This Terf Nazi Detransitioner rhetoric is not new and will only be worse now. They been pushing and using these insane lies to radicalize people against trans youth and trans people, and it works. Social media algorithms are designed to make it worse and there's no to hold them accountable.
this post was submitted on 05 May 2025
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The same is happening on reddit, like /r/detrans is entirely an anti-trans space.
It’s so difficult to deal with. The stories are just subtly off. Way too many of them (and then, the double edge “lol look at how trans people aren’t believing that we exist”) You can’t call them out directly, because it would be shitty if they weren’t lying but catching them in the act is such a trick.
And so many fake accounts will claim to have some sort of qualifications in biology which just don’t add up with the way they talk about science.
It’s like some sort of cult. We have to figure out how to protect children from it. Not even just in the sense that it’s harmful to us - but it’s harmful for them. This deranged fixation on us, the eagerness to lie and hurt us, it’s mystifying me. I don’t get it.
Respectfully, there isn't much to get. You have been othered by them. They do not see you as a person. They do not see you as someone deserving respect or compassion. Their lives are shitty and empty and you an easy target that can be harassed and humiliated in order to make them feel better about themselves.
I guess the best that can be done is to try to draw out the vicious ones - to make them give up the game. To say the disgusting shit that will alienate “centrists” and fence sitters.
They attack our history, they say we weren’t killed in the Holocaust, that our books weren’t burned, that we’re just silly and are seeking validation from drivers license, or that we’re rapists seeking to forcibly convert gays and lesbians…. I don’t get it. Why does anyone want to live in a world like this?
Can't even say the word Luigi there anymore but a sub like that is allowed.
gotta love the implicit "trans lives don't matter" subtext
I joined r/detrans because I was struggling with my identity (had been told being autistic meant I wasn't really trans), but honestly that place is so toxic. I find a lot of Reddit toxic lately though.
ah, it's the other way around - being autistic is a common co-morbidity with being trans and they probable have shared genetic causes, so having one increases the likelihood of the other (because of genetics).
I actually went the other way around, I realized I was trans and when I ran across the genetic studies and the studies finding strong comorbidity, I started to take seriously the feedback I had been given my whole life that I could be autistic (which I had dismissed).
Can you imagine having a sub called "de-gay" or "de-black"? It'd be destroyed in a second
ha, the concept is a bit strange - we're not at a place where people understand that being trans isn't a choice (just like being gay), so there is a real comparison between the "ex-gay" movement and the push for detransition.
To be fair, there are people who detransition, most of them only because they don't have enough support in their lives to transition. It is difficult to transition, and sometimes just not possible when your employer discriminates against you and fires you, and your spouse leaves you, and your family and friends turn their backs on you, etc. - this leads people to decide to detransition. A lot of those people transition again later in life.
So I don't think it's necessarily wrong for there to be a community for people detransitioning - their experiences and needs are worth discussing (esp. when detransitioning can be met with such strong reactions from other trans people). The /r/actual_detrans subreddit for a while was a trans-affirming detrans space, but increasingly I feel it has been infected (it's hard to keep the TERFs out I guess).
But because it's a political weapon the anti-trans movement co-opts those detrans spaces and they try to push narratives that trans people don't really exist (or are far rarer) and that detransitioners are just the ones who came to their senses and realized what they were doing was a mistake.
I think you hit the nail on the head regarding it being a political weapon, and that's why you're seeing an increase in numbers. This is manufactured consent for their narrative appearing to be genuine. Dead internet theory is alive and well in corporate social media.
You make a valid point about detransing trans needing support. It's a shame people going through that get brainwashed by people who see them as beneath them.
To be fair, there are people who detransition, most of them only because they don't have enough support in their lives to transition
detranstioning does happen when it's not about support, though it's pretty rare and not at all like those people say it is.
Knew a trans guy (pre HRT) that decided that enby fit them better. Now they dress up as princesses for children's birthdays on the side, iirc they are majoring in marine biology but I haven't talked to them in years so not 100% sure.
Yeah that's the other major group. The narrative that the right likes is the rare situation of "person identifies as trans for a long enough time to have hrt/surgery and later realizes they're cis".
yes, it does happen - but it's a minority within a minority. Detransitioners are already like 1% of people who transition (which are already only like 1% of the general population), and those who detransition because they weren't trans are a minority of that 1% of a 1%.
This is rightwing brainworms + way too much power and control over social media.
This isn't a bug, this is a feature, selling the capacity to manufacture consent for targeting a vulnerable minority group is just how capitalists maximalize profits under a fascist regime.
Don't worry, Bluesky will be totally different I swear!! /s
I am glad you are here :)
Social media is beautiful, it is the corporations, for profit brutality and monetized hate speech that is ugly and we can and will do better in spaces like this.
Turns anti-bullshit chaingun in the direction of hateful rightwing chuds
the barrels start to spin up in a satisfying whhhr sound
This bullshit has GOTTA stop
The fucked up part is that disinformation campaigns like these don't actually even stop people from transitioning, it just makes them confused for longer and likely more miserable. You can't stop gravity with a house of cards.
Wouldn't be the worse thing Matt Mullenweg has done.
But again,
Use proprietary fascist platforms, win proprietary fascist prizes.
This post has been up for several days.
Fucking hell. "I want to kill people likd you for pretending you're oppressed" is both evil and nuts
This is the most vile shit I have ever read. Mods remove this tumblr user's lungs.
Tumblr mods won’t even remove the post.
I don’t want to disparage the internet, but it’s no longer a space for reality-consistent information without severe moderation. Love you, ada!
The thing about the dead internet theory though is that if you are here it means you metaphorically stuck a wind up a flashlight in your pocket before they cut the lights... and cutting the lights to keep everyone in an ignorant hateful confused dark, catastrophically backfires when the meager beam of your crank flashlight that was before drowned out by oppressive flourscent lights to the point no one could see it.. is now a piercing unmistakable presence that people gravitate to because you stick out from the darkness of endless bots and unreflective groupthink like a beacon in the sky.
I think a lot of people will just stop using social media rather than move to platforms that don’t exist to manipulate people
And for the groups who are ruining the internet by making it a tool for mass manipulation, that’s fine. Their hope is those who engage with and believe the disinfo will stay, those who don’t will leave and be apathetic and isolated.
They’re betting that basically everyone will fall in to one of those two camps. I don’t think that’s how things will play out. Long term, the places they can’t take over will be more stable and grow even without corporate money funded elements to draw people in.
To expand on your metaphor, people are drawn to the shine, but the monsters in the dark are capable of simulating it, and it’s intoxicating. By comparison, lanternfish are merciful. They merely eat you, they don’t parasitically milk your attention and change your behavioral patterns to better accommodate themselves.
but the monsters in the dark are capable of simulating it
Kind of, but it is like how cats go nuts for laser pointers until they realize there is nothing to catch, it is a hollow interaction.
I really can’t tell the difference between man and machine in a forum-esque space. Websites in search are overwhelmingly terrible, but they aren’t hiding their slop. The only reason I can fully trust the people here is the timing and moderation. AI astroturfing has made its way here, and went largely unnoticed for several months, until a post in one of the fediverse communities highlighted their efforts.
I really can’t tell the difference between man and machine in a forum-esque space
You could tell enough to take the time to reply to me even though I go on weird rants that look like an LLM has gone rogue but has no desires other than to rant on the internet lol...
There are certainly contexts where it is very difficult to the difference between humans and bots, but I think the existential question then is how has the conversation degraded so much in a given context that a trace of humanity is not only undetectable in real humans interacting, the presence or absence of it is no longer even a property observable in the system.
To me, in some ways the ability of an LLM or bots to distort a conversation is in a sense an indicator of how unhealthy and how unstable that conversation is and how little diversity in life experience and perspective is left in it.
I am not trying to shame people for not having smart enough conversations though, my point rather is that our public shared spaces for socialization have been SEVERELY degraded and it is just hard to keep that in context sometimes so we forget how far things have really fallen and we become conditioned to accept the lack of humanity as normal.
To be honest, I use the internet in a fundamentally solipsistic way. I derive truthful information from books published more than 2 years ago, peer reviewed studies, or irl conversation, which I often fact check afterwards. Replying is a low risk, medium reward activity, by comparison, so why not? At least, that’s how I see it.
I think you might have the opposite view to my own, as far as ai goes. It’s not so much that conversation has grown abased, so much as ai has advanced to the point that it’s capable of being a near facsimile of it. Humanity just built a machine that makes sentences and it’s pretty good at it.
I agree with you somewhat, but the internet is largely children and no one really knows what’s real or not. The number of times I’ve done something stupid due to a little niggling voice that says “do it” is uncountable. It takes far less to cause someone to go against their interests than most people believe. Always has, always will.
As people have become kinder online, they’ve also grown more stagnant. Free expression births beauty and horror in equal measure. The Wild West old internet wouldn’t tolerate trans people, so I can’t really say concretely which I prefer.
It’s not so much that conversation has grown abased, so much as ai has advanced to the point that it’s capable of being a near facsimile of it.
oof i am sorry your conversations are so sterile and chopped into unconnected pieces
As people have become kinder online, they’ve also grown more stagnant.
That isn't a dog whistle, that is just a whistle fyi
oof i am sorry your conversations are so sterile and chopped into unconnected pieces
In online spaces, they generally have always been. As a kid, I noticed that the majority of users are incapable of connecting the dots between one point and another
That isn’t a dog whistle, that is just a whistle fyi
Dammit, I edit in segments and forgot to add my link. Fixing after I reply. The argument that art is birthed from struggle is not unique. Wealthy, experientially stunted thieves were the original “AI.”
The argument that art is birthed from struggle is not unique. Wealthy, experientially stunted thieves were the original “AI.”
This reads like it was written by AI, and the logic is full of holes like AI answers typically are too.
Not as much of an argument of Theseus as an unconnected set of thoughts. I don’t generally write in essay format online anymore and don’t care to begin again. Also, rude.
Edit: should have checked your modlog first. My bad