Toxic online communities

The worst online spaces for trans and gender diverse people are, in order:

USENET

USENET quickly became the service of choice for the worst online trolls of the 20th century. The trans-focused “support” newsgroup alt.support.srs in particular grew so toxic that everyone but the trolls left.

Twitter

Twitter is the service of choice for ragey hacks and a terrible place to get information or discuss anything of substance. Any trans person worth following stopped posting much after about 2013.

Video games and forums

Games known for anti-trans trolls and griefers who harass trans players include:

  • League of Legends
  • Call of Duty
  • Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
  • Dota 2
  • Overwatch
  • World of Tanks
  • ARK: Survival Evolved
  • World of Warcraft
  • Undertale
  • Minecraft

4chan

This imageboard is favored by anti-trans people on /pol and trancels on /lgbt. Users on /lgbt are often trans-attracted and/or wish to transition but fear rejection. Many have a deep and abiding hatred or contempt for some or all trans people. That hatred is often a pale shadow of their self-hatred.

Reddit

Some subreddits are known for toxic views about trans people, including:

  • r/KotakuInAction
  • /r/TumblrInAction
  • r/politics
  • r/TwoXChromosomes
  • r/PoliticalHumor
  • r/ChapoTrapHouse (banned)
  • r/CringeAnarchy (banned)
  • r/GenderCritical (banned)
  • r/The_Donald (banned)

EncyclopÓ•dia Dramatica

Encyclopedia Dramatica is a trolling and doxing site that emerged to catalog LiveJournal drama, which was itself a toxic online community.

Kiwi Farms

Another trolling and doxing site with a special section on mocking trans and gender diverse people. The site was founded to mock an autistic transbian, then expanded to anyone they consider “lolcows.”

Bodybuilding forums

A relic of web 1.0, many of these forums have negative attitudes about trans people and rigid views about sex and gender binaries.

Dating apps

Many dating apps do a terrible job of managing anti-trans harassment.

YouTube comments

If you have a YouTube channel, you should probably set all comments to be approved to discourage toxic viewers.