ABOUT OUR COMMUNITY

DropTheT is a community of gay, lesbian, and bisexual men and women (and our allies) who believe that the LGB community should separate from the Transgender and Queer+ communities.

We believe sexuality and gender identity are distinct and unrelated concepts, and that the interests and goals of our communities are misrepresented by grouping our experiences and politics as one. LGB and TQ+ both deserve a supportive community, but neither one should be at the expense of the other. We feel our rights and protections are under attack due to the Transgender and Queer+ movements silencing and condemning our beliefs.

We believe that men are adult human males and women are adult human females. Our orientations are based towards an individual's sex, not gender identity. The same organizations and communities that we created in order to solidify ourselves now label us as "phobic", "preferential", or "genital fetishists". The TQ+ dogma and rhetoric are coercing gay men, lesbians, and bisexuals to suppress same-sex attraction in favor of fluidity and non-distinction of the opposite sex. Our gender non-conforming LGB youth are being taught that they're born in the wrong body, and persuaded to take life-altering medications to correct their "sex assigned at birth".

This is nothing more than homophobia and conversion therapy disguised as progress.

It's time to reclaim our organizations and movement by and for our own people. We want to "Drop The T" and all the letters after it, and ensure that the needs of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals are centered once-again.

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"Drop The T" Beginnings

to be updated - anyone who wants to help write this up, send ModMail

John Aravosis, Salon 2007: https://www.salon.com/2007/10/08/lgbt
Clayton, 2015 Change.org: https://www.change.org/p/human-rights-campaign-glaad-lambda-legal-the-advocate-out-magazine-huffpost-gay-voices-drop-the-t
Counter-petition: https://www.change.org/p/human-rights-campaign-we-stand-with-trans-people-reject-drop-the-t
Interview: https://thefederalist.com/2015/11/09/exclusive-gay-man-explains-his-petition-to-drop-the-t-in-lgbt
Other media Reddit sub, Nov 6, 2015: r/DropTheT

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"Drop The T" on Reddit

We thought you would enjoy a bit of history, as well as a peek behind the curtain of how Anti-Evil Operations actioned our sub prior to our demise.

A Sub Is Born

r/LGBDropTheT was created on February 21st 2019, after a hostile takeover of our prior sub r/DropTheT. A powermod account - who requests subs for the sole purpose of erasing them and/or remaking them into a space other than what was originally intended - asked for and received it, despite numerous requests from active users of the sub previously.

We grew bit-by-bit over the first several months, getting small surges when someone would post a thread on Twitter, but nothing significant until our Great Brigade^TM of the 4th of July weekend in 2019. They missed us on Memorial Day, but for whatever reason, the kiddies out of school noticed us the fateful Friday of July 5th. Their shit-posting and harassment was swift and merciless - it lasted 3 days, and spanned multiple large subs (r/traa, r/LGBT, r/Trans, and r/ainbow were the worst offenders, but several others joined in). You can see how our traffic and subscribers increased here. Mods locked the sub to Approved Submitters for just over a month while we discussed the best ways to handle these kinds of things going forward.

The thing is ... while small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, the Great Brigade^TM really put us on the map. We grew by hundreds of users in just a few days, stalker subs like r/GenderCynical began noticing us, and other subs were created strictly to harass us. Every major US holiday after that, when the kiddies would get an extended weekend, we would get brigaded again without fail.

These brigades - while painful for the mod team - just kept increasing our numbers. More and more LGB people who had never realized we existed found their way to us, and we got increasing amounts of traffic every single month ... with the exception of August 2019, but Pride fatigue plus real-life preparations to resume schooling can certainly account for that.

A Hint, A Warning

On March 25th 2020, we received our very first Anti-Evil Operations (AEO) removal. We shared about it here. To recap:

• This is the post that AEO removed.
  
• The post was nearly 2 weeks old at the time it was removed.
  
• Admins did not reach out to us mods about it. Instead, I reached out to them by sending ModMail to r/ModSupport.
• Admins said the reason for removal was because it linked trans people to pedophilia, and we should be careful about bullying/harassing behavior.
• It was Admin crickets when I asked about bullying/harassing behavior towards us.
  
• Since privacy is no longer a concern, here's my message with the Admins.
  

Remember, for over a year we existed, and only one single action was ever taken by Admins, despite our sub being the recipient of numerous brigades and massive amounts of report abuse. And an Admin even said our discussions are fine.

Shortly after this warning, mods locked the sub to Approved Submitters again. Not because of this ... but because COVID-19 hit the western world (where all of the mods live), and on March 31st - "Trans Day Of Visibility" - we were overwhelmed with brigading again. We kept the sub locked, much to the annoyance of many new and untrusted users, until June 13th, when our mod team was back and functioning again.

The Purge

3 months after our first AEO removal, and 2 weeks after re-opening ... on June 29th 2020, Admins announced an update to their Content Policy. Within one hour, our sub was mentioned in the thread. And then again, and again, and again. Throughout the day, r/GenderCritical, r/RightwingLGBT, and 2K other subs were deplatformed.

And then the report abuse began rolling in. Posts that were months old getting spammed with the new report reason "It's promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability". It didn't matter what was being shared, even post and comment announcements from mods were getting spammed with it.

For two days our sub was brigaded heavily, and then traffic began tapering off as users across Reddit adjusted to the new norms. The abuse did not end though, it just lightened a bit, and we stopped keeping track of how many posts and comments were being reported and how often.

MOD PRO TIP: One way of combating fatigue during a brigade is to NOT handle the ModQueue the moment something is reported, as chances are, it's going to be reported again and again and again. So we just let them repeatedly report things, and would approve or remove every few hours while continuing to check the sub's new posts and comments for rule-breaking behavior.

To get an idea of what mods were dealing with, after 4 days, we tallied up a count of how many posts/comments we approved. Remember, this is not total reports on posts/comments, this is just how many times we clicked "approve" after an hour or two had gone by.

• Posts: under normal circumstances, we approved 5-10 posts per day. During the brigade, we approved an average of 241 posts per day.
  
• Comments: under normal circumstances, we approved 30-40 comments per day. During the brigade, we approved an average of 258 comments per day.
  

On June 29th 2020, roughly half an hour after the Announcements thread went live, AEO removed another post in our sub - the second post ever. Again without notice or discussing anything with us mods.

Admins originally said that the new rule "does not protect groups of people who are in the majority or who promote such attacks of hate.". We were concerned that LGB would be seen as "the majority" among LGBTQ+, but figured it was mainly focused towards other movements, given the political climate. Until Admins revised it to state that it does not protect those "who try to hide their hate in bad faith claims of discrimination."

We realized "Drop The T" would be viewed as such, and our days on Reddit were numbered. So we began announcing SaidIt as our backup in every single post to get the word out to as many of you as possible.

The Day Of Reckoning

On July 10th 2020, shortly after 11:30am Pacific Time, our sub was banned.

We had 23.3K subscribers: https://imgur.com/a/bGMeVTY

After the initial purge of wrong-think subs in June, Anti-Evil Operations became more active in ours. Content continued to be removed over the course of the next week and a half, 20 submissions in total. 10 were made prior to the content policy update - in some cases, months earlier - and the other 10 were made within 1 day of the update.

And now for the grand reveal!

Admin Removals

Here is a screenshot of our ModLog of Admin removals. It was taken the morning we were banned, roughly 1 hour earlier.

Removal Date	Content Date	Post Title	Content Type	Author Removed	Removed Content
June 29, 2020	June 29, 2020	That New Pride Flag Explained.	Post	Movellon	https://archive.vn/NvFZA
June 29, 2020	June 29, 2020	Lessons on how to do Lesbianing 101	Post	ChunkeeGuy	https://archive.vn/fPMy2
June 29, 2020	June 24, 2020	"Trans-women are WOMEN not just trans-women". Justice for lesbian-only discord server	Comment	andersdn	Grow the fuck up. Every trans woman knows she is a man and cannot accept us women not partaking in their fantasy. Do whatever the fuck you want but you cannot force me to believe. You're not fucking Tinkerbell.
June 30, 2020	June 29, 2020	Did r/Gender critical just get banned as a hate group (not the similarly named group with the underscore in its name)?	Comment	genderrcritthroway	WOMEN BEING SILENCED BY MEN!!!!!! WHAT A STRANGE THING!!! I LOVED THAT COMMUNITY, THIS IS A BAN ON FREE SPEECH!!
June 30, 2020	June 29, 2020	It seems like we survived today's bam wave.	Comment	ciaokhan	Thank you, GC for standing for women when too few others would. It will take more than a bunch of trans to ever get me to accept dick. Armour up, ladies.
June 30, 2020	June 26, 2020	Got a Bad Take comin for you all	Post	brisaywhatt	https://archive.vn/wXzB7
June 30, 2020	Dec 2019	Why do you want to "Drop The T"?	Comment	mfpotatoeater99	https://imgur.com/a/gapyzGq
June 30, 2020	Feb 2019	☕️	Comment	griffxx	https://imgur.com/a/TkjR5dC
June 30, 2020	Feb 2019	☕️	Post	whitelilyflower (deleted)	https://archive.vn/JBZx4
June 30, 2020	June 24, 2020	Wow fucking yikes, more cringe from the “enby” crowd	Post	gcthwy	https://archive.vn/N0OPg
July 1, 2020	June 29, 2020	It seems like we survived today's bam wave.	Comment	ciaokhan	Lesbians don't get a voice anymore. Welcome to 2020. Fuck them, and their girldicks
July 1, 2020	June 29, 2020	r/RightwingLGBT has been banned	Comment	AdultMaleHomosexual	If you're LGB and aren't anti-Islam, there's something wrong with you
July 2, 2020	June 29, 2020	My final thoughts regarding Drop the T	Comment	ttvelvet	They’re the only “human rights movement” that will force you to have have sex with them and threaten with rape
July 3, 2020	Jan 2020	One thing we can all agree on	Comment	lefty929	They’re mentally ill men. Just the same as trans men are mentally ill women. These people need help, not for us to just agree with their insane twisted “reality”
July 6, 2020	June 14, 2020	Spot the difference	Comment	scout_14	All the bearded "ladies" are rioting your way, my friend.
July 7, 2020	June 30, 2020	What happened to Truelesbians	Comment	bastetkat	An adult human female is not a biological male who feels "partially a woman". I only accept facts, sorry not sorry.
July 7, 2020	June 30, 2020	Today marks the day that homophobia and misogyny have won	Comment	casuallycruelhonesty	Weird how there’s a whole sub full of lesbians that don’t want to date you. Enjoy the lady dicks without us. We’re good without you.
July 7, 2020	June 30, 2020	What happened to Truelesbians	Comment	bastetkat	Heterosexual trans people (aka "transbians" and "gay" trans men) are excluded. LGBs are still welcome. Damn, I didn't know facts were transphobic.
July 7, 2020	Jan 2020	How to detect a FtM?	Comment	Butchie68	You haven’t transitioned to anything. You can’t change your sex.
July 9, 2020	June 14, 2020	Spot the difference	Comment	MrMoustachio	I mean, therapy also cures many people, but admitting it is a mental illness has never been something they can stomach.