as well, by asking that I negotiate myself with those sensibilities or address potential cognitive distortions in myself that could effect how I interpret their behaviour, but how could we do that when experiences like you just described are unfortunately still so common?

For you, I’d measure this outing by how well you navigated those conflicts and encountered genuine connections, and continue to evaluate queer communities by what you can safely do within them.

I don’t know about sex problems honestly besides fertility, but it has been my experience that the benefits were not only substantial, but also unpredictable. I had that similar feeling about just not feeling right unless I changed in some way I could never identify, and yeah, this did most of that very quickly.

I can’t say that translates to everyone’s or your experience, but I do think that is more common than not.

So, I’m a very low energy person with pretty extreme sensory and anxiety issues that I manage. I say this not to suggest that I have developed especially effective strategies, but to clarify that exceptional cases like mine typically require fairly specific and often unorthodox strategies that often do not apply to most people.

Some people will call it unhealthy (and it easily can be), but I typically take a weak edible/ smoke a little weed or tobacco, and then just kind of rest and relax in an unstimulating space. This isn’t to get high, but literally because I often require immediate relief to make use of any other management strategy. It isn’t enough to simply pause that pain for a time, and it can easily escalate to a reliance, and nicotine introduces practically a certainty of addiction, and so itself must be used very sparringly.

The goal of that rest is to return to a bearable window of tolerance where other strategies can then be applied. When I smoke, I put on an outfit I feel good/confident in, and then sit in a backyard, balcony, or nature trail with relative privacy to exist as myself as I return to that baseline. That way, I enter that window of tolerance at a higher energy level even if just because I have relieved that pain while introducing a reminder of what motivates me to manage these things.

In a more general way, mild exercise (literally, all you need is 15-30 minutes a week), space maintenance (cleaning maybe just one room, or even just a desk or bathroom vanity), adding something nice to my spaces that I don’t always use (like a scented candle or a floor time setup), and then using only low stimulation entertainment, and typically only one form of stimulation at a time instead of say, a movie with subway surfers on my phone and hyperpop in one ear.

Dunno if that would all apply to you, but I hope at least some of it does (or helps anyone else here).

It is honestly fucked up how much of a difference it makes to perform femininity even if just at home. I don’t know if I’ve experienced exactly what you have, but it does seem like something I can empathize with. For a long time, I didn’t accept I was trans because I didn’t think I “really needed,” it, or that I had bigger issues to manage from anxiety, depression, and PTSD.

Couple weeks on HRT made dealing with the bigger issues infinitely more tolerable, nearly trivial on some days. It makes a world of difference.

Yeah I’m glad to see something like this here too. I’m noticing that age gaps are actually a pretty substantial barrier to making these sorts of connections even if just because most people have difficulties meeting friends after a certain age. I’m not middle-aged, but I’m older than most queer people I meet, and that isn’t even counting the ageing from trauma.

Yeahhh I don’t know if I feel comfortable doing that, lol. Doesn’t help that I’m a lot older than many trans women I see online, so I wouldn’t really feel right involving myself sexually with them at all.

I’m glad to see something like this in the discussion here. I wouldn’t find it surprising if that’s the case, there’s a trauma element even in just being trans in this culture, and of the few trans women I’ve been able to meet, maybe about half have been neurodivergent in some way. I didn’t mention it in the post, but there’s also an apparently unusual factor where I am that there are actually far more trans men active in the queer community than trans women. I get along great with trans men, and I see that they deal with their own unique issues, but yeah it’s tough to find a trans community event around here that is predominantly or exclusively trans femme.

As per post, I don’t really have friends, lol. Many people answered this with discussions on where to meet trans women, but yeah my bigger obstacle is my general trauma with friendship and neurodivergence.

I do notice this especially on Lemmy or other fediverse instances, probably also because they’re so STEM populated. I’m unfortunately not in STEM.

Yeah see that’s kind of the situation I’m struggling with. Even though I have a shared experience with many queer people, I’m pretty disconnected from popular culture; that seems to be a pretty big unifying factor given how sparse the population can be. I wouldn’t be offended by someone meowing, but I certainly don’t relate on the inclination or understand many of the references it makes.

I do feel like it’d be substantially easier to meet other trans women if you live in a place where a hundred could meet up every month. Zurich is about twice the size of the city I live outside of, lol.