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Comment by AnEro | Hacker News Reader

Weird to say but could be a relevant anecdote, as a trans person, that avoids politics in my socials but watches trans creators. I've never gotten a platform that doesn't show me the trans negative politics in my feeds after engaging with trans creators. I find I only get the positive politics AFTER I ignore or dislike the negatives ones.

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I'd be inclined to think it's because trans people are more likely to engage with anti-trans posts.

I'm a cis lesbian and I only get pro-trans content, BUT I do get a lot of 'random bisexuals shitting on lesbians' content.

I've also noticed that when I scroll away from political posts from the left, it almost immediately tries to give me political posts from the right. The algorithm doesn't seem to pick up that my main concern with political content is whether or not it's FUNNY. The only political content I want to see on TikTok is shitposts, but the algo seems to operate under a pretty basic 'If scroll past left/right, then show right/left'.

Yeah, I doubt that there are enough tags or categories for the algorithm to use.

Big brush, broad strokes.

I think if the algo showed alot of ED triggering content to ED survivors as well then I'd be more likely to agree thats the primary driver and not just an influence.

I'm not sure but anti-trans content/socializing in general is primarily a driver for poor mental health with trans people. Not engaging and blocking a lot of the content is day 1 advice in the community. Also, a lot of anti-trans content is targeting non-passing trans people, which is often full of ways to trigger ones dysphoria and dysmorphia. Like there are keyboard warriors for sure but i don't know anyone that intentionally watches that stuff and most even avoid tiktok entirely because of it

And I'm skeptical it even identifies me as trans if i'm just watching a few trans people that aren't talking about trans issues or experiences really. Where i scroll past much more xyz issue that affects females in particular, when it's trying to diagnosis me (which i think is cause of my health/nutrition interest it trys to convince me xyz is cause i'm not balancing my hormones or its pocs or assumes my period is terrible lol)

the community doesn't help by trying to dunk on the anti trans stuff a little too much but I do assume it's engagement bait

I'd say with the reverse being very true as well would largely just make it so once you get anything close to touching the topic it tosses out which ever side they think you'll engage with the most.

For more anecdotal context, my other interests lean into a demographic/stereotype of an upper middle class pilates/health/cleangirl girliepop. Which from my experience they centrist/ambivalent maybe skew left but not inherently pro trans.

> For more anecdotal context, my other interests lean into a demographic/stereotype of an upper middle class pilates/health/cleangirl girliepop. Which from my experience they centrist/ambivalent maybe skew left but not inherently pro trans.

I'm not sure this is accurate, speaking as someone whose social circle has a lot of people in that group and who also sometimes ends up on that side of the algo. For various reasons, it's only socially acceptable to be outspokenly on the left in that group (more so for women over the age of 25/30), but there's a sizable minority who either disagree with certain topics or are more aligned with the right, but they aren't going to jeopardize their social circles or (particularly in the case of content creators) their audience.

It's the girl version of the men who put 'apolitical' on dating apps to hide being a conservative because they don't want to limit their dating prospects.

I agree and disagree! To clarify, when I say centre/centre left I mean neoliberal and left being more aoc/burny leaning. It is very acceptable to neoliberal, but often not worth the political risk to go further than that and vice versa. Neoliberal isn't inherently protrans, and in general people see trans people in two ways, example for trans women a different type of male(biology) vs a different type of woman(social construct). Where depending on their ideology and their view as mentioned, it determines what trans issues they will come to bat and risk talking about.

Yeah, we're talking within the general Overton window. Views that are outside of that (and particularly outside a binary) aren't going to do well with the algorithm. (It's interesting to me that you instinctually divide the views on trans people into a binary!)

There are just a lot more secret conservatives in that group than one might expect from outward appearances. The center of the Overton Window is as far 'right' as they can go without losing their audience. I can usually pick up on it pretty clearly, but I also worked in political communications for a while and became very sensitive to signaling and find it a fascinating topic. I wouldn't be shocked if the algorithm picks up on the association and assumes some similarity between down-low conservatives and forthright conservatives and starts serving the latter to viewers of the former.

> I've never gotten a platform that doesn't show me the trans negative politics in my feeds after engaging with trans creators.

How about Mastodon or Bluesky?

Haven't tried, I got off twitter and insta 2 years ago. I've been meaning to try it but its often hard to build up a feed again on one of those platforms it often just feels empty or if you don't follow the right people cluttered.

Anti-trans bias is often just lookism, since many conservatives who purport to hate trans people are more than happy to engage with those who "pass".

Consider 4chans fascination and fetishization of "femboys" and even this whole hilarious "saga": https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/favela-trans-girl-saga

This is the same "conservative gen Z" group that somehow helps get trump elected with the Q shit...

Many of them just hate non-passing trans people. Sad but true, and a lot of trans people also dislike other non passing trans people.

100% I started not passing then lost a ton of weight and found out I have alot of traditionally feminine interests. I went from being spat at in the street and almost attacked with no help, to people going out of their way to protect me from creepy men following me.

From my experience passing, how attractive you are, and your interests/hobbies are all attached to how well you a treated in the world right now.

Trans people call it passing privilege for a reason.

> From my experience passing, how attractive you are, and your interests/hobbies are all attached to how well you a treated in the world right now.

That's always been true for anyone in just about any context.

True but I think it's out of touch to not see the trans part as effecting the severity factor to it. Like some of the first advice most trans women get only wear shoes you can run in. Where in my experience if you aren't enough of those three you'll get chased down and no one will care to help.

I only started dressing as a woman again after I couldn't pass as a guy anymore and learned how to be as attractive as I could be. Which is a common experience amongst trans women

I don’t doubt the severity of the trans experience.

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