Hello, LGBTQiwis. Medium-time lurker, first time I am going to get called a "newfag." Over the past month or so, I have been watching this thread with a mild curiosity, and wanted to ask the residents of this thread some questions about their experiences. I decided to create and use an account for a week or two, and then take my leave to continue my life elsewhere.
The first thing I wanted to ask about is the "troon epidemic" that is talked about in places like the "Stinkditch" subforum, or the more general politics threads: where is it? I understand that this may sound like bait, but I am very serious. Where do these people congregate? Have I simply managed to miss them?
The way trans people are described in the modern day on those threads (such as "
When did you hit peak trans and why?"), it feels as if I am reading into some alternate universe nightmare dimension, where every single trans-identifying person is publicly flapping their genitalia into the wind and screeching epithets at people when a mistake is made; going out in dresses and beards and tacky transgender socks and screaming "IT'S MA'AM," as the meme goes.
It feels ill-advised for my first post on Kiwi Farms to be mild powerleveling, but for the sake of discussion I need to state that because of my interests and where those interests congregate I am in a few Discord servers with a statistical overrepresentation of transgender people compared to the general population. Within those servers, the experiences I have had do not reflect these written testimonials in the slightest. Even in terms of the actual transgender issues they do not resemble the nightmare dimension of the "Stinkditch" threads where everybody is lying about how transition is awesome; they discuss the pros and more importantly cons of medication, social transition and presentation; and when to do those things, why to do it and not to do it; and they do not force this onto the people who disagree with the trans prescription, "it is your personal experience." I have met a few of those community members in real life, and they are simply kind people trying their best to make it while also being trans, and are pleasant to be around.
At the same time, I am not blind to some of the worst things I have seen in my lurking. While I think applying the "autogynophilliac" or "transtrender" label to every trans-feminine person is inherently a waste of time, as ultimately you cannot get into their head to verify, I am not going to deny that I can understand in some cases.
The kerfuffle with Keffals' Catboy Ranch and the "pinkpilling" claim of bobposting/"keep out of reach of parents" position of Otokonoko Pharmaceuticals, simply put, make me cringe. I do not hold any ill will for a minor that happens to use that service, it is unfortunate circumstance, but if you have a business that relies on the concept of "hello, kids, buy drugs from me without your parent's knowledge," then I question the ethics of the person behind that. I have also seen the communities that implode because of protecting predators and I recognize that some of those people are LGBTQ+ and get to their victim because of the victim's LGBTQ+ identity. Maybe that's also part of it, in my communities the few people that have unfortunately qualified have been kicked out the door immediately when the evidence of doing "shit with minors" was verified. I have a low tolerance for predatory behavior, which I hope is a normal trait.
Perhaps that is my problem? I have never been one for labels or the "LGBTQ+ community" writ large, and prioritize somebody being a pleasant person with a clean record (moderately, of course we all screw up) over them being LGBTQ. Is it that everybody of the "publicly flapping their genitalia into the wind" type gathers in places where the community is being LGBTQ first, and then an interested person?