Building queer community support
An FAQ for responding to anti-trans hatred
Welcome to TransFriend, a weekly publication and community centered around normalizing trans and queer stories. What’s this place all about? Read up on how Substack Is Queer, learn How I Started my Substack with Zero Subscribers, or find a place to feel Rooted.
TransFriend is currently creating an anthology of writing by family members, friends, parents of trans kids, and by trans kids themselves who have stories to tell. For more information, visit For Trans Families, With Love where you can watch this project grow.
Today’s TransFriend post is shared collaboratively with
, a phenomenal collection of works in support of the transgender community and families of trans kids. We welcome them warmly and hope you come to appreciate the generosity of their work on behalf of all of us.Our community matters.
Queer folx have always needed community to support one another through difficult times, and here we are in yet another one of those moments in history when we are all being tested. I’ve personally seen a lot of attacks, hate speech, and viral comments intended to scare, bully, threaten, and harm me and my trans siblings. There’s been a significant spike in them recently, and I hope many of you have been able to keep them out of your field of view to the extent possible. And as much as I enjoy watching the occasional game of football, I’m pretty grateful I’ve avoided that lately as there are countless anti-trans ads airing during those games.
We have a few options.
We can block accounts that offend us, and that’s great for self-care. It cleans up the content we see, and it helps us to believe that there are genuinely kind people around us in the world (which is true).
Blocking also cultivates an improved feed here on substack, typically showing you more of the content you want to see and less hatred and dog whistle posts.
You also have several options for how you want to receive posts on substack—by email, within the app, or in both places. Over the next couple of weeks in the US, it might be worth considering how it impacts you to see political information on the app and especially in notes. I hope you make the best decision for your own mental health needs, even if that means shutting off the noise for a little while. I will still be here, and you’re always welcome to come back.
We can report those who post things that are actively harmful to ourselves and our community. I recently posted a note about this here on substack, complete with screenshots of the various steps involved. It can feel so intimidating to report someone, and I can’t help but think that the process is made overly complex to prevent us from following through to the last step. If you’re curious, here’s a link to that note (caution—this note does contain images of an awful anti-trans post that might be triggering and upsetting for some, so please use your best self-care judgement before clicking).
As authors of posts we can also ban or suspend users for a specific period of time from our publications for comments that violate our community rules. TransFriend is one of the places where I take active moderation of comments very seriously, and I’ve banned several users with this method. This act helps to cultivate a space that is safe for those of us to share our thoughts on vulnerable topics, and it’s worth it to me to spend the time to ensure that everyone here feels safe to contribute.
You, as a community member, also have the ability to report comments on sites like this. When you do, the author receives a report allowing them to view the comment and determine the appropriate course of action (which is typically a suspension).
We can also take steps within the community to support one another directly. Often this takes the form of reaching out to others who we see harmed and asking if they are okay, if they need help, or if a virtual hug might brighten their day. Many of you have done this for me, and I’ve paid those actions forward to others I care about on this platform.
But one of the biggest barriers we all face is how to (sometimes) fight back with our own words. There are moments when we feel like taking a stand for ourselves, for our community, for trans or queer people as a whole. And when we do, it can be so daunting to face the “legitimate questions” or “just trying to understand” comments out there.
The best support happens when we work together.
If you’ve ever wished there was a resource to help you stand up in these moments, I present to you a brilliant collaborative resource provided by
here on substack, an FAQ full of smart, educated, well-thought responses to TERF questions!
If you’re not yet familiar with
as a resource, allow me to introduce their work—this publication was created in response to a similarly named anti-trans site catering to the gender critical views of parents who believe their children really are not transgender. takes those articles and writes satirical counterpoints embedded with poignant details, well-cited peer-reviewed literature, and accurate published accounts of the real harm that happens to transgender children at the hands of families who do not support them.PITT provides a space for adult children of parents (and parents) who have been impacted by gender critical ideology to share their uncensored stories, experiences, and thoughts, while remaining anonymous to protect themselves and their families. Our objective is to inform the public about the devastating impact of gender critical ideology on our families through our personal experiences.
To support the work that
does, you can subscribe to their publication here.
While engaging in conversations with those who hate and despise us is often fruitless and frustrating, it’s also important to feel that our voices matter, and that we do have the agency to speak up for ourselves. This isn’t the sort of thing that anyone should ever be expected to do, but I’ve known moments when I wanted to rebut a nasty comment with some hardline facts and well-cited evidence. I thought I had to do all of that work myself, and sometimes I have. But it’s exhausting. Maybe it can change, and maybe this is one of the first steps in that direction.
This work does not have to happen alone.
When we come together in support and love, we build something resilient and beautiful, and YOU are part of that. You can help make this resource better by commenting with your thoughts and suggestions and also by sharing this post widely.
Developing a resource like this FAQ means opening up a dialogue with the trans and queer community and our allies so that we can expand the topics covered and the responses to match them. If you have an item you would like added to this list, please tell us about it in the comments!
Your trans friend,
Robin
 | A guest post by
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Hi Robin, just wanted to say that it makes me so sad that you have to write a (useful and informative) post like this.
I write on a subject (running) where I don’t have to deal with such ridiculous vitriol for the alleged ‘crime’ of being my authentic self and telling other people about it.
Here’s to do a day when this post is unnecessary.