What I Learned Going Viral on Right-Wing Twitter as a Trans Person, Educator and Activist

By Anonymous 

I was recently interviewed in a queer-friendly space by people who claimed to be recording for their university. As I soon discovered, neither of these was true.

Something had felt strange throughout their questioning, but I put it down to lack of knowledge and I had the energy that day to try and educate them. My interviewers were receptive to the information about trans identities. I politely corrected them about chromosomes when they brought up that they thought XY was female; I told them how even biologically, sex is actually on a spectrum due to the polygenic nature of sex characteristics.

A few days later, my friend sent me a link. It was me, in a one-minute-long video, saying hesitantly that the government is responsible for much of the trans hate in society, and that even I have Internalised some of it, so often hate towards myself comes from myself as well. The clip had the tagline: stop your trans victimisation. It was posted by the interviewer, who I discovered was not even at university. Instead, they had made an internet career promoting far-right politics.

I sat and watched as the video went from 20K views to almost 200K views (this number is still rising). Before the views had racked up too much, I read the comments. I won’t indulge you in the misgendering and hateful specifics, but I did notice a few trends. The first was that the commenters believed I lack critical thinking and am spouting leftist rhetoric. The second was that they did not know what the UK government was doing against trans rights.

Considering I’ve built my career off advanced critical thinking, I believe it is safe to say that those that fell into the first trend are wrong. This being said, they mistook my confusion (as I thought it was evident) over the question where is trans hate coming from? for spouting rhetoric. To me, this is all obvious once you start thinking about it. Gender is evidently a social construct, and the government is actively trying to harm us by claiming it is not. They do not see this, though. They are not willing to admit their own hypocrisy. 

Going viral on right-wing Twitter has taught me a thing or two. One is that the far right is willing to do anything imaginable to justify their cause – which is based on hatred – and gain a following. The actions of the interviewer include breaking the law for the sake of going viral. Queer spaces are seen as targets to them. I no longer feel safe there if they’re open to the public because this is just the start. 

Another thing I’ve learned is that those with this hateful stance are often aware of their ignorance but unwilling to change. The interviewer edited out of the video the part where I informed them of useful information, which shows that he knows he is unaware and uneducated, but just wants to gain power through this video stunt. Also, the far right is unaware of the trans genocide taking place from governmental organisations; they are far too busy being indoctrinated to allow themselves to discover this.

The unfortunate part here is that I initially blamed myself. I should have trusted my gut instinct when I felt something was off during the interview, but I didn’t. I believed I could make a change but some people are unwilling to change. However, I hold my head up high by reminding myself: I would rather be hated for who I am than liked for who I pretend to be. 

This is not my fault. I may be in receipt of much hatred, but the far right always finds something new to hold onto. Another fabricated story will be on its way, but the truth of who I am will remain.