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.

    • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
      6·
      12 hours ago

      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.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        12 hours ago

        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.

        • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
          4·
          11 hours ago

          I think where the disconnect is, is that you’re continuously, in those quotes, making declarations about what it and isn’t gender, what is and isn’t trans.

          That’s what the comments were removed for.

          In those quotes, you aren’t seeking understanding, you aren’t discussing the subject, you aren’t expressing an interest, you’re saying, directly “this is my opinion on the matter, and I refuse to consider any alternatives”

          You literally say you’re drawing a line in the sand.

          That’s gatekeeping, 100%

          Does it make you a transphobe? Hell no. Does it make you a bad person? Not in any way whatsoever.

          But it is you doing exactly what the rule is about: telling other people that they and their gender/pronouns are yours to decide the validity of

          And that’s okay, you have a right to have that opinion and draw that line. We all do.

          You do see that though, right? That every quote you chose, it’s you declaring other people’s genders and pronouns invalid. It doesn’t matter whether or not it was drag. It doesn’t matter who you were talking about, you don’t very to make that decision for others

          You don’t, I don’t, nobody does.

          We can all have great discussions about the semantics of gender, of how pronouns function, what their role in language, philosophy, and society are. We can even make declarative statements like that if we want to. But it doesn’t change that if we expect our opinions on the matter to hold sway, we’d be assholes.

          I mean, c’mon you directly brought in the whole biological argument. Like, the worst possible way to address the subject matter, the claim to have a inherently superior ownership of transness because it has to be biological, and only biology matters? You have to see that that’s the exact bullshit being weaponized against trans people. Even if you didn’t mean it the same way (and I know you didn’t, I know you’re not a bigot), it’s the exact worst possible argument to use.

          It’s so arrogant, claiming to have not only the ability to know what is and isn’t biological, but whether or not it has validity. You directly say that you’re deciding what is and isn’t valid, for other people. I mean, are you even a doctor? Of any stripe at all. Can you back up the claim that there’s no biological mechanism at play that leads a person to have a connection to an animal that can serve the same role as gender identity?

          Because there’s a ton of information about neurodivergence out there, and some of it points to there being a high correlation between trans identities and neurological differences from cis brains. The overlap between a huge range of neuroatypicality and not just trans identity, but the very otherkin related identities being objected to is there, and neurology is biology. It just is. You can’t have a brain that operates independently of its underlying biological imperatives. It’s built by DNA, RNA, and epigenetics into this network of complicated nerves that run through a meat suit, interacting with it chemically and electrically.

          That’s biology. Now, I’m with you, there’s no actual dragons that aren’t komodo. And a cat isn’t a human, nor is a human a cat. But I am not confident in saying that someone’s inner self finding expression by identifying with or as a cat isn’t biological. To the contrary, unless it only appears after disease or injury, I would say that it has to be biological in origin, even though the specific expression may be a psychological development as opposed to purely anatomical or physiological one.

          While you are definitely not an enemy, not a transphobe, not a bigot, you definitely broke the rule, multiple times, and you picked your own quotes about it. If this was still about whether or not a mod action was justified, it would be totally YDI with that list of quotes.

          At every step, you laid claim to the authority to decide for others whether their identity is valid.

          I’m kinda beating a dead horse here because I’m a little flummoxed that you can’t see all those comments and notice that you’re doing exactly what they were removed for.

          After all that, it really doesn’t matter what the specific target was, it doesn’t even matter that they are, defacto, making it clear that they accept xenogenders as valid genders within blahaj and that the rule applies to them. What matters at that point is that you had multiple comment removals and kept doing the same thing. I’d have banned you too, even preemptively because it looks like you’re making it a fight.

          • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
            5·
            8 hours ago

            you’re saying, directly “this is my opinion on the matter, and I refuse to consider any alternatives”

            You literally say you’re drawing a line in the sand.

            When did he say the second part?

            It sounds like he said the first part only. That, to me, is okay. It sounds like the other people in the conversation are going beyond just stating their opinion to drawing a line in the sand, that there are absolutely no alternatives to their chosen point of view, and in fact any attempted alternatives are specifically forbidden.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
            8·
            11 hours ago

            I think where the disconnect is, is that you’re continuously, in those quotes, making declarations about what it and isn’t gender, what is and isn’t trans.

            Only one of them is me, the one tagged with ‘literally me’.

            In those quotes, you aren’t seeking understanding, you aren’t discussing the subject, you aren’t expressing an interest, you’re saying, directly “this is my opinion on the matter, and I refuse to consider any alternatives”

            In which case my original point is correct - that dragon being a gender is mandated by Blahaj policy or actions. Stating an opinion to the contrary is ‘gatekeeping’.

            And that’s okay, you have a right to have that opinion and draw that line. We all do.

            Apparently not, considering the removals.

            You do see that though, right? That every quote you chose, it’s you declaring other people’s genders and pronouns invalid. It doesn’t matter whether or not it was drag. It doesn’t matter who you were talking about, you don’t very to make that decision for others

            Then you do agree that Blahaj policy is that dragon must be treated as a gender.

            While you are definitely not an enemy, not a transphobe, not a bigot, you definitely broke the rule, multiple times, and you picked your own quotes about it. If this was still about whether or not a mod action was justified, it would be totally YDI with that list of quotes.

            Again, most of them are not me, I picked them not as examples of what I believe, but as examples of objections that were fundamentally or exclusively to ‘dragon’ as a gender, without significant hostility which were removed as gatekeeping - ie me attempting to prove my point that dragon as a gender is absolutely core to this whole debacle.

            • OccultIconoclast@reddthat.comEnglish
              3·
              7 hours ago

              Southsamurai is right, you do seem to just be starting fights for no reason. How is someone being a dragon or anything else supposed to hurt you? What’s your motivation? What’s your goal? Why?

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        12 hours ago

        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.