TW! | This post contains very heavy topics such as su*cide, self h*rm, threats, baiting, CSA and P*dophillia
The Trans Academy is a community on VRC in which it is labeled a safe space for Trans Individuals of the ages 13+, as a trans man we explored it as our first safe space when we first entered into VRC as it can be a bit of a questionable platform to be on especially when transphobic individuals run around the platform consistently. The TA was a safe space from that, or at least for awhile it was considered that for us. Though of course the TA instances had its moments of crashes coming into the public instances or simply trolling, there were a lot of flaws in the discord server and we as a system are going to talk about our experience. The TA was relatively fun, it was a great place to be and we in fact were in the TA for maybe a month or two. We met amazing people, and made great friends however despite the good things we experienced the negative experiences layered over it making it hard to find the TA enjoyable.
There where quiet a few cases and rather almost daily in which others would personally overshare, giving out personal things about them though always coming out in the form of venting. This led to many people expressing feelings of su*cide and selfh*rm especially in the general chat of the TA, leaving many people uncomfortable and uneasy. This made it difficult to talk in the TA as sometimes people would simply drop sensitive topics in the general chat especially when others are engaging in conversations with one another. Though naturally a good handful would also use this as a form of attention seeking and typically people would feed into their desire of attention which results in them repeating the behavior even more. There were multiple instances in where someone threatened to Off themselves if someone didn’t talk to them, where someone asks for su*cide letter ideas, where someone has openly stated they are going to off themselves which causes an entire chat to panic and had even caused systems in the server to split because of the stress. This also includes a case in which someone had made a joke about offing themselves and hurting themselves, leaving a lot of people uncomfortable and even communicating that they were uncomfortable- instead the individual making the joke double down and told others to cope and that they do not care, they would not try to reason with anyone what so ever and one of their friends had instead validated the behavior in saying the at it was a “coping mechanism”. When I had filed a ticket for a mod, the ticket was closed immediately with no real word being said in response to that ticket and the person who had made the sensitive joke is still allowed to talk in the server.
The amount of ableism we experienced in the TA was almost enough to make us leave, a lot of transfems were upset with systems as more and more started jointing into the server as many systems are bodily trans, and they were very upset about the idea of so many systems being present so much so to a rate where people had been actively putting “systems DNI” on their public profile and especially on their user name, then continuously alienating systems then continuing to villainize systems in the server and considering all systems to be shitty and horrible. This caused a lot of backlash from systems and even a good handful of singlets as they were extremely unhappy about the idea of villainizing systems, as systems were practically being shamed for existing in a server that they too should feel comfortable in. Even someone had defended the behavior of the villainization of systems, saying that they were valid for being uncomfortable and that people should stop harassing them for it. This thankfully did not happen again as the individuals who were expressing the ableism against systems simply left the server after multiple people had gotten on their case.
The thing that had really set in stone that the TA was not a comfortable space for us anymore was that of the littles in our system named Zelda or Zel for short had reached out to a mod. Zel had actually talked to a friend of ours, another trusted adult before hand cause they didn’t want to file a ticket because it had something to do with another staff member and Zel didn’t want them to see the ticket so one of our friends who we call Val had pointed out that the mod had something in their profile that wasn’t very - TA friendly nor appropriate for the server. They had “age player” on their profile which left us confused at first maybe thinning that they mixed up the term “age play” with “age regression” considering people mix the two together very often. The mod, in which we expected them to only be mixing the terms instead in that context that it was not a conversation that they could have in the TA, which made it clear that they were not mixing the two terms together and that this mod was proudly expressing their sexual desires on their profile in a server filled with minors. Admittedly we started to feel unsafe and uncomfortable in the TA after. Ageplay is a very concerning sexual ‘kink’, where someone will either regress to be younger or want to to be sexually involved with someone who’s regressed to a younger age, age play is essentially fetishizing the idea of P*dophillia - sexualizing the idea of an adult being with a minor although they are two consenting adults. This mod *did* remove it from their profile after Val pointed it out in the general chat which left quite a few people uneasy and uncomfortable with that mod as a whole. We had personally reached out to two different mods while Val had filed a ticket to address it, and when filing a ticket the response we had gotten through Val was this.
Tizzy (The creator of the server and the community as a whole) was defending the idea of ageplay. To which we responded, a bit harshly at first in a fit of emotional reaction. Val had asked if they could blur out my username and profile picture so they could share that with staff, that had the ticket open, to which I will share what I said here.
A little bit down the line Val had gotten a response to the ticket the only response we received was incredibly dismissive and very clearly came off in a way that they were not willing to address the situation properly.
As a result of that we had simply left the TA discord server as we continued to feel unbearably uncomfortable in a space that was meant to be safe for everyone including us. Though we did meet amazing people and do not get me wrong we did enjoy the small time we had there in the TA, unfortunately the bad had overrun the good things so I have instead resorted to publicly share our experience with the TA
