Trans communities and online harms
This is not an old woman shakes fist at clouds rage piece, but every time I want to talk about the possible harms of social media it starts to feel like it. No matter what angle you seek to take on social media and anyone engaging with it, the basic fact remains that the applications we use are designed to maximise engagement, keep you scrolling, and ensure you are using their app and no other. What is telling in the debates surrounding social media use is that any attempts at a middle ground seem to be too weak, too wishy washy for those either advocating for its use or advocating for restrictions. In reality even those who do not use socials are still part of the process, still there in the background, and they have become so ubiquitous that to be without them is tantamount to taking society back to the 1990s and stripping away communal connections that would not otherwise be there. For the trans community this means potentially cutting off trans and gender questioning folk from the only community they have access to.
I came of age as MySpace and Geocities emerged onto the internet. My personal profiles were bright, colourful, and reflected a version of myself I wanted the world to see. It was never the real me, simply aspects of self I pushed out into cyberspace. Once Facebook arrived I dove right in, building a large network of friends, family, and contacts, always adding more…
