cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/12273255
I’ve only been on Lemmy a few days and I’ve already witnessed a lot of thinly veiled transphobia, anything from people dismissing the existence of trans people, to trying to claim we are predators. I’ve also seen people downvoted in the general communities for expressing trans support, or seemingly for no reason other than simply being openly trans or visibly queer. I know it’s an ongoing effort to moderate transphobia on Lemmy, and the fediverse as a whole. We have to also address mentions of thinly veiled transphobia and transphobic users. Transphobia isn’t just a differing opinion, it is a dangerous hateful sentiment which causes harm to vulnerable people and it needs to be addressed, at the instance and community level. We need to put in the effort to identify transphobic dogwhistles and language used by transphobes to eradicate this type of behavior from our communities and servers alike.
Some people will argue that the light stuff isn’t something to worry about, but that’s not true. This is a tactic they use to blend in with normies and make them think that nothing they are doing or saying is wrong. It’s what transphobic right-wing YouTubers and Facebook users do to avoid being banned for hate speech. We are better than these corporations though, Fediverse is run by communities and for the users, we should not let these things slide as easily as Corporations do, they’re in it to make money, we… We’re in it to create a community for the users. Part of that means kicking out those who don’t have all our best interests at heart.
You are extremely self centered in how you see the world. There are as many people in the world and in the fediverse that would say kick you out because you don’t have their best interests at heart.
Wanting basic respect to not have my existence and rights debated or denied is not self-centered, kindly go fuck off if you think it is. If me being transgender and wanting basic respect, and not having my existence and identity denied doesn’t “have their best interests at heart” they can fuck off, because they are nazis and bigots who don’t have my or my minority brethren’s best interests at heart. This isn’t asking for special treatment, this is asking to not have my existence and identity denied. Something that cishet people take for granted.
Folks this is an example of one of these dogwhistles I pointed out, trying to claim that wanting basic respect as a person and the way I identify is somehow self-centered. Fact is LGBTQ people just want to exist without prejudice or having their existence and validity debated, that isn’t an unreasonable ask and yet there are people who will screetch and whine when simply being asked to show respect, not even told, asked.
Wanting transphobes to fuck off isnt self-centered. Its avoiding the Nazi bar problem.
Agreed, this is a really bad take. I feel like this person is one of those people spreading thinly veiled transphobia and dogwhistles. That’s what that is, claiming we are self-centered, too sensitive, slowflakes, triggered, etc. That’s what they say to try and deny the legitimacy of our struggle, and the fact that in the end what we want is basic respect and recognition, they don’t even want to do that.
Oh no not the foreigners.
Anyway a better solution than tolerating the transphobes is to ban them. I have no idea what the fuck @curiosaurus@discuss.online is talking about. Sounds like shit.
The fediverse isn’t one thing and lemmy in particular is censorship proof, meaning there isn’t much you can do besides tailoring your own experience and filtering the feed to suit you. My instance doesn’t federate with lemmy.world or lemmy.ca because they are not well run instances without any oversight to their users and it’s mostly spam. My instance also fully disables downvotes because they are all spam as well.
Admins indeed can deal with these users, by deleting their content from their instances, and banning them from the site, if they are homed on that specific instance they get banned everywhere when that happens. So it can be dealt with but it takes work from our admins, and since these are communities run by real people and not monolithic corporations, we can speak up and make a difference. Reach out to these admins who are real people.
Admins can, I do on vegantheoryclub.org but lemmy.world and lemmy.ca will not. The admins don’t agree with your take and aren’t going to change their minds so the only recourse you actually have is to invest in and build your own server and federate with who you align with.
disables downvotes because they are all spam as well.
Not really, I come across posts from your instance sometimes and I downvote because I disagree. Though now I know that was futile.
They allow drama and harassment communities to be hosted on their instance.
Ah, I guess you’re referring to !fediverselore@lemmy.ca
Use the report button also to report transphobia, so we can get to it asap.
Underdeveloped take from Dessalines: the bourgeoisie love to promote bigotry while covering themselves in a cloak of progressivism
Also very reactionary of him to be bent out of shape over the whole “biological men competing in women’s sports” thing. Wonder what he thinks of the fact he shares that opinion with fascists?
Really wish I could hear an explanation for keeping Nutomic around when there is blatant transphobia. Either a public apology or something along those lines, it’s clear Nutomic has made trans users feel unsafe and that goes against the stated anti-transphobia aims.
I can’t understand the strain of “socially conservative Communism” (for lack of a better term). One of the Communist parties here in the UK, CPGB-ML, also declared “LGBT ideology” to be bourgeois and anti-Marxist. Greece’s KKE also has a history of anti-LGBTQ stances.
Doesn’t add up for these groups to be taking stances against marginalised people.
I’m sorry you’ve had to experience that transphobia on Lemmy. It is unfortunately common. And sometimes it even lurks as internalized transphobia in people that do not think of themselves as transphobjc. For example, there are Lemmy instances that actually promote chasers.
I believe all instances if transphobia should be called out and obvious examples should result in bans. Sometimes it is good to let people have a chance to accept criticism and retract but I am biased towards more often banning. Comments that are transphobic should also be removed.
Most people who are transphobic know what they are doing, I’m certain the people I saw do. They’re not going to change, they need to be given the boot to protect our communities from becoming Nazi bars.
Hexbear is easily the most trans-positive instance, and it isn’t close. Strictly anti-chaser, pro-trans, there’s even a cis/trans questionaire that shows trans and trans-questioning members outnumber cis members when put together.
Lemmy.ml’s trans community has fantastic mods, but unfortunately Lemmy.ml itself isn’t as protective of its trans users. I try to report transphobia when I see it, but I see a lot more transphobia on Lemmy.ml than I do on Hexbear.net, which is a symptom more of the userbase than the mods IMO.
I’d say “and it isn’t close” is a bit disingenuous when instances like beehaw and blahaj exist.
That’s fair to bring up, but from speaking to trans comrades on Hexbear.net it seems Blahaj doesn’t do a great job protecting trans users, despite the focus of the instance, due to issues with some troublesome moderators. That’s ignoring the whole anti-Marxism thing Blahaj has going on, of course, I don’t think that’s entirely relevant but wanted to bring it up to put it to rest.
Beehaw is interesting, it’s a micro-instance so I am not sure how to judge it. Hexbear is many times larger than both Blahaj and Beehaw and yet manages to have 0 transphobia, which is an achievement even if we assume neither Beehaw nor Blahaj have transphobia either.
The overall activity, diversity in content across communities, and mandatory pronoun listing in Hexbear is at the top of trans-inclusivity and protection in Lemmy instances, that’s pretty much undeniable.
Forcing pronoun disclosure is not necessarily helpful to the trans community, especially those questioning. Do you guys have a questioning tag or something? We have a few users bouncing around on Beehaws for instance that don’t concieve of themselves as human. This stuff is complicated.
Beehaw at least is only a quarter of the monthly active users compared to hexbear, that hardly makes it a “micro” instance if they’re on the same order of magnitude. But I digress.
No shade to what hexbear is achieving and I’m very glad to hear that they are championing trans acceptance and not tolerating transphobia. Great work!
Unrelated, I didn’t get a notification for your reply, at all, how peculiar. I only saw it because I happened to revisit the post.
