Funny enough, the phrase "virtue signaling" itself acts as "virtue signaling", as at this point it is used almost exclusively by members of online communities who are opposed to political correctness and are often outwardly intolerant of transpeople. I don't mean to imply anything about the GP, just to observe a particular irony around that phrase.
The irony was not lost on me, but I think it's an interesting term to describe the way in which people communicate with each other. Some memes need to piggy-back on the traits of other memes in order to propagate, and "virtue signaling" is one of those. My usage of it is predominately to encourage more thoughtful reflection on what people actually say and not make snap judgements or stereotypes about another's positions.
You know, I've heard the same thing said of phrases like SJW, but it seems to me that both "virtue signaling" and "SJW" are useful phrases that describe real phenomena.
