Bigotry, toxic masculinity and classical conservatism flow like thin blades on the internet as opinions clouded by claims without justification fill a blue-tinted phone screen. Hate becomes inevitable in the realms of Twitter, Facebook and Reddit, primarily if the scroller engages in online spaces that uplift marginalized communities. Particularly for transgender-identifying people on the internet, the past year fills with bigotry in a new light—specifically in realms where transphobia hides under the cracks of posts and general media, and as bigots come up with false claims to provide “reasonable” justification for their prejudice. These furtive forms of microaggressive transphobia fill to the brink on social media and again creates an unsafe space for transgender communities on the internet, unsuspectingly pushing to fight toward general progressivism back in America.

April 5, 2023, Chris Tyson—a well-known content creator, friend and co-worker of massively prevalent YouTuber Jimmy “Mr. Beast” Donaldson—confirmed that she underwent a process of gender-affirming care and used hormone replacement therapy (HRT). As of April 17, 2023, Tyson still introduces herself by the name Chris and uses all pronouns. With almost millions of followers tracking the creator’s life and content creation journey, it becomes evident that transphobia will possibly follow this announcement. As assumed, Tyson’s Twitter mentions, YouTube comment sections and Instagram immediately flooded with bigotry and hate toward the once-praised creator. Random justifications for transphobia spread within mere minutes of the announcement. According to several commentary YouTubers, opinionated news outlets and Twitter users, Tyson’s transition will supposedly negatively affect her family life and negatively affect the Mr. Beast franchise.

One month ago, Tyson offered clarification on Twitter that her relationship with her now ex-wife Katherine Anne “Katie” Tyson ended over a year prior—an evident public assumption due to the lack of interaction between the couple in recent months. This tweet received almost no backlash at its release, and Tyson seemed to still possess an extremely close relationship with her child, Tucker Tyson. In relevance to the situation, online audiences’ central claim against Tyson’s transition point toward her declining family life.

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In light of YouTuber Chris Tyson’s recent announcement to transition, several transphobic internet bloggers and commenters use justification to enforce prejudiced beliefs, claiming that Tyson’s use of HRT specifically led to the downfall of her family life. Additionally, some imply that her transition will negatively affect her relationship with Mr. Beast—which resulted in Mr. Beast clarifying that his friendship with Tyson will never change, and calling out transphobic fans for their bigotry.

The slander Tyson received due to a simple statement puts a new perspective on the pretentiousness of conservative bigotry. Specifically, these curated assumptions about Tyson’s personal life provide an excellent illustration of sly intolerance. Several users claim that this decision directly relates to Tyson’s divorce and will result in losing her friendship with Mr. Beast and the loss of an interpersonal relationship with her own son. These stand as complete assumptions with no backing to the claims, but a wide range of these tweets phrase themself as accurate statements. These insistences only create increased hostility toward transgender communities, further obscuring themselves in parasocialism.

“There’s been a major increase of transphobia online, both in support of transgender people and against them. I never really expected many conversations about trans people, but since criticisms toward gay people—by homophobes—have become more socially unacceptable, they use transgender people as scapegoats. People need an outlet for their bigotry and opinions, and I think as that all comes to light, more people are exposed to these ideas. Especially as of recently with the Mr. Beast-Chris drama…the entire discussion of transgender people rose to trend again as both sides of the argument push,” junior Rin Root said.

Especially in the heat of recent news regarding Nashville shooter Audrey Hale and the shooter’s gender identity, the debate on the transgender issue evolved into an extensive discussion in online forums. Interestingly, an obsession over the shooter’s identity clouds the minds of numerous online users. When searching for the name Audrey Hale on Twitter’s search engine, no news articles, interviews with the shooting victims or any information about the terrifying shooting reveal itself—only debates over Hale’s transgender identity come to light.

Weirdly, conservatives feel more threatened by the murderer’s gender than the victims’ identities, Gale’s ability to access mass amounts of firearms and the ultimate issue of school shooting prevention in America. Numerous people now claim that authorities should put regulations on transgender groups to limit shootings; a significantly scarce amount of transgender shooters in America, directly indicating that several people use situations as severe as mass killings as a sacred opportunity to express their hate for transgender groups, rather than focusing on the real issue at hand.

On social media, proper moderation of hate speech against transgender users almost does not exist. From accounts such as “Libs of TikTok” which seem to target transgender users even to conservative political extremists such as Christina Pushaw, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert rampage to sites such as Twitter in hopes of posting transphobic ideals without repercussion—especially in light of Elon Musk’s takeover as CEO of the popular app.

While Musk considers himself politically moderate and socially liberal, this completely contradicted itself when regarding his tweets against the non-conventional use of pronoun expression, transgender groups and the immediate removal of moderation systems on the app which in turn created a rise of hate speech on the app, in that including transphobia. While social media used to stand as a space for those of all groups of people to find community and social relief, conservative superpowers such as Musk turn these spaces into a playground for their socially out-of-tune admirers to spread their constant rhetoric.

Consequently, those who simply use the transgender label to express their gender identity in the way they please receive labels such as “deadbeat”, “mass murder”, “groomer” and several other terms that do not supply proof of any correlation to transgender identity other than lazy “evidence” from one bad apple. Furthermore, other communities commit mass atrocities without backlash, ultimately blaming it on the marginalized transgender population. As these debates live on, the transgender population of America still stands in fear as hate grows in potency—especially for Black transgender women—who tragically compose the majority of transgender murder victims.

“It saddens me that the people encouraging abuse are often highly influential within the media and I don’t feel that social media platforms are doing enough to tackle transphobia. It is amazing to see a pyramid of transphobia, this is the first time I’ve ever seen it categorized into different levels that ultimately result in death for members of our community,” model and activist Munroe Bergdorf said.

Through false claims, fake sympathy and a heart full of hatred, online communities show the true effects of focusing on unfactual opinionated “facts.” By correlating transgender masses with negative stereotypes due to speculation, a diverse community receives the label of shame while discussions revolving around topics such as the significant rise of mass shootings led by cis-gendered White males never see the light of day.

“With all of this coming to light and trending on Twitter and YouTube, people, especially policymakers, are likely to take the slight amount of support they may find against transgender people and use it to justify their decisions. However I also believe that, by discussing the positive parts of transgenderism, people online can bring more awareness to people who don’t know much about the queer community,” Root said.