I personally don’t think it matters much at all, except in channels that specifically identify that way. However, I am male, hetero, cis, so its possible I’m just clueless.
Doesn’t matter at all. A person is a person.
and some of us are barely people
Everyone is a complete person. Don’t belittle yourself like that.
I’m a barley person. I love beer.
I’m the old Norm. I want normal beer.
I swear there’s at least one wasp who posts pro-wasp propaganda
Wait
White Anglo-Saxon Protestants are people!?
I do think we all try to keep that spirit around here.
No spirits! Only people.
I know you’re probably a kind person, but imo, this kind of reductionistism is incompatible with being pro-trans-rights.
In what way am I reducing them?
Not the person you’re replying to but it kinda feels like the “oh I don’t see color” comment when somebody brings up racism. To me, it feels… dismissive? I dunno. I don’t think what you said is a problem or anything, it just… feels like it has bad connotations to me. Take this with a grain of salt, what I understand and interpret can be very different from what you say, which can also differ from what you mean.
Is it? Then what is the gender of the person you’re replying? Surely if it was important you would need to know it before replying. The fact that you can reply someone without knowing their gender is proof that it doesn’t matter here.
If gender didn’t mattered IRL, trans people would be seen in the same light of someone who likes wearing black, or is unhappy with the way their nose looks to the point of doing a surgery about it. Trans people suffer because society puts a lot of importance in gender, therefore wanting to dress clothes from a different gender, or having a body that looks a different gender are “radical” ideas that offend simple-minded people.
A person’s a person no matter how small
I’m not quite grasping the context you’re asking the question, but I will say gender matters on Lemmy in the sense that I want full representation from all genders (and non-gender folk). The value of conversation here is derived from the many viewpoints that each of us bring. Without full representation, we’ll be missing valuable inside and perspective if a specific gender (or non-gender) is missing.
I’m primarily interested in the opinions of people who are not at least one of male/hetero/cis; it’s too easy for the privikeged group to delude themselves about how good they are behaving.
Transfem here, generally unless the topic being discussed is gender specific users genders aren’t relevant. Though, Lemmy has a pretty bad track record with gender relations imo, the whole women choosing the bear thing was such a shit show. The men’s lib community is good though, I’ve interacted with a couple posts there that popped up on my feed while scrolling and it actually consists of users who are empathetic and understanding and not anti-women like the reddit one turned into. It’s interesting, Lemmy has many many more male users than female, and it goes a bit further, with the ratio of transmascs to transfems being reversed. I just think it’s interesting that it’s an amab/afab split rather than a gender split. As someone in the thread trans-hatingly put it, “even the women are men here.”
Identity in general doesn’t matter much on forums (as opposed to microblogs, like Twitter or Mastodon). Forums are focused on topics rather than people, and what is said is generally more important than who says it.
Tell that to all the super users.
What is a superuser in Lemmy? What can it do that’s so special? I don’t think I’ve ever encountered one.
Same as it was on reddit, but slightly more self-righteous about it.
I’m a lady and haven’t had any trouble here. The only place I really notice how ridiculously male - skewed Lemmy is, is on the NSFW. That is definitely all “male gaze” stuff, with the occasional actual lesbian also posting stuff guys like. Even the posts OF men are FOR men, everything posted with some assumption only men are looking at the posts.
The other communities just aren’t so gendered, I don’t notice much whether someone seems to be one or the other, it isn’t relevant to cocktails or cooking or gardening or science fiction.
Men 🙄 /g
The only place I really notice how ridiculously male - skewed Lemmy is, is on the NSFW. That is definitely all “male gaze” stuff, with the occasional actual lesbian also posting stuff guys like. Even the posts OF men are FOR men, everything posted with some assumption only men are looking at the posts.
That sounds like a you problem. Everyone like to look at sexy ladies.
You misunderstand. Lots of women like to “look at sexy ladies,” but the things that turn men and women on in pornography are different (this should not be a surprise if you’ve sexually engaged with a member of the opposition sex). They’re noting that they didn’t find anything aimed at women, which is reflective of the gender demographics here.
the things that turn men and women on in pornography are different
Good point.
(this should not be a surprise if you’ve sexually engaged with a member of the opposition sex).
Don’t be a dick, Lemmy user. You made a good point. Don’t ruin it.
Not everyone is straight, I wasn’t digging at you for inexperience.
Lemmy is definitely a more male space than I think even reddit was, and that does affect the tone of certain conversations. It really is a whiplash coming here from Mastodon sometimes and seeing a very different vibe.
Even the women are men here /s
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The /s at the end is used to indicate sarcasm. With that information, I would rate it joke/10
Depends on context, as always. A user sharing a story on social interaction, gender may be quite important to how they experienced it and how others perceive it. I.e., a post the other day asking about worst dates and the average worst date for men was a woman on coke or a no show. The average worst date for women was about getting sexually assaulted or raped.
Men are victims of those things too and can face different repercussions when they try to pursue help. Understanding their experiences within the context of them being men is also important.
Stripping gender from these stories only obfuscates some of the problems.
Why not make a new account with a femme sounding username and see? Don’t pretend you need help with a bra or anything, just interact with lemmy while “labeled” a woman.
I have a more masculine username and a more feminine username (both seem like spins on given names, think UrArthUr and Bekky), and there is a difference in how I’m perceived, or at least how people respond to me. It’s not huge, and I’m afab irl, so I’m also not surprised- I don’t think I’ve ever been somewhere where people can freely interact and it had no effect (or at least not since I grew tits).
Do people look at the usernames before replying to a message or post?
I may do it if the username is spelled with emojis (color is really noticable when everything around it is plain text) or has a stupid take.
I’m really happy my Lemmy app (Thunder) has an option to not show display names. I only see normal usernames and none of that KOLONAK bullshit.
I couldn’t understand your last sentence, could you please explain it? /lh
There’s always a difference in how men and women are treated. It’s not always a horrible evil sexist thing, but people pick up on cues from tone and username and react to that.
Being online is nice, because the default assumption is that you’re a man, so unless you have a super femme username or are talking about something femme-coded like gardening or knitting, people tend not to treat you like a woman. “Treating you like a woman” basically means being dismissive of your experience or knowledge or tone policing (if I make a rude joke under a femme username, people downvote the hell out of it unless it’s about a very safe target- that’s how minor the difference is, to be clear). I’m also probably an egg, so my perception of not being treated like a woman as nice might be skewed.
Some time ago, I had the contrary thought of everyone being a man, so I used to think that just the way you described, everyone was a woman. I don’t know what happened to that thought, though. By the way, ::: spoiler I’m a GIRL! Guy In Real Life :::
By the way, if that’s not too much to ask, what do you mean with “skewed”? I’m a slow person 😓
Off, or not really the norm :)
Like, I said it’s nice that people think I’m a dude, but I don’t know if fully cis women think that’s nice 😅
That Lemmy hasn’t devolved into an incel freak show is a barely functional alliance between the left lean and heavy moderation against the fact that Lemmy skews into Extra Opinionated Redditors (aka nerdy, lonely men)
When some poor lady tried to get a TwoX going here the comment sections were always a sausage fest of attempting to mansplain away women’s personal experiences and concerns and that’s really all you need to know about things.
Definitely does not matter. The only thing that matters is, if you behave like an asshole or not.
This 👆
How would people even know other peoples gender?
There are people who share their pronouns/gender, but they are pretty rare
Ooooh, I’m rare! Colour me capercaillie.
capercaillie
I learned a new word!
Define “rare” /s
Far less than on Reddit, but it still affects someone’s experiences. e.g. just bc someone does not experience something daily does not mean that it never happens, but often a person in a minority status group has no choice to ignore such, while the privileged status person can.
I’m male, hetero, and cis, too. I know there will be some things I’ll never fully understand because of that.
I try to keep things gender neutral (they, y’all). I know I’ll be wrong sometimes. When I’m corrected, I apologize and make sure I don’t repeat the mistake. There will be rare occasions where that’s not good enough for someone, but I look at that as more their issue than mine. I’m being sincere, and doing the best I can.
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I call everyone dude, or man, especially when I’m excited. Idc what your gender is, you’re still my dude.
Good on ya, dude. Seems inclusive to me.
I’ll disagree with most of this thread and say it somewhat does, because your views and biases are heavily influenced by your gender. So if genders are all the same, you’re just going to have a circlejerk. Is there something we should do about it? No, but I feel recognizing that it plays a big factor in a community is important.
You can’t really generalize. It matters as much as the person you’re talking to or about thinks it matters.
If they don’t care; fine. But most people want to be properly gendered.
In most discussions here it’s not really relevant or important but it’s simple enough to use gender neutral pronouns when someone’s gender is unknown