Thank you for your interest in Trans Safe Spaces!
A Trans Safe Space on Facebook is a space that takes a hard stand against transphobic and transmisogynistic speech. It would moderate and challenge transphobia, give warnings for transphobic offenses, and prevent repeat offenders from participating in further discussion. On Facebook, how often (or if) to give warnings before banning is up to each individual page.
Misgendering is a form of transphobic speech; there are many reasons why someone may feel the need to misgender a trans* person. A Trans Safe Space would be a space that agrees that none of these reasons are valid enough to be said in public spaces where it may do harm to trans people who can read or hear it. That human beings should be expected to treat one another with common decency, and that includes treating someone as if their gender expression is authentic regardless of their body’s particular configuration. It is not the responsibility of a Trans Safe Space to make sure all of their guests accept trans people as authentic: It is, however, the responsibility of a Trans Safe Space to make sure the participants of any discussions within their spaces know to “keep their thoughts to themselves” if they would be deemed transphobic. If they view trans people as anything less than ordinary, authentic human beings, that they know they are welcome to participate in your space as long as their views on trans people are not communicated within that space.
Some transphobic speech is due to transmisogyny and rape culture intersecting to threaten the sexuality of a sexist male. Other transphobic speech is harder to identify, as it appeals to some higher moral authority as justification for their transphobia. We call this speech “trans-critical political debate.” This applies, oddly, as much to religious right-wing anti-gay political debate as it does to some subsections of second wave radical feminism. All of these sorts of debates should not be tolerated in Trans Safe Spaces. They are wildly presumptuous and prejudiced ideologies that take an authoritarian stance on the personal lives of others.
If a page decides to challenge transphobia instead of removing it, we encourage the page admin to also delete the original comment (Perhaps after a moderate amount of time.) A primary goal of a Trans Safe Space is to minimize exposure to triggering and/or derogatory speech directed at transgender people, so while we want to allow some room in our Trans Safe Spaces Network for page admins to challenge people who may simply need education, it is highly recommended that a Trans Safe Space goes back and deletes offensive comments even when challenging them, after enough time has gone by to carry on the conversation.
To avoid confusion when Trans Safe Spaces speaks of lesbian community pages, the following must be said to counter propaganda coming from anti-trans schools of thought: A page dedicated to the lesbian community that is a Trans Safe Space is expected to require every participant to show respect to one another. This means that participants will not misgender one another on purpose, or act in any way to make other participants, such as trans lesbians, feel unwelcome. If a cisgender lesbian does not want to interact with a trans lesbian on one of these pages, they can choose to ignore them instead of bullying the trans lesbian away from the entire page. This is all that is required, a show of respect. No compulsory view of attraction or sex is expected from anyone, ever.
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