I’ll be honest with you. Your trans friends are tired. I’m exhausted. After months of seeing you-know-who pop up on our timelines or some hashtag about them trending I’m sick of it. Now to know that it has all led up to a transphobic, poorly written novel which was in production- or at the very least was pitched -while her publishers represented trans writers, it all seems like an elaborate hit piece on an entire group of marginalised people. So I’m sick of hearing about her or anyone who supports her and I know that I’m not the only one. Do us a favour and stop tweeting about her or sending your trans friends articles about how shitty she is (trust me, we know). Instead start boosting trans creatives. I have been seeing more of this type of thing trending, which is heartwarming, so I’m mostly reiterating the point in my own medium. The sheer frequency of this is what brings me to my topic, which is the importance of cultivating your own online experience.
This essay is primarily aimed at other trans people, but I hope that I can offer useful advice to anyone else who may be reading too. For starters, I love the internet, and I have done for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid I played endless flash games. As I grew up I discovered fanfiction (I refuse to be embarrassed because it led me to my current aspirations). I have made countless friends over the years, some I no longer talk to, some I do even after ten long years. It is a seemingly bottomless pit of information and knowledge and I think that on the whole it really is an incredible thing. Without it I may not have even discovered who I really am. I didn’t know what “transgender” really meant until I learned about it online, and it was a blessing that I did. I finally had a word to describe how I was feeling, and unless you’ve felt it you have no idea what that was like. Now, however, with the ever growing focus on social media (or maybe because I feel like I’ve aged ten years with each birthday), it doesn’t feel the same.
Anyone can say anything, I know and accept that, but that doesn’t mean I have to see it. Sure, I can go around and block anyone who says something that I don’t agree with, but I feel that at some point I shouldn’t have to. It can be equally as damaging to share why someone is bad, because at the end of the day, you’re still sharing them. It’s still publicity for them, and for someone like you-know-who, it won’t affect them in the long run. She’s a millionaire and one of the most famous authors of all time, the only thing you can really do is ignore her. For one, it seems like her ego is huge and if people ignored her she’d hate it. Secondly, it means that trans people aren’t subjected to hearing about a transphobe doing transphobic things every other day of our lives. It ruins my day whenever it happens, and this goes the same for other celebrities as well. To know that someone I previously looked up to would think such things about people like me is a crushing feeling. It is important to acknowledge when people do transphobic or racist things, and they need to be held accountable, but to be forced to see it over and over again when they continue to do these things is hard. It’s demoralising and it’s frankly enough to ruin any day.
By no means am I suggesting that you create your own echo chamber, like some people clearly have. It’s important to listen to differing points of view, but when your point of view is that I shouldn’t exist and that I’m mentally ill for being trans? Your opinion is harmful and I am absolutely not going to listen to it. I have been told this while standing up for what I believe in, and it’s quite honestly very telling about these types of people. If they can’t stop focusing on their own personal biases to listen to someone who has experience then a debate isn’t going to help them. My rights as a human being are not up for debate, and to even suggest that they should be is insulting. Unfortunately, it often feels like these people thrive off of situations like these, where they think they can tell me who I am. Where they feel like they’re doing me this great service by belittling me because of something that I cannot change. I have always been trans and I always will be. With all the negative attention, it emboldens transphobes and gives them a voice. They can see themselves in this popular author and they feel encouraged, that they’re obviously right because this smart and successful person believes the same things they do. It also gives them an opening. The more people who speak up about it, the more people they can target, and when people, rightfully, call them out about it, the more they see it as an “us vs them” situation. “The evil trans people are trying to trans our kids’ gender, peep on us in the bathroom, look, she wrote about it in her book!” It’s baseless to the extreme, and it’s incredibly insulting.
I practice self-care by focusing on mindfulness. I often feel like I have to physically push anxious and depressive thoughts from my head so that I can keep moving forward in a productive manner. I ignore it when that little voice in my head tells me that I’m not worthwhile or that everybody’s out to get me, but when I log into twitter and see someone prolific is saying the same things, that little voice gets just a tiny bit louder and harder to ignore. I swish the trending topic away, but the people I follow tweet about it and all it does is act as a reminder. Of course, they don’t mean any harm by it, and it’s good to know that I have allies. It is also a hot topic, naturally people are going to talk about it. The only thing I wish for is to not have that reminder every single time I go on social media. Transphobes are either going to learn the error of their ignorant ways, or they won’t. I, personally, don’t want to hear about it anymore. As such, I installed an app that limits the amount of time on the app where I see the most transphobia- Twitter. This has been the largest factor in improving my relationship with social media, setting my own boundaries with it.
Logically I am wholly aware that the overall impact these people have in my life amounts to zero. There are great strides being made every day for trans and non-binary people. Even when it doesn’t make the news, I know that there are trans people who are thriving, and that in the long run the nay-sayers mean very little. I follow a lot of transgender and non-binary people on social media, and getting a glimpse at their slices of positivity do wonders on my own attempts at centering myself. Seeing an older trans woman’s journey of acceptance and self-love gives me more hope than the negative comments will ever be able to drown out. Seeing other trans people who are just like me continue to live and thrive helps me feel that I can also live and thrive. This is what I mean by online self-care. Following people who give you hope and make you feel seen and removing any mention of people who try to take that away from you. They don’t deserve our time and attention, and I am trying to be mindful. I am trying to put a stop to my own obsessing over someone who likely doesn’t care about my existence, at least not in any positive manner. We make the choice to use social media. To put our lives out there for other people to see. It is absolutely within your right to take the power back and block anyone you want to, even for the most banal of reasons. You don’t need to make excuses or explain why. If something doesn’t make you happy, that is reason enough.
Taking the time to look out for yourself is becoming increasingly important nowadays. Problems with mental health are always on the rise, so I find it’s important and necessary to take stock with yourself every once in a while. Ask yourself if there is anything that you could be doing to create a positive environment for yourself, especially with regards to social media. It’s so prevalent in our lives that sometimes it’s easy to forget it isn’t our entire lives. Sometimes you just need to take a step back for your own wellbeing, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Thank you for reading.