Iām gonna get real with you folks, weāve had way too many of these posts recently. Iāve been reflecting on this topic a lot the past few days. For me personally, I couldnāt care less about my gender identity. But just because thatās true for me, doesnāt make that true for everyone.
The beauty of the fediverse is that if you donāt 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. Thatās fair enough imo.
Safe spaces should be respected, and Blajahās admins/mods do not deserve abuse for creating and maintaining those spaces.
I can completely understand why Blajah users donāt 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.
Thatās all folks, have at 'er.
Edit: thanks for all your feedback and comments. I think itās clear that the vast majority of people are fed up with this topic coming up repeatedly.
Summarizing the feedback, Iād say most folks would prefer to retain previous posts for the sake of posterity, and to serve as an example of why we donāt want anymore of these posts. Iām happy to take that on board. For those folks saying Iām a PTB for intervening in this way, Iāll just remind you that I havenāt made any arbitrary mod decisions, and Iāve 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 thereās a bunch of queer and straight people who have a problem with xenogenders. Personally, I think thatās a valid perspective and shouldnāt sanctioned on our instance. But for Blajah, theyāve drawn a line in the sand over this and thatās ok too. Our instance wonāt 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 āno more posts about Blajahās mod policiesā rather than making it a sweeping and overly broad statement. I think thatās 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 Blajahās safe space policy. You are of course free to discuss those topics outside of this community.
Note that this decision isnāt 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 isnāt getting a āfree passā over YPTB posts - if you feel they are power tripping over other issues then feel free to make a post here. But if itās 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 itās not a mainstream opinion.
For those folks who feel aggrieved about being accused of ātransphobiaā or āgatekeepingā over their views on this topic, I completely understand just how hurtful it can be to be unfairly (imo) accused in this way. Iāve 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. Thatās been a longstanding instance policy on dbzer0.
Thank everyone for your feedback.
I just want to clarify. The only people getting banned for remote comments are people who knowingly and explicitly gatekeep other folks identity in response to this topic coming up. They are banned so that they donāt start appearing in blahaj communities with the very people theyāre invalidating.
To me, thereās no difference. If someoneās response to this topic coming up is to double down on gatekeeping, it doesnāt make them any less harmful just because they did it outside of a blĆ„haj community.
I appreciate your willingness to respond and engage on the subject. I understand your position, and that it makes sense to you. I personally feel that there is a degree of overreach involved when action is taken based on behavior that happens outside of an instance, but I also acknowledge that defederation is a more severe version of the same action. That causes a bit of cognitive dissonance for me, which makes me wonder if Iām viewing it all wrong.
For now, I still believe that your method is beyond what I consider to be a reasonable exercise of authority. Thatās not a slight on you; I have always gotten the impression that all of your actions are taken with the intent of doing what you believe is best for your instance. Our philosophies just differ somewhat when it comes to exercise of authority. I find you and db0 to be the most intellectually honest of the larger instance admins with regards to how you go about the business of adminning, for whatever thatās worth.
Thanks again for engaging, I hope everyone else sees that you do your best to be consistent to your instance values.
Let me challenge that. The issue isnāt where they gatekeep, itās the fact that they do it at all. People willing to explicitly and deliberately undermine gender diverse folk when these conversations come up are a problem if our users can just stumble across them. It doesnāt matter where the user is posting, if theyāre not banned, their content can and will be seen by blahaj users.
And trying to escape that shit is why so many of us have left twitter, reddit, tumblr and other centralised social media sites that just donāt give a shit about transphobia. The users here come here precisely because that shit is stomped out when itās found.
Giving people a free pass because they post outside of blahaj communities just makes the overall experience similar to a mini reddit or twitter or facebook. Individual users have to each encounter the bigot, and then block them. Each of them exposed to the bigotry first.
And I appreciate that some queer folk want that experience. And thatās the power of federation. They can be on an instance that doesnāt react the way blahaj does. But many folk donāt want to see that shit at all. They donāt want to stumble across gatekeepers and bigots and people willing to actively deny them their own identity. And thatās what blocking folk at the instance level does. They donāt need to see the shit first before they can block it. Much of it is gone before it ever crosses folks feeds.
There is no power tripping in this approach. It is a very considered and deliberate approach that lets us avoid defederation of whole instances. Folk who donāt want that experience are welcome to host their user accounts on other instances, whilst still joining in with our communities. Or host accounts on our instance and other instances like many folk do.
There is no plan to control what people see here. Just an approach that gives a vulnerable community the option of a relatively bigotry free feed.
Right back at you :)
Weāre about to be genocided but yeah letās make a safe space for fantasy fucking neo pronouns and non human identities. Yeah. You really got your eye on the ball when it comes to the safety of queer people while supporting those who make a mockery of us. ššššššš
Preparing for and discussing impending genocide is not mutually exclusive to respecting neopronouns, this motte-bailey doesnt make sense and you are being extremely hateful in all of these comments. you will likely say you dont care, but it matters. im not sure this expression of panic and fear is helping anyone, though the degree of fear is completely understandable and warranted.
Fantasy identities arenāt queer and actively harm queer people.