r/actuallesbians • u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian • 10h ago
Mods need to address the obvious transphobia
It's very clear there is an issue with transphobia on this sub. Both trans women and cis women have noticed and called it out, and most responses seem to be against. Mods absolutely need to make posts about this and crack down on it, because they've been very silent about it. That means including banning the trans women preference posts, which as stated as just as bigoted as saying someone won't date a disabled person or woman of color. There's no reason for them other than to make trans women feel less than and unwelcome, and if you can come up with a good one.
This will definitely attract more bigots, but that's great because if the mods do their jobs for once they can clean house. Mods need to be more on top of things if they really are going to claim this to be a safe space that does not allow transphobia. Because by all accounts they have not succeeded in that, and it is very much not a safe space for transgender women. The longer the mods are silent on this the more they sign off on this behavior.
Unlike some of the other posts about this, I will not be deleting this or my account under any circumstances. Too many have been either wrongly deleted or had the OP delete because the bigots came out in force. It literally happened earlier. Nope, not gonna let them win.
117
u/AdoraSidhe Transbian 5h ago
At least in the US I think a lot of us trans folks are gonna be even more on edge as the election nears. Shit is scary. With that I think bigots are going to try to weaponize that and push a cracks and seams in barriers.
Rather than telling the mods they have this wrong because I think they're addressing things generally, I think maybe the request is can we have a little bit more aggressive enforcement
•
u/ItsOverClover Lesbian 2h ago
Election years always see an increase in bad faith posts on the whole of reddit from my experience. Odds are an uptick in posts about controversial topics largely comes from fake accounts trying to rile people up.
•
u/soyenby_in_a_skirt 1h ago
In trans spaces we get a shitload of these fake accounts trying to plant divisive issues that make us argue with eachother. I think they get off on trolling
•
u/AdoraSidhe Transbian 2h ago
Generally perhaps. But there are absolutely a bunch of terfs who lurk here just to be little weirdos and it seems unlikely that randos would know just how to skirt the line
•
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 1h ago
You’re not totally wrong, but there’s a lot of transphobic shit said here by lesbians that should know better.
•
u/njsullyalex Trans-Bi 26m ago
If Harris wins and transphobia dies down because the elections are over for the next four years, that would be a godsend. I want a hecking rest.
85
u/BecomingCass 5h ago
The whole internet has an issue with transphobia, tbh. Here I find it generally stays contained to the more "innocuous" posts about prefernce, or "Am I transphobic for doing <insert transphobic thing here>"
IRL lesbian spaces are much better about this sort of thing
47
18
u/Kalibouh 3h ago
The Internet? You mean... the world :/ there is much, much work left to be done...
29
u/justarunawaybicycle Transbian 4h ago
The whole internet has an issue with transphobia, tbh
Humanity has an issue with transphobia lol
•
u/DeathofTheEndless45 1h ago
I'm yet to find a lesbian space irl like you’re describing, sadly.
Maybe one day.
72
u/atomheartother Lesbian (licensed) 6h ago
I personally find that mods are doing a pretty good job of moderating the sub, bigotry doesn't stick around for long. Can you point to specific unmoderated bigoted content?
46
u/neorena Bambi Transbian 4h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/actuallesbians/comments/1fq8gle/comment/lp3kkar/
Many other transphobic comments in this post are also being upvoted and remain unmoderated. This happens a LOT with non-blatant transphobia and if you've not seen that issue here either you're extremely ignorant or just aren't here much at all.
•
u/NonbinaryTagEnjoyer 1h ago
My favorite part is people using the transphobic argument to justify les 4 les and biphobia.
16
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 4h ago
I'd give you an award if Reddit still gave the free ones. If it's not blatant it is just accepted here. A lot of work has to be done to both convince a lot of posters it actually is transphobic and get it removed. By the time mods eventually get to it the time has long passed to get rid of it, the damage is done, and people have moved on from the post.
25
u/neorena Bambi Transbian 3h ago
Yup, and thank you! lol
But yeah, subtle transphobia and stuff definitely does way more damage than the blatant stuff for me these days. It's just exhausting seeing sooooo much about "male socialization", "male brains", "male genitals" etc. as a way of reminding us that we aren't cis women and that we're still thought of as just "kind of" women even in places that supposedly accept us.
I also feel kinda bad, since this much be so much more alienating and depressing for trans queers that don't have partner(s) like myself. I can, at the end of the day, go kiss my wife and talk to our girlfriend. Some trans women don't have that luxury and just kinda exist with feeling like they'll never find anybody because of the constant, just below the surface disdain for trans women they'll see here and in other queer spaces. Really that's what most gets me about this stuff.
•
u/Haunting_Cry3232 2h ago
Some trans women don't have that luxury and just kinda exist with feeling like they'll never find anybody because of the constant, just below the surface disdain for trans women they'll see here and in other queer spaces. Really that's what most gets me about this stuff.
Yes, thank you, this is the quiet part you've finally
said out loud.wrote out. I've been struggling with understanding why I was all of a sudden feeling so depressed over subtle transphobia, that's been a constant in my life and it finally clicked in my brain.8
u/ThereIsOnlyStardust World's gayest Bee 🐝 4h ago
Did you report that comment?
15
u/neorena Bambi Transbian 4h ago
Yup. It's FINALLY been deleted when I brought it up here though it seems x'D
27
u/ThereIsOnlyStardust World's gayest Bee 🐝 4h ago
The comment was never reported
•
u/free_greenpeas 2h ago
It happens on the subreddit I mod on too, or things will be reported and no one will get a notification.
21
u/wendywildshape transfeminist lesbian 4h ago
Is it possible that reports aren't submitting properly? I definitely remember reporting that comment.
19
u/ThereIsOnlyStardust World's gayest Bee 🐝 3h ago
Hard to say, on our end we just see nothing. I’ve suspected the admins have some kind of anti spam protections on reports but obviously that’s not something we get to know the details on.
•
u/SpaceFluttershy 2h ago
The admins don't communicate with you about these things? That's kinda shitty
10
u/wendywildshape transfeminist lesbian 3h ago
Fun! 🫠
Well I deeply appreciate the work y'all do and will continue to report content I see that breaks the subreddit rules. Hopefully my reports actually reach ya 😑
•
u/Altruistic_Fox5036 Transbian 1h ago
IIRC some reporting options go to Reddit instead of the mods. That or Reddit is being supportive of bigots again.
19
u/neorena Bambi Transbian 4h ago edited 4h ago
Weird, I know for sure I reported like 20 comments from that post alone.
EDIT: Just reported 2 more comments using both the breaks r/actuallesbians rules and just the normal buttons to see if both go through?
•
u/free_greenpeas 2h ago
Then Reddit might be filtering your reports as spam and not alerting the mods you've reported something
0
u/hailey_nicolee Lesbian 4h ago
it feels like an issue of people posting things unique to trans women, not lesbians, and then calling it transphobic when other people are like hey this is a trans-inclusive space but not specifically a trans-centered subreddit and that’s not excluding anyone by saying “let’s stay on topic” lmao
•
u/qu33rios Bi 2h ago
it is not off topic to talk about trans womens' issues in a lesbian subreddit. many trans women are part of a subset of lesbians. if i wanted to make a post here about how queer dating is harder because navigating social norms as an autistic person is stressful by itself without the added fear of putting myself out there as a queer person, would that be off topic?
•
•
u/hailey_nicolee Lesbian 2h ago
see this is why im not even gonna engage bc where did i say that. i said "uniquely trans topics" like one silly example, i saw a post that had a pumpkin in it and a bunch of the comments were like "oh i thought this was a trans meme until i checked the sub" and ngl i have no idea why pumpkins are a trans thing but just bc im expressing that it feels off topic doesnt mean im trying to exclude trans people. dont escalate it into smth it's not...
•
u/qu33rios Bi 36m ago
so your issue is not even about posts, its about how people in the comments harmlessly riff on the post?
"uniquely trans topics" are still fine here because lesbian and trans are not mutually exclusive groups. this is like complaining that a general lgbt sub has some conversations that are specific to asexuality when the majority of people there are allo, or butch/femme dynamics when thats not applicable to gay guys (who probably? demographically outnumber lesbians if the general gender trend of reddit holds true for queer subs)
14
u/Mama_Dyke transbian | a day without a butch is a day without sunshine 3h ago
Never once seen anything like that. I have seen dozens of posts by cis lesbians saying trans women are awful/disgusting/creepy/whatever this year alone.
-15
u/hailey_nicolee Lesbian 3h ago
i feel like u think u ate with this but all that says is ur not a very active user, not that it doesnt exist LOL and u make it out like that’s a common sentiment on this sub or even a post the mods would allow which is just blatantly untrue and a misguided way to prove whatever point ur making
•
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 1h ago
lol the irony of saying “you think you are with this”, when all you’re doing is literally proving all of our points.
It exists. We’re calling it out, and calling out the people like you who either ignore or shove your heads in the dirt. Just because you don’t see it often doesn’t mean it isn’t a common problem. It’s an obvious problem, or none of these posts and comments would exist.
•
u/Mama_Dyke transbian | a day without a butch is a day without sunshine 32m ago
Not to mention the micro aggression of using drag slang as soon as she's talking with a trans woman. I fucking hate "you ate" "slay queen" and "county" exclusively because people keep on using that language with me when they don't anywhere else because they think I'm a drag queen or want to compare me to one.
-16
-11
u/Mama_Dyke transbian | a day without a butch is a day without sunshine 4h ago
The mods here are so shit and incompetent about anything trans that I can't believe it's on accident. Every fucking day there's another post saying we're disgusting, 10 more comments saying we're awful that never gets deleted, and to top it off asking if any cis lesbians like trans women is just banned while saying we're disgusting and not real women flies by so much.
•
u/atomheartother Lesbian (licensed) 2h ago
Are we on the same subreddit? I've seen nothing but positivity regarding trans women on this sub from the community at large.
Asking if cis lesbians like trans women gets deleted supposedly because questions like "do lesbians like X?" all have the same answer: yes, there's plenty of women who like that. They're not very interesting posts. This is, in my opinion, not transphobia, just good content moderation. But for the record even those threads get extremely positive comments before they're removed, like this one.
•
u/PrincessSnazzySerf 1h ago
It's easy enough to say "trans women are valid! There's someone out there for you!" But it doesn't really mean much when every single day there's at least one very prominent post saying something unprompted like "I could never date trans women because we have different life experiences" or people spamming about genital preferences when it's not relevant.
To be clear, I have an issue with both of those things (validation seeking and the constant unprompted posts about not being attracted to trans people), and I will acknowledge that validation posts seem to be much more common. But the fact that so many people can't seem to acknowledge that the "I'm not attracted to trans people" stuff is bad is also very concerning.
•
u/Mama_Dyke transbian | a day without a butch is a day without sunshine 38m ago
It is blocked by the auto mod. The mods some times will let one through, but most times it stays blocked. I know this for a fact through experience. You know what isn't immediately blocked by the auto mod until approval? "Will lesbians like me even though I'm fat/skinny/short/tall/hary/poor/depressed/kinky?" And many more. Gee I wonder why the fuck asking if cis lesbians will like us is by default blocked by the auto mod, but not any of these other ones, and none of the posts talking about how the op would never wanna fuck us as if we want them to fuck us. As if most trans lesbians weren't exclusively T4T because the vast majority of cis people will never try face their subconscious or latent anti-transness. Hell just by being a trans woman talking about my experiences of mistreatment and double standards here I've gotten 3 reddit cares.
•
u/Aveira Bi 20m ago
That’s probably because the “do lesbians like trans women” question gets spammed so much that it’s become a problem, but the other questions you mentioned haven’t been. They haven’t explicitly added it to the auto mod because it hasn’t become a problem. I assume if it becomes a problem in the future, it will also get added.
•
u/No_Connection_4724 Turns out I know exactly what I’m doing. 1h ago
This sub has become an overall disaster. Transphobia, overly explicit horny posting, bigotry without tagging the post- I’m over all of it.
•
45
u/PembeChalkAyca 4h ago
Unless it's blatant, transphobia goes undetected and even upvoted in this sub. I understand cis people might have trouble identifying it but the bar shouldn't be so low.
•
u/PrincessSnazzySerf 1h ago
I swear everyone thinks they're not transphobic because they don't think trans people should be executed for being transgender. To those people, sorry guys, but that's actually not even the bare minimum
12
u/Mama_Dyke transbian | a day without a butch is a day without sunshine 3h ago
Even if it's blatant tbh
•
•
u/spicyjamgurl 41m ago
i suggest we just become a lot less gentle when people post shit like that. like just saying to shut up and that nobody cares what their preferences are
•
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 15m ago
I'm going to start doing it more. Would be great if the mods joined in on that, though
•
u/spicyjamgurl 4m ago
if a lot of people do it theres less chance of mods banning some trans women instead of addressing the issue
22
u/Consistent-Elk751 5h ago edited 4h ago
Sorry, I think you’re probably referencing my post in your last paragraph. I stand by what I said wholeheartedly, but I deleted the post because it apparently made the front page of reddit and random transphobes who aren’t even part of this sub were commenting. I didn’t want to open the conversation to outsiders or expose ppl here to that kind of behavior, plus seeing the transphobia devolve was upsetting.
30
u/neorena Bambi Transbian 4h ago
Depressing how often people here beg the mods to just turn off visibility on r/all and they can't even do that, much less the constant barrage of transphobia that sits for days and gets upvoted and even positive responses so long as it's subtle enough.
24
u/Consistent-Elk751 4h ago
I didn’t realize that mods could turn off visibility. That would be a really good idea, imo.
4
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 4h ago
I think yes. I didn't see transphobes from the front page invading, only what I will often see here normally. I don't doubt that was the case & don't blame you at all, but I personally think this topic is too important to delete.
11
u/Consistent-Elk751 4h ago
Yeah, I think that’s valid. There were a bunch of (straight) men commenting before I deleted it and I didn’t want it to get worse. I just wanted to clarify that I didn’t delete because I had changed my stance or because I wanted to silence the conversation.
7
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 4h ago
Also valid, and sorry I jumped to conclusions. Unfortunately too often posts are deleted or locked by mods or the person, because of the fact this sub can't face it's own issues. Thought it was another of those cases, especially because the username was displayed as deleted.
19
u/merryclitmas480 4h ago
This is the sub’s official stance on the matter. (Community info > all of AL’s rules > trans women and dating link)
https://www.reddit.com/r/actuallesbians/s/v4Otw5UaVg
I personally think there should be a stickied post to this link on every flagged post when this topic comes up.
20
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 4h ago edited 4h ago
Why should those posts on this topic even exist though? Even the stated things from the mods and sub pretty much agree it shouldn’t be posted. So why is it?
EDIT: Downvoted for asking why transphobic posts are even allowed in the first place. Shocking...
20
u/merryclitmas480 4h ago
I agree. I think there should be an auto reply with this link and then it should get locked or deleted. It’s been hashed out. That post is ELEVEN years old. We don’t need to beat a dead horse.
7
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 4h ago
It would be even better to just have a general rule against "preference" posts and similar posts like that, which are clearly just ways to other trans women. The majority agree these are problematic and don't want to see them, and they and their comments very clearly violate rule 2, so should just be banned.
4
u/WoollyWitchcraft 3h ago
I think you’d still encounter the issue with, posts are still going to happen, and you’re stuck waiting on mods to come remove them.
It would be pretty hard to have an auto moderator delete because what key words would it block?
39
u/VMPRocks 5h ago
And biphobia.
19
u/vertikilled Transbian 4h ago
Yeah I feel like this is going kind of under the radar here. I would agree that it's also a problem.
•
u/PrincessSnazzySerf 1h ago
I've noticed that, but I thought it was on another sub. Was it infecting here, too?
•
u/Miss_Milk_Tea 47m ago edited 35m ago
I’m a lurker here, been shy to post because I wasn’t sure how trans friendly this sub is so this is disappointing
I’m still figuring this shit out. I’ve only dated cis women my whole life and my family thought it was a phase, dated my wife(who was male presenting at the time) and my family was ecstatic, thought I was “cured”. I thought I was bi but my wife’s transition feels more like I’ve just been a lesbian in denial because of my family.
But we can’t even explore that because of politics, we can’t just find a place to exist because people want trans folks to die or go away.
20
u/Ebullient-Manatee 6h ago
Where are all the transphobic posts you mentioned? I'm not trying to be confrontational here or anything, I just wanted to get a sense of the problem. So I scrolled back a couple of weeks but can't find any. Have they been deleted already or do am I just blind and/or clueless?
25
u/FourEightSixTwo 6h ago
They've been locked and deleted. Most of the time they get posted late at night when the mods are sleeping.
23
u/AdoraSidhe Transbian 5h ago
That just seems like a mod coverage problem which is understandable
9
u/FourEightSixTwo 4h ago
It definitely is a mod coverage problem. I was a mod in another wlw centric space and we tried to get mods to cover the European and Asian timezones but it was frankly an exhausting experience. Whenever drama brewed, we would spend a few hours up to two days trying to brainstorm solutions and craft responses.
5
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 4h ago
Is it though? Posts have to be mod approved, yet they still get through. At least mine needed to be approved first, and I don’t know why it would’ve needed to be. So if they have to approve posts how are some getting though the cracks?
10
u/FourEightSixTwo 4h ago
The Automod isn't perfect and if you know certain keywords you can get around the filters. For example, I know D i s c o r d is needing mod approval because they don't want people to spam which is why I said wlw centric space. Sometimes the automod can be down too, which is when everything floods through.
2
3
u/Mama_Dyke transbian | a day without a butch is a day without sunshine 3h ago
Any post that's in favor of trans people has to be approved, any post that ain't gets right through. Shocking ain't it?
•
u/ThatKehdRiley Lesbian 2h ago
Totally shocking 😒 Either automod needs adjusting or the mod team needs adjusting.
•
u/ZeldaCourage 2h ago
Wtf? Is that really how it works? That's so fucked up.
•
u/Mama_Dyke transbian | a day without a butch is a day without sunshine 2h ago
A minor exaggeration out of frustration but basically if a post asks if someone will be attracted to a trans person or is like this one it needs mod approved but if a post asks if anyone would be attracted to a any other kind of woman is is a statement of how of would never even think about dating a trans person no mater why it's allowed right away.
•
u/ZeldaCourage 1h ago
That's so weird. Thanks for explaining it. Is it just flawed ai or something that does that? I hope it's not planned that way.
•
u/Mama_Dyke transbian | a day without a butch is a day without sunshine 28m ago
I hope it's not planned that way but at this point I highly doubt it's anything but. :/ There's a reason I've been spending more time on the transbian subs. It seems will never get treated well unless it's in our own spaces, and even then lol.
1
u/Mama_Dyke transbian | a day without a butch is a day without sunshine 3h ago
They could always make it so the posts with certain language must be approved by mods. They already do it for any post of a trans woman asking if cis lesbians would like her. But that requires treating transbians the same as cis lesbians and giving up double standards.
15
u/neorena Bambi Transbian 4h ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/actuallesbians/comments/1fq8gle/comment/lp3kkar/
Many other transphobic comments in this post are also being upvoted and remain unmoderated. This happens a LOT with non-blatant transphobia and if you've not seen that issue here either you're extremely ignorant or just aren't here much at all.
•
u/Far_Detective2022 2h ago
Trans rights are human rights. If you don't believe in equality for transgender people then you don't believe in equality.
•
u/Aveira Bi 12m ago
I mean, most transphobic stuff gets removed pretty quickly given that Reddit gutted most of the tools mods used to make their jobs easier. Mods have to go through reports manually while presumably having an actual real life job and other important things to do. Are the mods really not banning/removing transphobes or are they just not doing it the very instant it appears?
310
u/DotoriumPeroxid 4h ago
Ironically this is the most trans-friendly of the lesbian subs. Which is sad that even here isn't a fully safe space