Finding a Place to Belong: Barriers and Solutions for Supporting Trans People of Color on Reddit

Historically, transgender people of color (TPOC) have been silenced in white trans spaces for not fitting into transnormativity - the typical white, binary, skinny, and privileged image of trans people, and for raising concerns related to race, culture, and ethnicity. Social media and online communities serve as supportive spaces for transgender (shortened to trans) individuals; however, trans people of color require even more support combating systematic oppression, managing increased levels of discrimination, and navigating their cultural backgrounds. In order to understand how TPOC use social media, we explore the experiences of TPOC on Reddit. We used the Reddit API to obtain Reddit posts from four prominent transgender subreddits (r/ftm, r/mtf, r/trans, and r/Non-Binary) which included the phrase "people of color" or the abbreviation "POC", resulting in a total of 145 posts and 2867 comments. Thematic analysis was then used to identify three themes of discussion - alienation, support, and existing in physical spaces, which informed our design considerations. Experiences shared in the Reddit posts indicated that TPOC feel overshadowed by white trans individuals in online communities and desire to build connections with other TPOC both online and in person. We propose design recommendations for both Reddit as a platform and subreddit moderators that regulate online trans communities to encourage growing networks among TPOC, improve communication among users and moderators, and design spaces that center POC voices within subreddits, all of which provide a much more supportive online environment for TPOC.