Large numbers of anti-trans activists have since yesterday been migrating to Trump-aligned social media platform Gettr. The platform was formed by former members of Donald Trump’s staff in the months after he was suspended from Twitter for spreading disinformation about his failed 2021 electoral campaign and the failed January 6th putsch at the United States Capitol. Marketing itself as a “Free Speech” platform, Gettr quickly after its launch became notorious for its use as a propaganda platform by terrorist groups such as the Islamic State, and by a large white supremacist userbase.
A post yesterday on the 3rd January 2022, by user Ryan Michael announced: “I believe the Brits have arrived” and was widely shared by a large number of users including those aligned with the gender critical movement, Covid conspiracy theorists and the fascist group New British Union. Among these included anti-trans campaigner and former comedy writer Graham Linehan, hate t-shirt entrepreneur Kellie-Jay Keen, controversial Scottish nationalist Stu Campbell, and the founder of Manchester anti-trans activist group Make More Noise who opted to make use of the opportunity to mix pandemic denial with vigorously transphobic posts “testing” the degree of free speech available.
This is by no means the first time there has been a large movement of transphobes to a far right linked platform and demonstrates that existing patterns of the organised online anti-trans movement’s crossover with and reliance on the resources of the hard right aren’t going away any time soon.