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"Word of Mouth" How The Trans+ Community Found Itself

The Internet

An advertisement for GenderNet from an issue of TV-TS Tapestry (1986)

The Internet offered a brand-new horizon that changed everything. Many Trans+ people were early and enthusiastic adopters of electronic communications. In no time at all, Trans+ people were busy finding each other on the new and expanding information superhighway. Now, communication was much faster and cheaper; you could communicate with people anywhere in the world, with much greater ease and immediacy.

Although most Trans+ people remained geographically isolated from one another, the Internet allowed communities to develop online. This meant that fewer and fewer Trans+ people were left thinking they were the “only one.” Countless new organizations started while older ones became stronger. With many existing organizations migrating to the Internet, print media began to lose its centrality.

Miqqi Alicia Gilbert Discussing Using the Internet - January 6, 2020

The Internet offered brand-new ways to communicate. Here, Miqqi Alicia Gilbert describes coming across an online Trans+ chat room in 1986.


For more about internet activism, browse these pages:

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