Anyone seen this yet? Cultlike behavior from online trans communities

[AbortionFairyGodmother]

Spent a chunk of this evening reading transgenderreality.com/ in horror. I'll be keeping an eye on the blog for sure but has anyone else had any experiences with similar things? It seems like trans groups on the internet may include the kinds of badgering and brainwashing I previously associated with cult-like behavior. Kids go from questioning because they don't fit with gender roles or their crush dates someone of the opposite sex from theirs ... to "I need hormones or I will kill myself" ... in DAYS. I found it very troubling.

Oh wow, some of those posts that are quoted are pretty bad. Some of the online trans communities take stuff a bit far tbh.

1. Make a statement.
2. Seek examples that only support that statement.
3. Conclude that statement is correct.

And so from a few hand-picked comments from a large online community we get this;

"In recent years, the transgender community has started advancing an ideology that creates psychological distress, especially in young people.

This is the real face of transgender activism online. This is what your child got sucked into. We’ll talk about deprogramming tips, later, too, but for now, this is our advice:

If your child thinks he or she is transgender, get them away from the internet and back into reality. Whether your child decides to go through with transition or not, the ideology of transgender activism online is toxic and leads to depression, self-harm, and suicide."

Taaah Dah! A statement that confidently declares an entire community is a malignant entity.

Well, Dotheyfloat, if that particular, small, community encourages a prepubescent child to take hormones that may have permanent physical effects on them, then I as a parent will be very wary of that community, and would want my child away from their influence.

(Of course, Not All Trans*folk Are Like That)

But any adult who would encourage a minor to take any substance or medication not prescribed specifically for them by a competent medical professional deserves criticism - even if they sincerely believe they're being helpful.

Why engage your brain though when you perceive there to be an opportunity to sneer at feminists?

It reads a lot like some of the dodgier weight lifting sites my DP has read in the past.

Many are lovely, sensible, helpful places full of people who want you to get the best from your training and keep healthy. Some are hives of scum and villainy with unwise people being enabled and encouraged to take and do goodness knows what as a shortcut to getting bigger arms/lower body fat/whatever.

I find myself hearing an element of sense in DoTheyFloat's comments (!)- it's very easy to cherry pick some bad discussions to give an unrealistic impression of a community - I imagine that if someone wanted to they could get some doozies out of FWM and they definitely could from AIBU!

Not that that at all excuses the specific comments cherry picked there. It's horrifying that kids are being told what their problems are, and encouraged to medicate rather than just given support and time to talk it through.

i definitely recognise the similarities with pro-ana communities

chunky i think we know they do that with MN (all parts) all the time - there are long-running threads on other forums that are purely there to monitor and ridicule MN, so i won't disagree with you

i'm afraid that all dotheyfloat's posts just read as one longwinded sneer however, they don't vary from thread to thread, so i have lost interest in engaging with them

I see no one is denying that the author of that blog is blanket-smearing an entire community. People are just complaining that I've pointed it out, i.e. that whilst those examples are certainly disturbing the author clearly has an axe to grind. I'm not going to apologize for that.

Out of interest is there any consensus here as to what the causes of transgender inclinations are? Is the idea that, at least in some cases, it has a fundamentally biological root completely anathema to feminism? And that in some cases it can only me meaningfully tackled by, well... adding or removing a tackle and so on?