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.
I’m fine with not allowing it in the future, but I would appreciate not deleting the ones that already exist.
For archival’s sake. And for so when questions are asked about why, people can see for themselves what happened and decide whether what they see justifies blocking blahaj for them personally or not.
The way Blahaj creates a safe space is a way that ends up creating a very toxic space for others, and I don’t think erasing grievances people have had with them in the past would be good.
The fact that it’s so common means a lot of people are feeling attacked/invalidated/whatnot because of Blahaj, and leaving evidence of what they’ve done to others could help reassure people that it’s not them. Blahaj is just like that.
… If anyone up to the challenge of being a mod of a meanwhileonblahaj, that might be another decent alternative. I saw the idea floating around.
I kinda feel you on this.
I only turned-up in the fediverse because my phone, the Voyager app and Lemmy looks suspiciously like how my phone, the Apollo app and… some other aggregator site I used to visit looked. (Robbit, or something. Can’t remember all the details)
Anyway, having a browse, looking around. Happy happy. Saw /196 and checked it out - I knew the “content” and “the rule” from the other place. Just like old.
Got to understand the difference between community and instance. Had a look around Blahaj… eye-opening. I felt the place out and discovered that it was, in fact, what it appeared to be. Doubly eye-opening.
If Blahaj was a pub, run by Ada, and I was the doorman I wouldn’t even let me in; let alone drink at the bar.
So I wound my neck in.
Plenty of other instances to go bump my gums on - if I’m so inclined.
Just let it slide, folks… their place, their rules.
P.S. The sum of human time wasted on these few words, again and again, reheated and reserved, again and again. I mean, really? We’re at the peak of technological advancement and saturation whilst possibly on the cusp of a dystopian cataclysm and we are all - me included - wasting our time churning over the same old nonsense.
Well, I’m livin’ in a foreign country but I’m bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor’s edge, someday I’ll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
Come in, she said, I’ll give ya
Shelter from the storm
- Bob Dylan
Doesn’t one of the db0 mod team literally think xenogenders are trolling? He’s probably just going to override you and say those posts are allowed.
I’d want the old posts kept for historical reference, but otherwise I’m fine with this.
three hundredth
I’ll die on the hill that their bullshit about pronouns and respecting nonsense and made up troll identities that make a mockery of us makes the world LESS SAFE for queer people. As a queer person who is visibly gender nonconforming and at physical risk in our current political environment. Im willing to be banned from all of lemmy over this idgaf.
Millennial queers and our elders fought like hell for acceptance so children could get their panties in a twist over being “misgendered” by strangers on the internet who don’t know them nor give a fuck what their gender is. Do these kids even touch grass? Chronically online children putting us all at risk.
Meanwhile we have real serious threats to our physical safety in America but yeah. Let’s whine and cry about being misgendered! it’s oppression!
Edit - IRL I call people what they want to be called. Online I have no idea who the fuck you are or what your gender is nor am I going to remember. And the genderless “they” is not undermining your gender you don’t get to police the English language. And that’s really what this is about. People who feel powerless grabbing on to what little power they have to police others behavior under the ironic concept of “gatekeeping.” That’s the pronoun whining in a nutshell.
As for the question at hand, lock old posts, let new ones through. Their moderation is heavy handed and not queer friendly and they deserve criticism for it. Only their kind of queer is accepted. Not people like me living in reality, staring down the beginning of a genocide and telling them to grow the fuck up.
In a similar vein: they promote a redefined version of asexuality that can end in more people than ever thinking asexual people are just picky and will be happy to do it for their partner and/or “can be fixed”.
The more the redefinition leaks into the real world, the more people once considered broken who were finally starting to be accepted as normal will end up dealing with forced consent via peer pressure and corrective rape.
No means NO, and that was starting to be understood for what it was. With the redefinition of asexual into “No means I have quirky requirements that The One will have”, it ends in real harm for actual no means NO people.
So yes. Real life harm can be caused by toxic gatecrashing. And people causing it call the ones at risk names for the terrible sin of not wanting to be taken as a joke in reality. Literal insult added to injury.
edit: oops i posted this in the wrong thread apologize
They’re a bunch of petulant children who care more about pronoun policing and power tripping and ironically gatekeeping than preparing for the incoming fucking genocide.
They provide a safe space for made up identities and actively harm actual queer people.
here’s a tldr of your spectacular crashout
them: “i acknowledge that memory is fallible but if you know someone and have been introduced to your pronouns you should at least do your best and it’s not very loving to default to they/them you should at least try :)
you: “you are a piss baby and are responsible for your oppression”
you: gets banned
you: “piss baby im being so oppressed also you don’t care about genocide”
Yeah. That’s language policing of they/them just to get butthurt and feel oppressed. I’m not playing this game. We’re dealing with the start of a genocide in America nobody has time for this childish bullshit.
I’m dying on this hill. Fuck their feelings.
Why do you care so deeply about a physical genocide of these people while simultaneously refusing to even respect their given culture and self-governing practices?
Perhaps it could be because you don’t actually care about queer/LGBT genocide and are implicitly okay with it so long as it doesn’t spill over onto you? Allyship ain’t a one way street, and it sounds like you’re not even an ally. Sounds like you just wanna coopt their existence as labor to protect you while simultaneously plotting against them and their culture after the threat has passed. You’re no comrade; the only reason you’re not a bigoted fascist is because you’re not übermensch. Unfuck yourself.
I’m queer, fuck you. Fuck your feelings and fuck your pronouns too. Fuck everything about you. Call me a fascist? For holding queer people accountable for their bullshit while we have a genocide approaching us? Fuck alllllll the way off. Fucking child. Waaaah my pronounssssss go complain to the fucking concentration camp guard about being misgendered in a few years!
Let’s set the record straight, queerness and fascist gatekeeping are not mutually exclusive, people can be queer and act in horrible ways, look at transmedicalists, or worse, Blaire White. Being queer doesn’t exclude you from being a fascist if you act like one, and it doesn’t exclude you from being queerphobic either.
at this point it’s all just going in circles
moderates a drama community
gets upset when people air drama
PTB if you make this change
this community is about documenting admin/mod abuse making exceptions for other instances undermines the entire point
I’m OK with that but it has to be a bit more targeted specifically to blahaj’s rule about gatekeeping and neopronouns, and I would add everything drag of course.
I wouldn’t delete old posts, just lock them.
Maybe make it a temporary moratorium?
agree. seeing that the trolls the posters here are crying about have been banneed for weeks to months, a temporary moratorium is probably fine. maybe six months but im pulling that number from nowhere.EDIT: I have changed my mind about this. See https://lemmy.cafe/comment/10132150 and the preceding thread.
I stopped visiting this instance because the transphobic screeds became too much for me. Someone who doesn’t ‘get’ half of young trans people but just feels being nice to people exploring themselves or ignoring them if they’re too much is easier.
Yeah db0 has a transphobia problem. I remember seeing an admin say neopronouns are trolling.
- Leave the threads up, probably locked. Don’t erase history.
- I wouldn’t start on wholesale topic bans just yet. This should be an absolute last resort and this will probably do more harm than good.
- Possibly create some extra categories for titles so users can filter it out if they don’t want to hear about it. Instance name of the potential PTB? Not sure.
My suggestion for this topic right now is to get everyone together that needs to and talk/scream/yell about it in private. I think everything has been said publicly at this point and the reading comprehension has gone down the toilet. The amount of misunderstandings, blanket downvotes, pettiness, bad assumptions, baiting and finger pointing is getting ridiculous. Have your damn say and find a conclusion, even if said conclusion is ‘fuck you’ from each person.
For shit like this in the future? If it comes to it, it is far better to lock first, talk to the person, and then unlock it. We can tell each other all day to be an adult, but it isn’t that simple. There will always be some big event that floods the community at some point or another. This community practically begs for it. It will eventually be filed into PTB history.
Why do you need to delete old posts?
Where can users banned by blahaj admins for lurking in other communities report it? Especially because the lahaj admins ban so many people for gatekeeping despite them not gatekeeping.
There’s a theme here of covering up dissent instead of engaging.
Blahaj admins started this whole ordeal in december for banning dissent and losing dozens of users instead of engaging with their community.
PTB
THANK YOU
In favor of doing this, but keep the old posts locked without removing them so people know what happened and what led up to this.
Well, I’m for this move. The why is obvious, as you’ve covered it in the post already.
I would also like to voice support for a couple ideas from previous comments
First, that previous posts stay up, and locked, so that people can still see that the issues were.
Second, that y’all consider the possibility of an FPT (frequently power tripped) thread at some frequency where folks can still hash out the common subjects. This and the mod abuse C/ are valuable pressure relief valves. I worry that a total banning of “frequent fliers” (sic) might have effects down the road.
I know that’s extra work for mods, so it’s definitely a big ask, but lemmy does need places where disgruntled users can complain. Having multiple places is better because one community would get swamped if they’re the only place people can go for specific complaints.
This shouldn’t even be a debate or question. This hateful bullshit against Blahaj just needs to stop and mods need to put their foot down and say enough is enough. Like if this kind of shit arguing against a queer friendly instance for being queer friendly is okay or permitted I don’t think that !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com should even be on our instance anymore, and our admins should just remove it.
I hope it doesn’t come to that. I hope this community can put an end to this bullshit and stop endorsing queerphobic users’ complaints.
If I were a Blahaj user, I’d be posting about defederation from db0. The transphobia needs to end.
They’re not queer friendly because they don’t tolerate serious dissent from queers. They’re a safe space for people who live in a fucking fantasy world and not reality.
Reality is overrated. Belief is perception.
Reality definitely is overrated
So why force queer people to live in it when they say it hurts them? Sadism?
Fantasy non human identities aren’t queer.
Okay, so if someone says their gender is cat, you’re saying they’re not queer. Fine, which non queer identity do they have? For argument’s sake, let’s say they prefer cat/cats pronouns and object to being he/himed or she/hered. How are they not queer? Make a specific claim please.
Trolls be trolling. I’m not giving into this sea lion nonsense.
They need mental health help, they’re not queer. Cat isn’t a gender anymore than attack helicopter is. You can’t be a cat just like you can’t be an attack helicopter. I’m not putting up with this queerphobic let’s tolerate everyone! nonsense.
Being queer-friendly doesn’t mean they’re immune to criticism. The issues people have with that instance have little to do with it being queer-friendly, and more to do with heavy-handed mod practices, and I think it’s incredibly disingenuous to suggest that that’s the reason why people are upset.
Nah the core of most of these posts is whether or not it’s ok to disrespect someone for their xenogender or using neopronouns. People will come in here to say they have been banned for accidentally misgendering or just ‘sharing their opinion’ but every case I’ve seen so far, if you look into their modlog you see that they were actually being really disrespectful about it, making other people with xenogender and/or neopronouns feel unsafe. Blahaj admin has made it clear that disrespecting someones pronouns or identity is not allowed on the instance, which most blahaj users agree with. Anyone who would still like to argue about this rule is just better off on another instance.
Like if this kind of shit arguing against a queer friendly instance for being queer friendly
Nobody is arguing against blahaj for being queer friendly. People are arguing against some of their members for being unfriendly to people, including queer people, among them LittleRatInALittleHat. That’s the only reason people are caring about this.
The type of mentality “you’re not allowed to criticize me, because I am X, and so unless you agree with me you’re being anti-X” is tempting but it is wrong. You might think dragon is a gender, or you might not, it is fine, but refusing to agree that dragon is a gender is not and has never been “transphobia” or in any way anti-queer.
but refusing to agree that dragon is a gender is not and has never been “transphobia” or in any way anti-queer.
Well I think queer people can have any gender they want, and you just have to deal with it because it’s none of your business.
You might think dragon is a gender, or you might not, it is fine, but refusing to agree that dragon is a gender …
Well, I’m gonna chime in again, because it’s a nice jumping off point.
That argument, that anyone is actually saying dragon is a gender, is simply misrepresenting all of the subject.
Regardless of one’s view on xenopronouns in specific, or neopronouns one general, the claim hasn’t been that dragon is a gender.
The rule, and the argument behind it, is about pronouns. And it isn’t really about the pronouns themselves, as much as it is about who gets to decide when someone is deserving of being respected as an individual.
We’re not biking being asked to share a belief that a person is a dragon, or fucks dragons, or that humans can be part dragon.
What we’re being asked to do is to respect pronouns or just not talk to someone. That’s it. That’s what it’s about.
The rule simply lays out what will happen if people don’t do one of those two things.
You don’t have to agree with the word being used as a pronoun meaning anything other than that it replaces traditional pronouns and makes them happy. Does it matter if they think they’re a dragon, or a tiger? No. It doesn’t matter. If the cognitive dissonance of using a word in an unconventional way is so high that you simply can’t do it, that’s okay. You have multiple options at that point.
One, you can ignore the request, and accept the consequences as they come. Fair or not, those consequences are known.
Two, you can use them anyway, and roll your eyes while you do it. Nobody will know you’re rolling your eyes.
Three, you can use them anyway, and complain about it, which may also have consequences, depending on how you complain.
Four, you can block the individual and never interact with them again, thus preventing cognitive dissonance entirely.
Five, you can choose to just not interact with them at all.
Six, you choose to not interact, but complain about it elsewhere, with possible consequences (as these posts have shown).
There’s even other options, but they’re absurdist stuff like juggling oranges while singing “I’m a little teapot”. So, you know, only entertaining to me.
Now, that’s separate from anything else, I’m only talking about the idea that one has to share a belief to be able to use someone’s pronouns. Like, my pronouns are he/him, they/them, and I’ll accept any gender neutral neopronouns as well. But I’ll accept she/her in a pinch, though I may correct those if it’s relevant. It’s why I never list my pronouns, I’m cool with almost anything, up to and including “that asshole”. That’s not even a joke, I’m fine being referred to that way as a replacement for a pronoun, or in general.
You don’t have to agree with my belief that I’m not obligated to behave in the way a pronoun implies to use any of those. You don’t have to agree with my belief that by accepting almost any pronoun that I improve myself by challenging my own concepts of gender in order to use he/him, or any of the rest.
So, why would you have to believe in anything at all to use any pronoun? You aren’t expected to log off and tell your roommate or whatever, “jeez, this cat I was talking to was a real weirdo, he’s just nuts” and you aren’t expected to log off and tell the same person “I was talking to this cat from blahaj and drag sure did annoy me” you can use any pronoun you want when you aren’t in the presence of the person requesting an individual pronoun, or any neopronouns, or a xenopronoun.
You don’t need to believe anything except that the person, the human being with their own life and needs and pains, is made a little happier by the use of it. That’s it. That’s all you have to believe.
Regardless of one’s view on xenopronouns in specific, or neopronouns one general, the claim hasn’t been that dragon is a gender.
PugJesus already covered it. Just to clarify, though, because your point is perfectly fair:
I get the policy about using pronouns when you’re talking to people. It makes some amount of sense to me, I already talked elsewhere in these comments about why I can completely understand just needing to set a clear, consistent policy on using people’s pronouns regardless of anything else. Makes sense. I kind of think that when someone’s clearly exploiting that policy to mock queer people to their faces, there maybe needs to be a commonsense exception instead of going to bat for the anti-queer troll, but it’s whatever. As people have pointed out, that problem has already been solved and dealt with.
When I say “dragon is a gender,” I am talking about people who are screaming that anyone who doesn’t agree with the policy is “misgendering” or “transphobic” or a fascist or secretly yearns to start calling all these LGBTQ people slurs. It’s super weird, and dishonest. It’s divisive and stupid. And using the word “misgendering” in reference to it, which a ton of people are doing, is predicated on the assumption (never started explicitly) that dragon is a gender. And people are getting banned (PugJesus is one, LittleRatInALittleHat is one) not for ever refusing to use the pronouns to anybody in particular, but just by talking about the policy or saying their opinion on it or pointing out that dragon is not, in fact, a gender.
Your list of multiple options doesn’t really apply, since neither PugJesus nor LittleRatInALittleHat were interacting directly with anybody at all, just talking about the issue in general terms. They’ve got a right to do that, I think. Again, I get the reason for the original policy. What’s ridiculous is using that as a jumping-off point to say “If you have any disagreement with this policy, even if you’re not expressing it to me but just talking with other people about it in general, you are bad and transphobic and you need to be banned and you’re a fascist and you hate queer people and you’re not allowed to disagree with me because I have X identity and if you do, you are anti-X.”
Regardless of one’s view on xenopronouns in specific, or neopronouns one general, the claim hasn’t been that dragon is a gender.
[heavy sigh]
Drag’s gender is dragon rider
I’m speaking in the general, with dragon as the example used because drag is largely the focus of contention.
The next paragraph, “The rule, and the argument behind it, is about pronouns. And it isn’t really about the pronouns themselves, as much as it is about who gets to decide when someone is deserving of being respected as an individual.” covers that. I was addressing the rule, and blahaj, not drag.
It hasn’t been blahaj policy that I’ve seen that dragon is a gender, only that you have to treat people’s pronouns and genders with respect.
It’s one of those where we don’t have to agree, we just have to be nice.
Or have the admins specifically addressed the issue as a declarative, and I missed it? I do miss things ;)
It hasn’t been blahaj policy that I’ve seen that dragon is a gender, only that you have to treat people’s pronouns and genders with respect.
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8b47330e-fe59-466e-aef5-b529ed0b05a5.jpeg
I could go further back to the whole kerfluffle this stems from, where there are more examples, but honestly, I don’t feel like digging that shit up.
Thank you for this. It’s nice to see that Blahaj is defending all gender identities and not just pronouns.
Ehhh, what that screenshot shows is admins deciding that you didn’t treat pronouns with respect.
Obviously, you disagree with their assessment. I do too, really, though I have seen their argument about it somewhere to and down the various threads.
That is a different thing.
I definitely get why you don’t think it’s different, but, looking at it from this side of the screen, that’s not a statement of policy, it’s a reaction to their interpretation of what you said.
Against my better judgement, I went into Blahaj back around the time of The Event.
Gender was always meant to help identify where in the spectrum of sex one is. Whether that be male, female, both, neither, slightly female, etc. Y’all are free to say your gender is goth, or as one user on Lemmy is becoming infamous for, Dragon; but you’ll likely not be taken seriously, and ultimately you’ll be setting back both progression for oppressed minorities as well as already existing accomplishments. PS: op should say what neopronouns are for those who may not know.
Removed: Gatekeeping
If gender means anything then some things are not gender. That’s not “gatekeeping.” It’s a tautology. A word with no meaning is meaningless.
Removed: Gatekeeping
Just as I don’t acknowledge “dragonfucker” as a gender I don’t acknowledge “god” as a gender type. There’s a person around here who insists that they’re a god and that they’re pronouns need to be capitalized. No one is a god. And no one gets to go around demanding that they’re a god and that they should be acknowledged as one. I mostly linger here on blah as a habit really. If I eventually get banned so be it. I have my line in the sand for what will make me leave but until that happens I’ll keep lingering like a fart.
Removed, no note
Trans women are women. Nobody is a dragon. Dragons aren’t real.
Removed: Gatekeeping
No, I mean I’m no longer going to be on Blahaj, and those are the communities I’ll miss. Hence “but… well, Blahaj isn’t for me, since I don’t acknowledge ‘dragonfucker’ as a gender.”
Removed: Gatekeeping (that one’s literally me)
A lot of people say a lot of things, who cares? I don’t think it’s an unfair line to draw at all. We draw it at what’s real and what’s not. Gender as a spectrum is real. We know this. We also know that the person posting comments on Lemmy isn’t a fucking dragon because dragons aren’t real. Line drawn.
Removed: Gatekeeping
Neopronouns are fine, but not all neopronouns are part of gender identity. Not all identity expressions are gender related. The entire spectrum of gender has a biological basis, and anything which doesn’t have a biological basis is an expression of identity, which is also valid, but not always related to gender. Like, no one can get a medical cocktail to transform into a dragon or cat. Please don’t confuse gender identity with other types of identity expressions.
Removed: Transmed stuff
All of that points pretty firmly to disagreement with dragon as a gender as gatekeeping, not a matter of respecting pronouns.
Ehhh, what that screenshot shows is admins deciding that you didn’t treat pronouns with respect.
Obviously, you disagree with their assessment. I do too, really, though I have seen their argument about it somewhere to and down the various threads.
That is a different thing.
I definitely get why you don’t think it’s different, but, looking at it from this side of the screen, that’s not a statement of policy, it’s a reaction to their interpretation of what you said.
Legitimately, I don’t see how that can be reasonably interpreted to be about pronouns at all. My objection was to dragon as a gender. I was banned for ‘gatekeeping’. Redirecting that to a pronoun dispute requires a reading that I literally cannot see, not simply one I disagree with.
Well put
“They can’t be power tripping mods because they are queer!”
No, that is stupid.
This shouldn’t even be a debate or question.
Yes, that does seem to be the consistent position in Blahaj.
Brother in Christ, imagine you had a sub where you talk about basketball and people constantly came in, not fans of basketball just saying “man, basketball? I don’t get it” but they are just using that to argue how basketball shouldn’t exist if you dare engage with that.
You’d ban those posts. Because you want your sub to be about basketball for basketball fans. Not because you want to argue with non fans about the validity of the existence of basketball.
Hope that answer was straight and masculine enough for ya.
Hope that answer was straight and masculine enough for ya.
Oh fuck off. They banned this female gender nonconforming queer for not being down with their support for people who make a mockery of us while my country is trying to genocide us.
They’re a bunch of petulant children living in a fantasy world and anyone who pops their fantasy bubble gets banned. Whatever. There needs to be a queer space for people who don’t get their panties in a twist over being mIsGeNdErEd like it’s the worst thing that ever happened to them in life. Those children need to fucking grow up.
Nah you fuck off. Drawing your line for acceptability one step away from yourself and being a belittling little bigot to people outside your sensibility.
Brother in Christ, imagine you had a sub where you talk about basketball and people constantly came in, not fans of basketball just saying “man, basketball? I don’t get it” but they are just using that to argue how basketball shouldn’t exist if you dare engage with that.
You’d ban those posts. Because you want your sub to be about basketball for basketball fans. Not because you want to argue with non fans about the validity of the existence of basketball.
Cool, now, how about looking around outside of that sub for people who say “Basketball? I don’t get it” to hand out bans and accuse of being Basketball-phobes? Or, in this case, an actual Basketball fan who dared question a referee’s decision? Unfortunately, the holsum basketball community decided that made them a Sports Hater and an opponent of public schooling, and RIGHTEOUSLY drove them out of town!
Hope that answer was straight and masculine enough for ya.
I don’t like sports and I’m not particularly traditionally masculine, but thanks for the stereotyping.
Someone is real pissed they can’t argue queer folks existence to their face. Boo fucking hoo. Think about what you are arguing about. A targeted minority wants a place to exist in peace and your pissed you can’t call them delusional children. Fuck off
I don’t like sports and I’m not particularly traditionally masculine, but thanks for the stereotyping.
It’s part of the definition of “teams.” They need to assign attributes of the enemy team to you, just to make sure everyone understands that they’re on the correct team and need to be supported uncritically.
It’s part of the demonstration of the power relationship. They’re allowed to make snide comments about your sexuality and talk down to you. God help you if you try to do it in the other direction (which is of course as it should be - I’m just calling out the toxic behavior for what it is, not saying it should at all be okay in the other direction.) They’re flexing their privilege within this context.
Idk man. Pick one, or both. Like I say, once you’ve engaged yourself as officially “the enemy” according to established battle lines, people are going to feel like they’re being a good ally if they show up to do battle with you accordingly.
