this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2024

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Are you cisgender? Gender Survey Result: Majority of active Hexbear users say No and Maybe. (imgur.artemislena.eu)

submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3635039

Various thoughts:

Around 20 people weren't properly covered by the gender categories, obviously we're trying to be as inclusive as possible and a different approach will be tried next time

There were about 600 respondents, which gives us a accurate sampling of the active userbase. If you multiply any number by 3, you'll get a fairly accurate representation of the full userbase each week. This means there are around 800-900 people who don't identify fully as cis each week on this site.

Nearly 300 trans/gender diverse/questioning people unanimously agree that hexbear is an inclusive space

There was so much data on gender that I was really struggling to find a way to convey the data that wasnt a pie chart, graph, or an incomprehensible kalaeidoscope. If you have an idea on how to beautify the data, you can download the raw data here: https://pad.artemislena.eu/file/#/2/file/xzy4pck8on+oZp9yGRUIezR+/ - I further anonymized this data by removing time of response and any specific comments, I don't think it would be easy for anyone to figure out who is who.

There were a couple of text responses that really needed further elaboration, I noted hexbear's rules next to these comments

I'll probably be doing a demographics survey sometime in the future, including basic fairly anonymous stuff like "what region were you born in" "where do the languages you speak originate" "would you describe yourself as a POC" "what age range are you in".

The percentage of people answering they were cisgender increased by 8% than the previous survey. This could be for a myriad of reasons, such as cis people being afraid trans people will hunt them down in the public thread and assassinate them. Anonymity may have made them feel safer to respond. Regardless, way more people responded this time, which signifies that people felt safer responding to the cryptpad or it was easier to do. The leading question was a bit more inclusive than last time, but I think I'll include both questions (are you transgender / gender diverse and are you cisgender) to see how people respond.

We have a lot of people that aren't binary trans on this site.

Some of the questions were pretty funky and we got a lot of fuzzy responses on them as a result. In particular "After you realized you were trans/gender diverse, how long did it take for you to begin to act on it?" and "At what age did you begin transition?" caused a lot of friction, I think I will ask more vague questions in the future that lead to a path of more specific questions to capture better data, and to save people time. Questions like "Do you feel your gender transition had a defined starting point?" and some further ones.

Around 20 people each week on this site are cis she/hers, which is very low and roughly the same as last time. I feel like if hexbear ever starts hosting other federated stuff (like a federated tiktok or something) and can hook into it natively with lemmy, we'd see a better ratio.

I tried to be very sure any data with >2 people on it was clearly legible, I think some people might find it fun that there are others with their same fairly specific classifications per this survey lurking around on the site.

Overall I feel like the survey was a success despite some bumps.

You can find the other surveys/links here: https://hexbear.net/post/3016455

I made these graphs on company time

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[–] bi_tux 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

but why do the people on one of the most queer instances support the most queerphobic countries in the world? (Russia, China, etc.)?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The USA lodging a bomb in the house of a Chinese/Russian etc. queer person doesn't make those countries stop being queerphobic. And now that queer person doesn't have a home. There is no way to bomb only queerphobes.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (6 children)

Isn't hexbear like, one of the "transphobe" ones?...

I'm sorry if this is incorrect and i just insulted all of hexbear :(

EDIT: okay, I understand now that hexbear has dramatically changed and that they are actually a lot more strict on the rules than blahaj zone. People keep commenting the same thing on this and I keep being pinged...

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Isn’t hexbear like, one of the “transphobe” ones?

the opposite, actually! Hexbear is rabidly supportive of trans people, and defederated from Blahaj Lemmy over its comparatively lax handling of transphobia.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

No they're not. Hexbear defederated blahaj.zone because we were considering defederating them because of their habit of co-ordinated dogpiling and harassment. A hexbear admin approached me asking me if we could make it work, because lots of hexbear users were keen to use 196 (our largest community), but the explicitly anti tanky leaning of the 196 mod team was a barrier for hexbear participation in that community. Ultimately, because I wasn't willing to over-ride the 196 mods and tell them how to run their community, the hexbear community turned on blahaj.zone, and defederated us.

The message from the hexbear admin was "We want to use 196, but it's anti tanky" but somehow, that morphed in to a hexbear community opinion of "196 mods are transphobic, and the blahaj admins won't do anything about it".

The truth is, hexbear and blahaj.zone both prioritise the needs of trans folk more than any other instances you will find on lemmy. But hexbear is driven by a political ideology, and blahaj.zone is not (though we have communities that are). And that difference in ideological perspective drives all of the rest of the noise and tension between our instances.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

aaah now I remmember, the tankies, riiight... thanks for explaining!

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They ban anyone and anything with a hint of transphobia, to the point of defederating blahaj for not being hard on transphobes enough.

When the site was first created there was a big problem with stupidpols, and under the guidance of TransComrade69 underwent a purge of all transphobes on the site, including even people who were consistently downvoting posts/comments by trans users. This TC69 Thought, so to speak, continues to this day.

On the Hexbear thread there's talk of doing a purge of mysogynists next, seeing how there aren't many cis women on the site judging by this poll.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

as far as I remember, blahaj wanted to defederate cuz of users complaining about hexbears being annoying with the imperialist kind of communism but then hexbear defederated first

edit: also, I don't see how blahaj could be seen as not hard enough on transphobes :p

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

/c/196 isn't very well moderated at all... It's the biggest community on there

Also "imperialist kind of communism" lmao

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I personally monitor the reports that hit blahaj.zone. If you have an example of transphobia that was reported but allowed to stand by me or a 196 mod, I want to know about it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

My complaint with transphobia/misogyny on this site is mostly that I come across posts that are clearly one of the two (or both) that have been up for days. Meaning that no one reported it (if reports do get handled like you say) and that the mods of the community clearly didn’t have a problem with it when they came across it. I report it when I see it but I don’t come here often due to the transmisogyny and if the post has been up for days then the harm has already been done…

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I ban transphobes when I see them, even if the post has been up for a while before I see it. As you say, there is zero point in just deleting a post after it's been up for days, because the damage has been done. The post gets removed, and the person gets banned.

That being said, the source of the the transphobia the federates to us is external instances, so it's not a problem with "this site". It's a problem with other instances, ran by cis folk, who don't see or understand dog whistles and the harm of "just asking questions" type transphobia. And for posts like that, a DM to me is useful, because it can get the account generating the content removed.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

For me the posts that are problematic are always in 196 and I do think that it’s the responsibility of the mods of that community to keep it safe for (trans) women.

Do I really have to be the one to keep track of all the problematic posts if I want to convince you that it’s a systemic issue?

The main issue (but not the only one) for me is the fetishisation of trans women that is a recurring theme in that community. I’ve mentioned this before but apparently the only part that people picked up from that was that I a problem with ‘lewd memes’. I think that there is a real problem if all lewd memes are focused on the objectification of (trans) women, when most of the traffic is people (mostly cis men) from other instances who do not know how to be normal around trans people. It creates an unsafe environment for the sometimes very young trans women there who are encouraged to objectify their own bodies in unhealthy ways. Lewd posting is fine if it’s in a safe space, but 196 (and honestly almost all public spaces on the internet) really isn’t safe for the demographic that deals with the most sexual violence on and offline.

I don’t mean to sound too critical because I do appreciate this site and there is a reason I keep coming back. But also I think that this problem needs to be taken much more seriously.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

No one, including the trans fem users of this instance or of 196 are reporting the issues you're describing, and I haven't encountered them myself (though I rarely use 196). So yes, if it's happening, I do need help identifying the cis folk objectifying trans folk.

I can't solve a problem I can't see.

If the issue isn't explicitly the cis folk responding, but more the trans folk themselves choosing to put themselves out there, then that's not really something that can be addressed. I'm not going to decide for them what's appropriate for them to do with their own bodies and lives.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

well, thats what I remember everyone complaining about :p

also, doesnt seem like just one big community on a different instance not being moderated enough would be enough to defederate from the whole instance, specially since I remember hexbear wanting to stay federated to not divide the leftists+queers or something like that

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

specially since I remember hexbear wanting to stay federated to not divide the leftists+queers or something like that

No, that was me. I wanted to stay federated with hexbear because trans solidarity is more important to me than political ideology. It didn't work, but I tried to make it work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

also, I don't see how blahaj could be seen as not hard enough on transphobes :p

iirc the 196 comm had at least one transmed/truscum mod at the time of defederation, plus admins for Blahaj Zone refused to condemn an admin from another instance who said some transphobic shit, including accusing a Hexbear user of pretending to be trans for internet sympathy points or some bizarre shit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Who was this trans med? Trans med folk are explicitly not welcome, and never have been, and no mention of trans med mods was reported to me, despite me being in direct communication with a hexbear admin.

Trans meds are banned, and I don't care who they are or what they moderate. My stance on that pre-dates lemmy itself.

I have also defederated from and publicly called out instances and admins for transphobia and harassment, and have zero hesitation to do so again, so that second accusation is a strange one...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

honestly, it was a year ago and I don’t remember specifics, I just remember there was transphobia from mods and screenshots to back it up.

I also remember the admins here “forgave” an admin named snow or something (from programming.dev, I think?) for his transphobic responses to a hexbear user, and users here even talked about how hexbear users must be faking transness because they don’t act the same way liberal (conservative) trans people do.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I also remember the admins here “forgave” an admin named snow or something (from programming.dev, I think?) for his transphobic responses to a hexbear user

That's a really interesting spin on the issue. The admin in question posted transphobic comments regarding a hexbear user, and called blahaj.zone the "good" kind of trans folk.

As a response to that, we made a public announcement that we were defederating from programming.dev unless the matter was addressed, and ultimately, it was addressed, so we didn't defderate.

Which is to say, an admin on an instance that wasn't ours, directed transphobia against another instance that wasn't ours, without really involving us, and we made plans to defederate as a result.

It amazes me, that somehow, blahaj.zone is in the wrong for "forgiving" programming.dev when ~~hexbear not only "forgave" the admin in question, but never planned on taking action regarding the issue in the first place.~~ hexbear did the same and programming.dev is currently listed on their white list of federated instances

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

oh didnt know about that mod, hopefully they got removed but I dont like the 196 mods much in general :p

also what does condemn mean there?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

edit: also, I don’t see how blahaj could be seen as not hard enough on transphobes :p

Afaik hexbear's main problem was with an alleged lack of moderation on c/196 regarding chasers

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I dont think Ive ever seen chasers (not getting banned) here, but Ive seen people not liking how horny 196 gets sometimes

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

A "problem" that arose only after I rejected an appeal from hexbear to ask the 196 mods to remove the anti tanky aspects from their rules and logo. Prior to that refusal, the "lack of moderation" didn't seem to bother the hexbear community, who were actively seeking to participate in 196 according to conversations with a hexbear admin

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Hexbear used to have a lot of transphobes around 3 to 4 years ago, but now (as can be seen by the survey) it is one of the most accepting places for queer and queer adjacent identities.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Interesting. Didn't blahaj zone block hexbear because of this earlier?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago

Quite the opposite.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

I don't know where you got that idea. As far as I know, Hexbear is the biggest safe space for literally anyone who isn't a fascist.

They enforce strong policies against any kind of discrimination, be it about race, gender, sexual orientation, they even have mandatory CW for any content showing meat.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

It isn't, but when I peeked it (looking for an instance) felt particularly hostile in general. My reading here about the drama makes me feel like them leaving did everyone a favor.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/2017079

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Too bad it has... other issues.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Yeah they do be posting about beans too much on there sometimes...

[–] Valmond 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You mean they are pro tankies?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I hear they're woke too

[–] Valmond 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Is that some "ironic" joke I don't get?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Conservatives vaguepost about "the woke", liberals vaguepost about "the tankies", I take them both equally seriously

[–] Valmond 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well 'woke' is just a stupid word to rile up conservatives.

A tankie is a well defined, and old term, designing sheep-people blindly following the dictatorship in the Kremlin during the Czechoslovakia revolt.

Today we use it for the same type of people following the kremlins orders and/or dictators fals flagging as communists. Like Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Putin, etcetera.

I mean it isn't that hard to understand or look up, is it?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Oh I thought tankie meant anyone to the left of Biden, because that's how it's being used in practical terms. Cool lore I guess?

Also you know the whole "sending in the tanks" thing comes from Khrushchev right? He was anti stalin- which is why the term reminds me of the way conservatives use 'woke' to indicate to other conservatives that the designated target is 'bad'

Liberals use 'tankie' the same way, regardless of its historical meaning, cause pretty much anyone sufficiently anti-war seems to get called one

[–] Valmond 2 points 2 months ago (13 children)

No, tankie is from the fifties, nothing to do with Biden or Trump.

Khruschev, Lenin, Brezhnev etc, all raging murderous dictators, just some were worse than others. Kruschev got the world the closest to WW3 and nuclear anihilation, so there's that.

"Liberals" is another of those throw around words that has lost its meaning. I mean we all want to be liberal as in free, but it seems it's just used to show people who are supposedly stupid?

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Really cool and thorough graphs, maybe she'll do one on lemmy sometime?

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