On Wednesday, Nov. 19 the University of Maine was visited by Laurel Libby, a Rep. of the Maine House. Libby came to speak to students about her political agenda, focusing on the first amendment. However, women’ s and transgender rights were at the crux of her talk. Her visitation was met by a large protest made of those who oppose her anti-trans sentiment. To gauge what students were not saying out loud, the Maine Campus combed through YikYak. This story seeks to offer an alternative perspective on the matter, rather than serve as a primary source of the events.
“Fellow trans people. Please keep fighting for our rights against these free speech nazis. Love you all!!” said an anonymous YikYak user. The post was met with 100 upvotes.
This user was not alone. Similar posts included “Trans rights are human rights!!”, “Fascists suck!!”, and louder for the people in the back “TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS!!!!”. The latter was met with opposing views, with one user commenting ,“If you have a d*ck you shouldn’t be able to go into the women’s bathroom dress however you want but don’t swing your d*ck around little girls.” The comment had 3 upvotes, however not all agreed. Another user replied “So I have actually never seen anyone’s genitals in any bathroom! That’s why there are stalls. Obviously.”
Upon the app loading, it was immediately obvious that this was a hot topic. Whether students agreed or disagreed with Laurel Libby, they all seemed passionate about their stance. YikYak user ‘york.groundhog’ had a comment on this matter.
“If conservatives didn’t have transphobia and racism there’d literally be nothing to run on. That’s the the culture wars are being perpetuated and focused on specifically by the right wing media.” The comment was met with 50 upvotes. This matched a similar post in which a user replied to a transphobic comment saying “Literally a non issue, you just want a reason to be hateful.”
The question is, where are the pro-Libby posts? The answer to this may lie in this next one; “Hold up!! Before you downvote the transphobes out of existence, give me a chance to block them all.” YikYak sorts posts by the level of interaction, meaning the lack of opposing views in original posts and outside of comments could be due to lack of support.
However, when filtering by recently posted, a post was found. “Can anyone give me a valid reason on why it would ever be acceptable to allow men to play in women’s sports or vice versa? You literally waste your time protesting for nothing, looking like a clown. Keeping men out of women’s sports is protecting them. Idiots.” Ironically, this was the most interactive post I stumbled upon with a total of 41 comments.
The top comment read “Because they’re not men, they’re women. There are only women in women’s sports. I promise you no one is going through a transition just so they can “have an advantage” (which they actually don’t) in soccer.” In response the original poster replied “men do dominate in every sport what are you talking about… it’s common knowledge that men are stronger, faster, taller than women. Obviously there are outliers but generally speaking i am right.” Negative 4 upvotes.
So far we’ve learned that those who oppose Laurel Libby seek to protect the rights of the transgender community, and those who support her agenda are against gender affirming practices. The majority of those posting on YikYak today seem to be in support of trans rights. And evident by the turnout of the protest compared to the turnout of those in support of Libby’s speech, the majority of students active on campus were similarly opposed to anti-trans beliefs.
