A couple of days ago, a good trans woman friend of mine who is on Twitter and who never says anything about the “gender war” or indeed never tweets anything controversial received a threat that shook her to the core. Her immediate response was to say, “enough, I think I may leave Twitter”.
As trans folk, we immediately blame the gender-critical camp who we invariably say is transphobic. The GC camp would condemn that accusation as entirely false.
The truth is, there is nothing to be gained from abusing other people, which is precisely what is happening on Twitter at the moment.
But while we see the abuse thrown at us – I have personally been accused of AGP (despite having had surgery) and told to “die in a bath”, we dont see the abuse thrown at the gender crits, which is equally obnoxious and sometimes worse.
Masked threats, hateful language, suggesting that pipebombs be sent to people, disgusting images are wrong – PERIOD.
From time to time, I report tweets and block people; it is rare, I usually try to talk to people.
But who am I talking to?
Trolls?
Sock accounts?
The simple truth is Twitter needs to tighten up – massively. Not just policing tweets but also who gets an account in the first place. One verified person – one account.
Failing to do that is causing justified rancour, can cause mental issues, stifles proper debate and is causing decent people to get into entrenched positions.
That is not healthy.
We can also get “sucked in” to going too far ourselves – I plead guilty – I suspect we have all done it. We see a tweet that we object to and “wade in” with something stronger.
Emotion.
So in this short blog, to make clear – I condemn threatening behaviour, threats of sexual or physical violence on Twitter.
I suspect the large majority of the abuse received comes from deluded kids who enjoy winding both sides up – they are succeeding. But if any feel they are helping the trans cause, they are not, so don’t follow me on Twitter – Not in my name.
Authored by Steph @PlaceSteph
