Whilst this is not a local only post/community, it is primarily intended for blahaj lemmy members. Top level replies from non blahaj accounts will be removed.
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I want to take the moment to clarify the Blahaj Lemmy position on things, given recent events and the fallout that has followed. This will give people the chance to decide for themselves if blahaj zone lemmy is the right space for them, or if it doesn't meet their needs.
First and foremost, blahaj zone lemmy exists to give a space for queer folk to exist, with their needs explicitly protected as the highest priority, and with a particular focus on the needs of gender diverse folk. Most lemmy instances are not run by trans folk, and whilst many are still inclusive, they don't always prioritise our needs. Others barely consider trans folk, and react only to the most blatant of bigotry.
We are not a political instance, however political communities have a space here, as does any community that is actively protective of the needs of queer and gender diverse folk. Given the impact of politics on gender diverse folk, that means lots of dialogue and strong opinions exist, and as long as those opinions are honestly held, and not bigoted or exclusive, people are welcome to have and express those opinions here.
For what it's worth, I am a member of the Greens Party in Australia. I have no time for the middle ground politics of the Australian Labor party, let alone the right wing beliefs of the Australian Liberal party. Yet a community of queer Labor Party aligned folk would fit on blahaj lemmy, because the parties ideologies, are not explicitly anti queer. A community aligned with the Australian Liberal party likely would not have a place here, unless the goal of the community was to work at actively challenging the anti queer policies of the party.
That being said, political communities (or any other communities) that exist solely to target and take aim at other queer folk have no place here either. The goal of blahaj lemmy is queer inclusion, and a community whose sole goal is division, will be removed.
The downside to this is that as we assume good faith in members and we don't gatekeep or deny access to people because of their pronouns or gender identity, (even when those identities are challenging to many) it is possible for bad faith actors to take advantage of our inclusive policies. Unfortunately, that's just something we are going to have to navigate as it occurs, because I won't let bad faith folk push this instance to defaulting to exclusion or gatekeeping the validity of someone's identity. I will respect a trolls pronouns even as I ban them, because to not do so, normalises the idea that pronouns are something that are earned by good behaviour, or that other people have a say in the validity of another person's identity and pronouns.
So that's where we stand. Hopefully this will help people decide for themselves whether or not this is the right instance for them.
If and when you can demonstrate evidence that that is what was happening, I will act on it, but until then, as I stated, I'm not willing to gatekeep people's identities on my personal assessment of their validity. That's not going to change.
I can and will moderate on behaviour however, but in the case of the person I believe you are referring to, after a moderation chat I've seen no evidence of continuing behaviour at odds with our instance guidelines.
If someone's pronouns make you feel unsafe, that's more of an issue you need to work on than anything else IMO. I know I've struggled with "it" as a pronoun, because it's historically a slur that has been targeted against our community. Seeing people use it made me deeply uncomfortable, and when I first heard it, I assumed, as you're assuming, that the people using it were doing it in bad faith. I've since come to understand that my assumptions were incorrect, and that my discomfort is my issue to work through, not something I get to force on to others.
And until such time as we find a way of reading people's minds to determine their intentions, all we can do is respect what they tell us about who they are, and respond to their behaviour.
If you disagree with that approach, then you're likely to find your experience here frustrating.
Of course not. As I said in the post that you're replying to, political communities are welcome here. This is especially true, because of the impact that politics has on our lives as queer folk.
I removed your post for gatekeeping, but I did want to address one point...
You asked how I would react to someone coming on here and stating that their pronouns are "attack/helicopter".
I want to point you in the direction of Isabel Fall. Isabel Fall is a transgender woman who wrote a story called "I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter". She did it as a middle finger to the slur and as an act of reclamation. In response, she was hounded off of the internet. People accused her of being a nazi.
She was hospitalised, because her own mental health put her at risk of suicide from the strength of the response.
So yes, if Isabel Fall, or someone else, came here trying to reclaim slurs like that, they are explicitly welcome to do so. I also understand that people acting in bad faith can and likely will try and abuse that. But until such a time as I can read their minds to determine their intentions, so I can tell the Isabel Falls apart from the trolls, all I can act on is their behaviour.
I won't act on someone's pronouns alone, and that includes someone using reclaimed slurs (hell, "It" is a reclaimed slur used as a pronoun) or capital letters (we capitalise "I" and don't think anything of what that represents)
The example with Isabel Fall does not fit here, as moderation action against someone like her, or asking/requiring those types of pronouns to be changed/removed is not equivalent to the response she received. This sounds like you're saying that moderation action for offensive pronouns will lead to people getting hurt to the degree she did, but it won't, so this is irrelevant.
You didn't address the other user's example of 14/88 as a pronoun, or ones that have explicitly sexual connotations.
Would you also take no action if someone used the n-word (hard r), the f-slur etc? Or obviously sexual ones like Master or Daddy? Would you require minors to also use these pronouns so they don't misgender that person?
This all is just being tolerant to a fault. I myself am trans, I am supportive of neopronouns and xenogenders, but there's a limit. And that is when other people are getting hurt or made extremely uncomfortable, and when it's just obvious that it's in bad faith.
You can't reclaim nazi terminology, because those terms are not slurs, but dogwhistles for hate. As such, someone using them would be instantly banned.
Requiring minors to use sexual terms to talk to you also falls under "act on their behaviour, not their pronouns". It too would lead to an instant ban.
It's mostly you getting upset at scenarios that can't occur, because your examples would nearly all be moderated under the "moderate their behaviour, not their pronouns".
Neopronouns are welcome. Reclaimed slurs as pronouns have a place here. Dogwhistles for hatred do not.
Isabel Fall was "obviously in bad faith" to most people who hounded her.
Happy to hear that, it sounded like that wasn't the case from the conversation so far.
I think you misunderstood me there. I am talking about you requiring minors to use these sexual terms, because of people using those terms as their pronouns. As otherwise, they would be misgendering them.
The only "behavior" I am talking about is using these terms as pronouns, which some people do. Usually for malicious reasons, of course.
Also, didn't the attack helicopter thing get used as a dog whistle? I've never seen it used as a slur (calling someone an attack helicopter). It's always just been "I identify as an attack helicopter" and similar sentences to make fun of the concept of gender identity and invalidate trans people.
Sure, but the recourse for someone like that on Lemmy from a moderator perspective would simply be to ask them to not use "attack helicopter" as a pronoun, not to witch hunt them.
Only if you arrived here with preconceived ideas.
Requiring minors to use sexual terms to address you would get you banned.
It was a term aimed at queer folk to dehumanise us. People are allowed to reclaim terms like that.
I'm not going to gatekeep people on their pronouns. I will address problematic behaviour.
It's that simple. You aren't a user of this instance, and this isn't a request for feedback, so if you disagree, that's your prerogative, but that's how it works here.
What preconceived ideas? I don't know you, and I didn't know anything about the situation the post was made about. You very clearly gave that impression in this discussion, particularly with the following statements:
Even in this very message, you just said "I'm not going to gatekeep people on their pronouns. I will address problematic behaviour"
You repeatedly said that pronouns alone will not lead to any moderation actions. This directly contradicts your later statement in your reply to me, saying that dogwhistles and terms sexual in nature will lead to a ban.
Again, glad to hear that, but if all someone did is put a sexual term as their pronoun, and that alone would not lead to a ban, a minor would be put in the situation of using that term or refusing and therefore misgendering. The user who set that as their pronoun in this situation didn't do anything outside of putting those pronouns in their bio or next to their name.
Fair enough, I can't disagree with that. However, in the case of using it or slurs as a pronoun, it would force others to use those terms to address others. So, unless I'm misinterpreting your statements, someone using the t-slur as their pronoun and me refusing to use it to refer to them would lead to a ban?
lmao ok, it's literally just a conversation based on a disagreement. Glad I didn't make my account on here though, looks like I dodged a bullet.
To clarify, you deliberately misgendering someone would get you banned. If you can't find a way of talking to or about someone without misgendering them, that's something you're going to need to work on.
And if you think misgendering is bad, but it becomes OK when you start to feel uncomfortable, then you were never going to last here.
I think looking at a more concrete hypothetical would be more clarifying for people.
Let's say that User A has their pronouns listed as "daddy" and User B has their pronouns listed as the t-slur. User C finds both of these uncomfortable to use, A because it feels like they're being coerced into a sexual interaction with another user, and B because they've been personally victimized by that slur before and being around those that use it (even in a reclaimed sense) hurts them (and I am confident this is a thing people are sensitive to on this instance because I've seen people put trigger warnings for its usage before). User C wants to continue to interact with their community, so they use "they/them" for A and B instead. What happens next, from a moderation standpoint? What if they had conspicuously avoided pronouns by using "User A" and "User B" exclusively?
I think there have been cases that go up to or put a toe over the line of acceptability for some people, and some of us are confused/concerned about how far things go. It seems like you have a clear idea of what is and isn't acceptable, but your hard line hasn't translated well into the heads of other people, and it creates an ambiguity for the rest of us who see a very blurry spectrum. I know you have a very hard (and usually thankless job) and from both seeing your work and from benefit of the doubt, I'm sure you want to do right by the people here, but I think some clarity would be good for people. In the above example, if User C doesn't know what will or won't get them kicked out of their communities or even the instance, they may engage less and ultimately feel pushed out of their space, and so moderation really needs to be a balance of the needs of Users A & B and User C.
And to be clear, I don't think anyone is asking for permission to bully someone with unconventional pronouns, nor permission to tell them their gender identity is wrong or invalid (If there are, those people do not belong here in any capacity). I think the question is mostly, which neopronouns requests are unreasonable enough for people to be allowed to use backup pronouns or just the user's name instead.
Has User A created a situation in which the only way for people to interact with them involves minors using sexualised terms to refer to them? I'm hard pressed to think of a more clear cut example of unacceptable behaviour... It would see them gone in an instant. Yet if that same person, using those same pronouns allowed space for non sexualised pronouns as well, they'd be quite welcome. The pronouns aren't the issue, the behaviour is.
With user B who is using reclaimed slurs for pronouns, they're welcome to do so. Lets look at "It" is an example. I personally, am uncomfortable with this pronoun, because the term was used to dehumanise folk like me when I was younger. But that's a "me" problem, because that same term was used to dehumanise the person using "It" as a pronoun, and they are finding power in reclaiming it If someone can turn around a weapon used against us to find power, then that's something I'm going to encourage, not discourage, my own discomfort be damned. What you'll also find is people that use neopronouns and reclaimed slurs rarely use only those pronouns, because they exist in a world in which it's simply not possible for most people to do so. So they typically have multiple options for pronouns, with a preference that more accepting folk use the more challenging pronouns, but an understanding that not everyone will. It only becomes an issue if the pronouns are used as a bludgeon to create division, and even then, it's the act of trying to create division, not the pronouns themselves that require action.
The challenging part is that there is no clear cut, black and white way to determine whether someone is using challenging pronouns in good faith, or to create division. The only way to tell, is to look at how that person behaves, and see whether they're trying to encourage division. And that's something that takes time to tell. What I'm not going to do is get to a point where I assume unusual pronouns exist only to cteate division.
I have nothing to do with the day to day running of the vast majority of communities on the instance, and their rules likely differ to the instance rules, so I can't speak to what will get you banned from them
But to get yourself banned from the instance, you would need to show exactly what I've just been talking about. A repeated pattern of behaviour. You're not going to get banned for accidentally misgendering someone. You're not going to get banned for finding someones pronouns confronting. You're not even going to get banned for avoiding their pronouns. You are going to get banned for repeatedly, deliberately misgendering someone, and you are going to get tapped on the shoulder and asked to disengage if you keep engaging with someone whose pronouns you refuse to use.
I appreciate the clarity on what exactly does and doesn't get someone banned. That all seems very reasonable to me, and largely answered my main question. Feel free to disengage with this conversation guilt-free if you think my followup here isn't worth your time. Unfortunately I have reddit-brain and feel like I need to re-explain myself when I feel like i'm not being understood.
With that out of the way: I think you're missing the point about the examples.
On the User A side, I'm not talking about directly interacting with minors. I'm talking about indirectly interacting with everyone, including minors, but also including adults who don't want to interact in a sexual manner with randos. There's definitely a difference, but I think it's the same sort of effect if User A asks a minor to use their sexualized pronouns vs if they label themselves with sexualized pronouns and then go into spaces where minors may interact with them.
On the User B side, I feel like while "it" is similar in some ways to slur pronouns, it also has some fundamental differences. For one, "it" is already a word we use in other contexts and is not one people can really avoid even if they try, and for another, most "it" pronoun people I've encountered intend it to be uses in the object sense, not the reclaimed slur sense. Would User B be treated differently moderation-wise if their pronouns were different reclaimed slurs, like the n-word? I know that there's no amount of complaining about misgendering that could convince me to use certain slur pronouns.
I do agree that most people are going to be reasonable and those with more controversial pronouns will likely give those who are uncomfortable an out (in the form of alternate pronouns), but I don't think those people are who anyone is really worried about here, because they seem chill as hell, lol. I get that we're talking about edge cases of edge cases here, so maybe the whole thing is purposeless anyway.
If we were only talking about adults, user A would be the same as user B. It would be "wait and see" rather than assuming bad intentions on pronouns alone. But we aren't only talking about adults. There are minors on the fediverse. So if there is no way for a minor to interact with them in a non sexualised way, they're not going to be allowed here, whether or not any minors actually do interact with them.
But if that same user was fine with he/him as well, there would be no problem
Is the target of a slur using that same slur to try and reclaim power? Great. Is a troll pretending to be a user trying to reclaim power? That's hard to tell, but once it becomes clear, they'll be gone.
And that's fine. It only becomes an issue if you insist on interacting with a person who you refuse to gender, or if you deliberately misgender them.
The trolls hiding as edge cases get revealed by their behaviour. There are no rules that can be made ahead of time that catch all the trolls, whilst not gatekeeping innocent folk. Allowing space for people to exist on their own terms means acting reactively, and means that trolls will slip through the cracks sometimes. That is by design, because the alternative is gatekeeping.
I absolutely agree. I think people (myself included) were concerned because the (necessary) ambiguity of rules seemed to be opening the door to times when a user would feel pushed out of spaces by having to tiptoe around other users that they think might just be trolls. It seems to me from talking to you about it that there is generally good faith assumed on all sides, which definitely sets my mind at ease.
Way to not address a single one of my points and then being smug about it.
If that's what you think that was, then as I said, this probably isn't the space for you.
it's ok, it's only the atheists that get offended..
edit: i mean in this case
and you will continue to get your members hurt until you learn to take a more principled stance. you didn't respond to the 14/88 pronouns bit, i might add. goodbye. you can find me on hexbear if you ever have a change of heart.
Thank you for that story. I'm partway through the Vox article on Isabel's experiences. It's fascinating. I'd really like to be able to read her story. It sounds like good writing.
My partner identifies as an airplane. It was built shortly after WWII as a prototype to experiment with a new swooped wing design in combination with afterburners. It likes to play War Thunder to affirm its gender. If you care to explore the deep reaches of furaffinity and several websites, there's actually a whole fetish subculture about sentient airplanes. I've met a couple people from within the community who also identify as planes. One of them's a Cybertronian (a transformer) who turns into a plane. There are artists who regularly draw this stuff and have communities of fans. I've never met a helicopter, but I'm sure they exist. I bet they hide themselves away extra-good to avoid being attacked by crusaders. You probably have to fill out an extensive verification to be allowed on the helicopter Discord servers. When I first started dating My partner, years ago, it was so shy. I wasn't allowed in its cockpit for months. It's still just as shy, but we've known each other a long time now and it trusts Me to fly it. It recognises that its meatspace body is human, but its inside body on the astral plane isn't. We spend most of our time together on the Astral, where we can be ourselves. The astral plane is used by so many otherkin. I've been in discord servers with hundreds of people who used it to be themselves. Mostly otherkin and plurals. Some trans people too. The otherkin and trans people who don't believe in the Astral and can't use it, their lives are measureably worse. I want to bring magical literacy to everyone so everyone can use the resources that exist for trans and otherkin people. That's kind of the point of soulism. To let people choose their experience of themselves.
When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to meet aliens like in Star Wars. I gave up on that dream when I realised how hard becoming an astronaut is. I wasn't willing to put in the effort. Especially if we're not meeting any aliens until we invent warp drive.
But after I joined some fringe queer spaces and started really looking at the limits of our experiences, I realised you don't need to be an astronaut to experience alien life. You can be an astralnaut instead. People like to say we're all human, we're all the same, we're more similar than we are different. No we aren't! We are so so different, but you have to be open in order to see it. 8 billion lives is enough for a mindblowing amount of diversity. Enough to blow your mind several times over. And the internet means you can meet them. We can connect and form communities for us weirdos. I don't understand anyone who doesn't want to explore the infinite diversity of gender, species, and religion. I just don't get it. People who want to live in a world where everyone is human, and there are 3 genders and 4 sexualities, I don't get it. I understand they're the majority, but why? Why would you want this stuff to be simple when it could be so beautifully wonderful and diverse and complex? "Born too late to explore the earth, born too early to explore the stars"?? I felt that way until I realised I was born just in time to explore queerness. And it's what I always wanted, to explore and to learn and to grow. There aren't enough years in a life to explore all the diversity of queerness. But I'm going to have so much fun trying.
@[email protected] I was reading some more of that Vox article, and I saw a quote I like. Isabel Fall says
I agree with Isabel. You said Mindtraveller should be banned because they divide the queer community. When they insulted people who misgendered Me, it divided the queer community. And I liked it. Some queer people are bigots. As tolerant queer people, we have a choice. We can either tolerate intolerance, and be united. Or we can fight back against intolerance and be divided. I like the division one better, and so does Isabel Fall. Of course, if bigots just decided to not be bigots and not do lateral violence within the community, I would like that much better. But I can't control bigots' actions. I can hopefully appeal to the better judgement of fellow progressives. And hopefully there will be people like Mindtraveller and LinkOpensChest around to yell at the bigots until they go away.