A Note on Hate Comments & Online Rhetoric

***Content Warning***

This piece will discuss the themes of transphobic hate comments. Reader discretion advised.

I want to start by acknowledging that I’m a clinician, not a social media influencer or marketing expert—I never envisioned myself as one of those Instagram clinicians. That context is crucial to understanding what happened and why it got so bad.

A few months ago, I launched my first Facebook ads. My goal was to reach more people and promote the badass programs I’ve developed for clinicians and practices that genuinely want to be trans-inclusive havens for clients. I created a short video about trans-affirming care and spent around $100 to boost the post for a week. I figured, why not increase exposure? Maybe I’d get a few leads or at least a new newsletter subscriber. It had worked for my colleague, so why wouldn’t it work for me? 

Dear reader, I was so naive.

(And I bet some of you are reading this and cringing because advertising trans stuff on Facebook is like a horror movie protagonist running up the stairs instead of out the front door to escape the slasher.)

The post quickly gained a lot of engagement. I had 20+ notifications the first time I checked my Facebook app, and I was initially excited to see the response.

Then I started reading.

The sheer volume of hate comments was staggering. I was accused of being evil, deranged, and grooming children. They called me a quack and ridiculed me in various ways. Some comments encouraged me to commit suicide, others suggested all trans people should do the same, and several memes advocated a "solution" involving guns. It was vile, cruel, and the worst of humanity on display in my little corner of social media.

Here’s where my lack of marketing knowledge showed.

I didn’t know how to handle the comments.

Not emotionally - LITERALLY.

What should I do with them? Social media algorithms can be tricky—if I deleted the comments or disabled them, would I disrupt something essential to the ad’s performance?

So, I did nothing for a few days. That made things worse—once the engagement started, the algorithm amplified the post, showing it to more people who reacted similarly. The trolls multiplied without me lifting a finger.

Eventually, I sought advice from a business mentor who urged me to delete the comments and block the offenders because I was trying to sell a product—not start a culture war.

In the end, I deleted over 150 comments and blocked about as many people from the My Gender IQ facebook page. I posted a warning that hate comments would be deleted, which naturally led to a new wave of complaints about my "disrespect for the First Amendment." But eventually, it died down, and since the ad isn’t running anymore, it’s hopefully behind me.

Why am I sharing this?

It’s not to make you feel sorry for me, or suggest that my experience is unique. I know there are many trans creators with larger followings and more marginalized identities than mine (I’m white, male, and cis-passing) who face thousands, even millions, of hate comments and death threats. I’m nowhere near that level.

I’m sharing this because it reaffirmed part of my mission for My Gender IQ—to passionately and unapologetically hold space for people in the learning process and to define progress as broadly as possible.

There are many potential allies who feel more threatened by us than by transphobes. I know that sounds strange, but it’s true. When a well-intentioned cis/het person enters the conversation and says one wrong thing, they sometimes get clobbered and publicly shamed. It’s natural to withdraw to avoid that pain again.

I’m not saying that's the correct response, but it is a very human one. If we can’t acknowledge the humanity of that response, we’ll never win this fight. And if we’re really being honest, we’d recognize that self-righteous indignation or moral outrage is quite a drug. It's a drug that works for folks on both sides of the political spectrum, and social media offers plenty of opportunities to get a fix. In our fervor, we sometimes marginalize potential allies who needed understanding, not a public shaming.

So back to the transphobia—

If we can’t be patient with people who want to learn, what hope is there for those who flooded my page with hate?  

Who will try to reach them? Maybe you think they’re too far gone, and perhaps they are. But what about the queer people in their lives? Family members, employees, community members, constituents—who continue to suffer while we write them off as unreachable.

• Are there circumstances where that decision is warranted? Yes.

• Are there people who shouldn’t be asked to do the emotional labor of holding space & educating? Of course.

But cutting people from our roster for one mistake, labeling them as problematic, and moving on has become too common, too early in the game.

And we just can’t afford to lose that many teammates.