Elon Musk is destroying one of our most important transgender social arenas: Twitter.
I am sick and tired of Elon Musk. What is it about American society that allows a bully like this take over one of the most important social arenas in the world?
This is what he tweeted yesterday:
The man has the emotional and intellectual maturity of a 12 year old. What is this? A desire to see The Stupid Antichrist f*uck over Twitter users? This is not a way to keep users and advertisers.
Twitter is an important arena for transgender collaboration, learning and support
Here’s my problem (which is also the problem of a lot of transgender people):
Twitter is one of the most important arenas of transgender learning and emotional support.
In spite of all the hate and all the trolls, Twitter has up til now been an important source of news and resources, a network for friendship and collaboration and a tool for transgender activism.
Sure, the TERFs and the transphobes are using it too, but trans people have been able to tell another story to those who are able to listen. That is important.
I am using my twitter account for transgender news curation. I have reason to believe that it has been useful to many.
Elon Musk did not build twitter
Elon Musk did not build twitter. The users and its employees did. And now he is destroying it all.
I will stay on for a little longer, and pray for a miracle.
Hopefully he will lose the 40 billion dollars he spent on twitter (what an obscene number!), forcing him to sell what is left after he has chased all the advertisers away. Maybe there are others who can save it yet, although I must say: I am not hopeful.
Alternatives to twitter
In the meantime, I am looking for alternatives. Medium is obviously one of them.
I have been using tumblr to reach another audience.
I am experimenting with Mastodon, which is the service that is most like twitter. The whole system of different servers is confusing, though, and I am not sure how sustainable they all are. Anyway, you can follow me there as well.
Another popular social media site is Telegram. I like it. It is perfect for news distribution and the sharing of online resources, although it does not provide you with a twitter like timeline.
It has played a very important role in the war in Ukraine, used by activists on both sides. I guess some would say that its popularity in Eastern and Central Europe limits its usefulness elsewhere. You can follow Transgender World, our Telegram news feed, here.
I’ll be back with a report on my experiences with these alternative services later on.
