After learning what the transvestigation was, I found it cropping up on Steemit way more than on Twitter, YouTube, and other websites. I wasn't even looking for transvestigation content. I just happened to search the transgender tag and this came up. After a while, I decided to look into why the transvestigation is so popular on Steemit, more so than other websites.
Steemit is already rife with conspiracy theories.
Hardly a day goes by without someone ranting about frogs turning the chemtrails gay. Jokes aside, the chemtrail theory (Airplane contrails contain chemicals that serve some specific purpose.) is a popular one on this site. While this would get weird looks elsewhere, it's a part of daily life here. Internet culture is a rather new thing and Steemit culture is even newer. With that said, conspiracy theories are a normal part of Steemit culture that doesn't look like it will go away anytime soon.
Steemit is a free speech platform.
Being a rather libertarian platform, Steemit attracts people who want to say things they can't on other sites. Since celebrities, at least in the US, have very few rights when it comes to their public image, transvestigations of public figures can remain on this site as they technically don't violate any laws. (Rules of human decency is another story.) However, since the transvestigation is limited to public figures (for now), there are not a lot of things people who are opposed to the transvestigation do about it besides ignore such activity and look at other content. However, if a private person were to be transvestigated against their will, they could sue for harassment and report the content for such if they so desire.
Steemit's attitudes towards LGBT are different from other sites.
Although this is getting much better with each day, from what I've seen, anti-LGBT content is more prolific on Steemit than it is on other sites. This content usually revolves around a hypothetical "gay/trans agenda" (or should I say: transgenda?) that seeks to uproot Western tradition and values. With that said, I have yet to run into an "I'm donutearthfluid. Sleep with me or you're a bigot." type on Steemit. In part due to this perceived hostility, the LGBT community here is vibrant, diverse, and generally focuses on real issues rather than making issues up for profit.
Steemians tend not to trust things
Steemit's culture at large is rooted in distrust: of current content creation systems, of mainstream media, and of public figures in general. This lack of trust leads to the belief that the untrusted are hiding something from the rest of the general population. In this case, that is being transgender. Conspiracy theories revolve around the idea off revealing secret truths of this nature to the public and offering a certain sensation of power. Yes, power. It is often said that knowledge is power and, in a world that seems to lie to us all the time, we're all scrambling for shreds of information that offer comfort.