Newsgroups can best be understood if you think of a noticeboard. They are spaces within the net where people ‘post’ articles about a given subject. They are totally free for anyone to peruse. All you need is some sort of Internet connection and a news reader. The actual posts themselves are similar in format to a mail message, with a sender, a subject, and the actual body of text. Thus, when you log in to a news server (usually done by just starting up your news software), you can get a list for each ‘newsgroup’ of the subject lines for the group.

In order to achieve some measure of anonymity for people wishing to post articles to newsgroups, a device called an ‘anonymous remailer’ is popular. These are machines that you can post an article to and have it re-post your article to the newsgroup, but with all the identifying information about you removed.

Before you post articles to a newsgroup, it’s a good idea to find out a little about the ettiquete expected in such places. Nobody likes having to wade through hundreds of junk messages on a group to find useful information, for example, so watch yourself.

There are several newsgroups of interest to the tranny community. They are:

soc.support.transgendered

A reasonably polite forum for the discussion of anything of relevance to the transgendered community. Like any newsgroup, occasionally arguments get circular and just keep on going. The people who frequent this newsgroup will not tolerate 'personals' postings, sexually explicit fiction, pictures, or any of the other garbage that tends to clog up the alt groups, and will flame rather viciously anyone who breaks the peace. You have been warned.

alt.transgendered

This is a somewhat less formal version of soc.support.transgendered. Discussion typically follows the same themes as s.s.tg, indeed many people cross post to both groups. This group is missing the support bit, though, so there are many more frivolous postings.

aus.culture.lesbigay

I think the newsgroup title says it all. This is an Australian queer advocacy group.

soc.motss

MOTSS Stands for Members Of The Same Sex. Support for gays, lesbians, bi's and trannies.

soc.support.youth.gay-lesbian-bi

Support for young gays, lesbians, bi's and trannies.