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.
To all the blahaj stans:
You got it backwards, being against blahaj and what it stands for is culture war bullshit.
Sorry I identify as an attack helicopter now because that’s what blahaj prioritizes. Bullshit identities and ideologies that make a mockery of actual queer people. As a safe space!
Can y’all leave the attack helicopter bullshit in 2016 where it belongs.
What’s the difference between a dragon or a dog or a cat or whatever fucking non human entity and an attack helicopter? Thanks for making my point. These people are trolls actively harming queer people with their bullshit and are given a safe space out of “tolerance” while actual queer people are banned for not giving into that bullshit.
I think people should be able to live their lives however they want. I find “identifying” as an animal/vehicle/non-human entity a bit weird, but ultimitely, people should be able to do what they want.
The main problem is that arguments like that are usually used to invalidate people who don’t conform to binary genders. “People identifying as neither male or female? Where does it stop? Why can’t I identify as a a dog or cat?”
I don’t think that they should be considered queer, as animals and stuff have nothing to do with gender.
People can do whatever the hell they want and receive pushback for it. They’re not special and they’re actively harming queer people with their fantasy bullshit.
I think that since they aren’t harming anyone, they shouldn’t get pushback. When they go into the wrong spaces, they should get pushback, but that is dangerously close to gatekeeping
Their existence harms queer people and fuels right wing attacks on us because they want to live in fantasy land and need mental health help.
lol that telling you to take it elsewhere is “making you believe absurities”
no one has to believe shit we just have to not be assholes about it
Unfortunately that’s not possible for the people who are whining and complaining about blahaj here. They’re incapable of not being assholes which is why they got banned in the first place.
I am genuinely concerned for your well-being and your grasp on reality. Do you even realize what you’re defending? Do you think everyone who points to observable evidence contrary to your comforting preconceived notions is just evil? I’m seriously concerned about your bubble and I am worried about the toll it will take on you and your personal relationships. You demonize me over imploring you to think critically about the information you surround yourself in. You don’t seem to consider that you and your affiliations are fallible, and you’re going to experience a lot of difficulties in life if you carry on assuming that if you do something or you associate with something, then it can’t be wrong. I don’t wish harm on you, but you sure do spit a lot of venom at me for wanting you to be present in reality and to embrace empathy.
The irony is, your comment can be uno reversed right back at you.
No. You can’t just say things that are convenient for you to believe and by doing so make them true. That delusion is the foundation of the row, specifically the notion on blahaj that magic incantations can make fictional creatures real. I’m not a bad person for telling you that Pegasus and Pikachu and Popeye aren’t real and can’t be real, and one would be willfully daft and willfully destructive to defend the dogma that says otherwise.
Squorlples aren’t real, you should stop using that name as you can’t magically make them real. You should instead go by “human”.
You seem to struggle with differentiating between the material and the abstract. If somebody pisses on your leg and tells you it’s raining, it’s actually piss, not rain.
Apart from the fact that neopronouns are usually just someone enjoying the freedom to “be who they want to be”, do the neopronouns hurt you?