Member-only story
Why Bother to Argue Online At All
“Trans women are not women.”
Five words jump at you from the endless feed. It triggers your emotions as you read it. Perhaps you are happy that someone has finally said what you’ve been longing to say but didn’t have the courage to; or you are livid that someone who has no clue about the daily life obstacles you face because of your sexuality, has made an insensitive comment.
In either case, you reply.
You compose a response to these five words typed out somewhere else by a masquerade. Your response could be civil in tone or acerbic. Guided by what you consider acceptable social behaviour or just plain old caution in a world of cancel culture, you carefully word your response. Alternatively, you may choose to be savage — your savage response disproportionately weighted to cancel the negative emotions those original five words spurred.
As soon as the send notification chimes, other people jump in the fray with you; leftists, rightists and the downright ridiculous. They talk in text, pictures, memes, emojis and other things. Some of their responses bear no relation to the original post — they could be bet codes, erotica, self-promotion … the list is endless.
