Is it transphobic of me to completely filter out trans-related topics from all the media I consume? It’s just that there are so many topics I follow that I have to decide which ones I actually want to pay attention to. It’s not even that I have anything against the topic; I’ve just always been completely uninterested in it, because the concept of gender has simply never held any significance for me. It’s never been something that carried much weight for me; even in social interactions, I’ve always perceived the person I’m talking to simply as an individual – everything else was secondary.
Two questions:
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Do you respect people’s pronouns when they tell you?
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Do you believe trans people should have autonomy over their bodies like everyone else?
If the answer to both of those is yes, then you’re not transphobic. I don’t follow NASCAR, doesn’t make me car-phobic.
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No.
I browse /all, and I block a lot of stuff. I block trans NSFW and gay NSFW comms because I don’t like seeing male genitalia — at all. I don’t care what the person identifies as, I don’t want to see dick pics, so I block comms that allow/post them.
That’s not at all to say I don’t like gays or trans people. I love quite a lot of them, in family and friends, but supporting a person does not mean you want to see their genitals (often, and mostly, it actually means you don’t). (I also keep all NSFW blurred and only reveal what interests me.)
I’ve always been an LGBTQ+ ally. That does not mean I need to consume pornography of the people whose human rights I support.
I browse /all because the Fediverse is always growing, and I want to be a part of any of it that interests me as it comes. I sub to comms I want to support by boosting their member count, but I almost never browse the comm itself. For example, heretofore I have not said anything relevant to Autism, people with Autism, or this Autism comm. It’s what I would have said to anyone, whether it was an American city’s comm, a European country (or Middle Eastern or Asian or African or whatever), or any other comm. The fact that I am actually autistic, or at least on the spectrum somewhere (I do not have an official diagnosis, but I know I’m neurodivergent), just means I saw I wasn’t subbed, so I subbed (pending, I’m not sure what the review/decision process is, but hey, I requested a sub).
Penis is more inclusive than male genitalia generally
A coworker once told me a trick for knowing where the line is when referring to marginalised groups.
(Please remember that this is before the big Hamas attack in 2023 led to the current state of affairs).
His advice, replace the group you’re referring to with jews, and reread the sentence. His reasoning is that we have a much better feeling for what’s acceptable. So, this would be:
Is it antisemitic of me to completely filter out jew-related topics from all the media I consume?
So how to answer?
If you’re blocking a ton of topics that don’t interest you, to create a highly personalised feed, then that probably wouldn’t seem that weird. If it’s the only thing you’re blocking, then that might be more easily explained by prejudice.
At the end of the day, though, you’re the only person who knows whether you’re transphobic or not. It’s easy for someone to say that being indifferent to a marginalised group’s suffering is as bad as actually persecuting them, but that ignores the fact that some people are barely keeping it together as it is. We live in horrible dangerous times - your feed is your own business, but I’d suggest trying to keep abreast of the broad strokes of what is happening in the world.
