I’m gonna get real with you folks, we’ve had way too many of these posts recently. I’ve been reflecting on this topic a lot the past few days. For me personally, I couldn’t care less about my gender identity. But just because that’s true for me, doesn’t make that true for everyone.
The beauty of the fediverse is that if you don’t like the way a particular instance or community is moderated you can simply choose another to hang out on, or create your own.
Blajah has made it pretty clear by now they will ban anyone who argues against the validity of xenogenders, in order to create a safe space for those folks. That’s fair enough imo.
Safe spaces should be respected, and Blajah’s admins/mods do not deserve abuse for creating and maintaining those spaces.
I can completely understand why Blajah users don’t want to have to constantly argue with external users about the validity of their chosen identities. Bans are one way Blajah has decided to manage that problem so that their users can experience lemmy in relative peace and safety. While it is a blunt tool and I have my reservations about preemptive bans, there are not many other options for @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone, other than defederation from most instances. That would be a terrible outcome for the fediverse as a whole.
In order to help Blajah to maintain their safe space, I would like to propose, if @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com agrees and community sentiment is positive:
- that we no longer accept posts about this topic in this community; and
- we also remove previous posts on this topic from the community.
That’s all folks, have at 'er.
Edit: thanks for all your feedback and comments. I think it’s clear that the vast majority of people are fed up with this topic coming up repeatedly.
Summarizing the feedback, I’d say most folks would prefer to retain previous posts for the sake of posterity, and to serve as an example of why we don’t want anymore of these posts. I’m happy to take that on board. For those folks saying I’m a PTB for intervening in this way, I’ll just remind you that I haven’t made any arbitrary mod decisions, and I’ve consulted with db0 and the community as a whole before taking any mod actions.
I think the way to move forward with this is to acknowledge that there’s a bunch of queer and straight people who have a problem with xenogenders. Personally, I think that’s a valid perspective and shouldn’t sanctioned on our instance. But for Blajah, they’ve drawn a line in the sand over this and that’s ok too. Our instance won’t be blocking anyone over their opinions on the topic, especially in this community where free discussion is necessary and encouraged. But safe spaces should be respected.
A lot of folks mentioned I should more more specific about the “no more posts about Blajah’s mod policies” rather than making it a sweeping and overly broad statement. I think that’s good feedback. I will amend this to "No more posts in this community about the validity or otherwise of neopronouns, xenogenders, and bans originating from Blajah about gatekeeping or transphobia. This is in recognition of Blajah’s safe space policy. You are of course free to discuss those topics outside of this community.
Note that this decision isn’t about ideological gatekeeping, its about reducing the workload for our own mods and admins in trying to moderate this community, and to avoid iterating over the same old topics again and again.
Blajah isn’t getting a “free pass” over YPTB posts - if you feel they are power tripping over other issues then feel free to make a post here. But if it’s a post questioning the validity of xenogenders or about Blajah bans for gatekeeping then that will no longer be allowed here. Those folks deserve a safe space on Lemmy, even if it’s not a mainstream opinion.
For those folks who feel aggrieved about being accused of “transphobia” or “gatekeeping” over their views on this topic, I completely understand just how hurtful it can be to be unfairly (imo) accused in this way. I’ve been in the same position, and I also found it difficult to deal with. I want those folks to know that our instance does not require you to support xenogenders in order to participate in our instance. However we do require that you use preferred pronouns whenever they are specified. That’s been a longstanding instance policy on dbzer0.
Thank everyone for your feedback.
Nobody has ever demanded I say those things the way Blahaj does.
Malarkey.
Nobody is chasing people around trying to make them say things.
The only time they’re demanding you use their pronouns is when you’re talking to them. And if you aren’t, then maybe the problem isn’t their pronouns, since there’s a lovely block function if you don’t want to just walk away.
You know that’s an option, right? To just walk away. It’s even easy to do. Easier than trying to argue about how language works when you don’t really understand it yourself. Easier than making a false claim.
Also, you are aware that blahaj is an instance, right? It doesn’t have some monolithic spiritual entity that makes demands. It’s not an individual person. So, trying to claim “blahaj” demanded anything is just silly.
Or about them, even outside of Blahaj.
Call the Dragon a “they”, and you’ll know about it. Doesn’t matter where.
No, actually I use the pronouns they/them about dragon rider/fucker, and have never been banned.
I’ve explained why I use those instead of the individual pronoun requested, and have even discussed my ongoing internal debates about neopronouns on blahaj and have not been banned. I have never been attacked on blahaj or elsewhere for disagreeing with someone respectfully. I have had a few heated comments directed my way, and discussed those points, while still maintaining the stance I had at the time, without being banned or attacked.
Now, while that’s not the same as being preemptively banned, or banned for things outside of blahaj, it indicates to me that it isn’t so much holding a different opinion as it is how one expresses that opinion.
Seriously, in one of the many discussions on the subject I had on blahaj, where I expressed my previous opinion that neopronouns were a negative thing overall, and possibly detrimental to the cause of trans rights, the worst I got was “you don’t get to decide who deserves the respect of their pronoun”.
The key difference, and I think it vital that you understand it, is that my opinion was expressed with respect. I didn’t call anyone silly. I didn’t call anyone delusional, or crazy, or even a troll (though I did ask Dragon rider if they are a troll, and express that I suspected they may be, in a different conversation).
See, it doesn’t matter if you think it’s silly. It doesn’t matter if I don’t think it’s silly (and some of the choices of xenopronouns are silly in that they’re frothy and light and invoke playful imagery). All that matters is that we don’t get to decide who is and isn’t worthy of respect. We don’t get to decide who is and isn’t worthy of having their pronouns respected.
You ever run across discussions of jury trials? How they’re flawed because you’re relying on 12 people to catch the guilty?
There’s a principle that it’s better for 10 guilty to go free than one innocent be convicted.
Think about that principle for a second, and apply it to trolls.
It is better for a dozen trolls to have their pronouns respected than one genuine person to have theirs ignored.
And it really is better. It doesn’t matter if it’s silly or not. It’s about basic human decency.
Now, the admins are currently going over the line more often than I think is acceptable. They’re preemptively banning people that are only phrasing things badly, or are expressing the same thing I did, but badly, and are otherwise allies. I think they gotta be very careful doing that.
But I’m not the one having to protect a bunch of people that depend on me for their one place to be able to express their full self, even if the rest of the world thinks it’s silly.
I know exactly how far I’m willing to go to protect my people irl. I’d gladly empty a magazine into some hate filled bastard to keep one trans kid from having some asshole spitting in their face. So, maybe, a few bans here and there is not a major problem in my mind. I’ll acknowledge I’m a radical in this regard. My perception of the admin actions to protect their people may be skewed. But if that’s the case, I’d still argue that if you’re calling people silly for wanting the freedom to just be and be respected online in what is damn near the only space they have, maybe you’re perceptions are skewed. Maybe your ideas are silly, not theirs.