Sometimes I attempt to participate in safe-for-work trans Twitter, and I usually end up feeling like a huge outcast.
I get that some people don't want to interact with NSFW accounts. And I get that Twitter can hide replies with media from NSFW accounts, regardless of what it is..

I know I'm too old and not leftist enough to seem cool. I know my SFW stuff is completely boring to everybody who isn't an electrical engineer, old school computer programmer, or math lover (that's why @lychaxo has 14x as many followers as @tslycha). I know I'm different..

I am also acutely aware of how non-sex-worker trans folk often steer clear of fetishism, because they don't want to be fetishized; I'm really kinky. Like, I know all these things, and yet, I often expect to be included; I guess I think of trans spaces as being super inclusive..

Unless you watch animé, play the right games, have the right kinks, hold the right set of liberal beliefs, read the right genres of literature, have the right opinions about certain YouTubers, and present yourself in the right ways, you risk exclusion from trans spaces online..

Ostensibly, trans Twitter should be for everyone non-predatory under the trans umbrella. And there are parts which have been friendly to me. But the safe-for-work parts have a certain aesthetic which doesn't fit me, and they often won't engage much with me (if at all)..

Part of that could be shadowbanning, yes. But I suspect part of it is a reluctance to engage with someone who seems a bit too masculine for a trans woman: a raunchy, crude, punk rock Linux geek. A cis girl being that would be cool, but a trans girl doing it? Too boyish, I guess..

Maybe the expectation they have is that I should stay on my side of town, in the porn world?
If they think the porn world fully welcomes me, that's untrue. I'm not hot enough for many mainstream trans performers to want me around, and a lot of cis performers avoid trans ones..

I don't mean to sound whiny or ungrateful. I am more than ecstatic to have made the friends I've made in the trans and sex worker communities . But I wanted to rant a little bit. Because I'm not just about porn. I have so many other interests, but I know labels are labels..

What's ironic is so much trans history has revolved around sex work, but the modern trans movement can skip over that part. I know, the colorful history of sex work hurts trans acceptance. So my existence is also thus seen as harmful for trans equality. That's not conjecture..

I've had trans people directly tell me that. They tell me I'm hurting their movement... by expressing who I am in a way that helps pay bills? It doesn't help that anti-trans activists hurl the same garbage in the name of protecting women.
I know sex work leads to discrimination..

And I was prepared to be hated by anti-porn crusaders, conservatives, religious types, prudes, and transphobes. But to get the silent treatment in some trans spaces for not being the right kind of trans woman? I definitely didn't expect that... Not while living my truth..

And to clarify, this isn't about any one person. I'm presenting an amalgamation of the many interactions I've had online over the years with the trans community, especially the non-sex-workers. I'm not subtweeting or trying to call anybody out here, at all. Don't get any ideas..

So screw it. I'm a shell-script-writing, C-programming, command-line-preferring Linux user, a punk-rock-loving musician, a porn-creating slut, a hardcore toilet fetishist, an electrical engineering experimenter, and a former professional actor who finds many YouTubers obnoxious..

I'm not gonna pretend to be someone else. If the we-don't-believe-in-gatekeeping communities want to shrug me off, so be it. What I know about being trans is that a lot of people just avoid me for no reason.
Apparently, it seems, often other trans people.
(end of thread)