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.
Proposing a very specific limit on posts referring mod/admin actions taken against users on LBZ that directly fall afoul of their instance rules regarding very specific gatekeeping might have some value. The subject has been hashed and re-hashed too fucking much. Their rules are their rules, breaking those rules on the instance is clear YDI. Breaking those rules elsewhere and having action taken against you is arguably PTB. I'm in favor of the idea of putting that on wax.
Purging previous discussion is no good, and even the proposal, coming from a community mod as it does, rubs me the wrong way. It shouldn't, because you have just as much right to propose a change as any other community member, but it puts me on edge.
There is value in what's been said already, even if some of it is highly disagreeable. Suggesting removal of that record for any reason invites future discussion of the same, IMO. Not everyone who will ever be a member of this community is a member now. If we're going to consider making a rule about this whole mess, best to leave the roadmap that led us here intact.
Potential yes to a well-defined rule of specific, narrow scope. Hard, hard no to retroactive application of that rule.
I just want to clarify. The only people getting banned for remote comments are people who knowingly and explicitly gatekeep other folks identity in response to this topic coming up. They are banned so that they don't start appearing in blahaj communities with the very people they're invalidating.
To me, there's no difference. If someone's response to this topic coming up is to double down on gatekeeping, it doesn't make them any less harmful just because they did it outside of a blåhaj community.
I appreciate your willingness to respond and engage on the subject. I understand your position, and that it makes sense to you. I personally feel that there is a degree of overreach involved when action is taken based on behavior that happens outside of an instance, but I also acknowledge that defederation is a more severe version of the same action. That causes a bit of cognitive dissonance for me, which makes me wonder if I'm viewing it all wrong.
For now, I still believe that your method is beyond what I consider to be a reasonable exercise of authority. That's not a slight on you; I have always gotten the impression that all of your actions are taken with the intent of doing what you believe is best for your instance. Our philosophies just differ somewhat when it comes to exercise of authority. I find you and db0 to be the most intellectually honest of the larger instance admins with regards to how you go about the business of adminning, for whatever that's worth.
Thanks again for engaging, I hope everyone else sees that you do your best to be consistent to your instance values.
Let me challenge that. The issue isn't where they gatekeep, it's the fact that they do it at all. People willing to explicitly and deliberately undermine gender diverse folk when these conversations come up are a problem if our users can just stumble across them. It doesn't matter where the user is posting, if they're not banned, their content can and will be seen by blahaj users.
And trying to escape that shit is why so many of us have left twitter, reddit, tumblr and other centralised social media sites that just don't give a shit about transphobia. The users here come here precisely because that shit is stomped out when it's found.
Giving people a free pass because they post outside of blahaj communities just makes the overall experience similar to a mini reddit or twitter or facebook. Individual users have to each encounter the bigot, and then block them. Each of them exposed to the bigotry first.
And I appreciate that some queer folk want that experience. And that's the power of federation. They can be on an instance that doesn't react the way blahaj does. But many folk don't want to see that shit at all. They don't want to stumble across gatekeepers and bigots and people willing to actively deny them their own identity. And that's what blocking folk at the instance level does. They don't need to see the shit first before they can block it. Much of it is gone before it ever crosses folks feeds.
There is no power tripping in this approach. It is a very considered and deliberate approach that lets us avoid defederation of whole instances. Folk who don't want that experience are welcome to host their user accounts on other instances, whilst still joining in with our communities. Or host accounts on our instance and other instances like many folk do.
There is no plan to control what people see here. Just an approach that gives a vulnerable community the option of a relatively bigotry free feed.
Right back at you :)
We’re about to be genocided but yeah let’s make a safe space for fantasy fucking neo pronouns and non human identities. Yeah. You really got your eye on the ball when it comes to the safety of queer people while supporting those who make a mockery of us. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Preparing for and discussing impending genocide is not mutually exclusive to respecting neopronouns, this motte-bailey doesnt make sense and you are being extremely hateful in all of these comments. you will likely say you dont care, but it matters. im not sure this expression of panic and fear is helping anyone, though the degree of fear is completely understandable and warranted.
Fantasy identities aren’t queer and actively harm queer people.