Trans at the Intersections, #transchat Reimagined on the Rooms App

When the folks at Facebook reached out a few months ago to ask me to create one of the first handful of rooms on their new smartphone-based social platform, called Rooms, I immediately wondered if this might be a better way to implement the vision we started working toward with #transchat on Twitter. Today I’m excited to announce the debut of a Room called Trans at the Intersections, which you can join by using the image in this post within the Rooms app.

Facebook says, “Rooms lets you create places for the things that you’re into,” and I think it’s pretty cool that one of the first Rooms will be an explicitly anti-racist, radical space where trans people can get past the 101 and talk amongst ourselves about our lives at the intersection of trans and other identities. I hope this will be a space for talking about racism in Trans communities, discussing trans feminisms, sharing ideas about sexuality outside the binary, and other topics we think about from day to day. You don’t have to identify with the word “trans” to join, since that umbrella term itself can be problematic, but members should somehow identify as outside the compulsory white mainstream gender system whether trans, non-conforming, non-binary, or something else entirely.

The potential of this platform is something like what many of us fondly remember from 90s message boards–you can choose any pseudonym to identify yourself in the Room, and thus don’t have to come out outside this Room. Unlike Twitter, this is a curated space, meaning that any derailing, racist, and/or transmisogyny will not be tolerated, and members engaging in this bad behavior can be banned. I’ll be actively seeking curators in the coming weeks. For now, come join the discussion! You can download the app at rooms.me/download, and then just use the image in this post to join the Room.

**Note: while we will try our best to curate fairly and avoid privacy violations, I want to recognize that it isn’t possible to create a truly “safe space.” You don’t have to disclose identifying info or join Facebook to use Rooms, but anything you share could be shared publicly and linked to your pseudonym. It’s also not possible to know to certain that those who join aren’t transphobic jerks who are trolling the Room silently for content to share, so I would recommend using a unique pseudonym of this is a concern. Please let me know about any other safety/privacy concerns that I can address!**