Edit: I also just got banned for apparently being a troll. Me. Not the person they believe to be a dragon though.
That’s what that post was about? The dragon fucker dude? I blocked him within a week of him existing because he was such an annoying person. I’m as much of a furry as any other socially maladjusted child raised by the internet but have some self control, dude.
Blåhaj Lemmy and its communities have certain rules regarding respecting of one’s identity and their chosen pronouns. This extends to identities and pronouns you might not agree with. Those are the rules of that space. You broke the rules. The consequences followed. This is just basic stuff.
On the other hand, if you believe certain people to be trolling with their neopronouns, then engaging with the matter in any way, is kind of “falling” for it. So, just … don’t engage? This is the internet. People get to be (more or less seriously) humanoid animals, fantasy creatures and races, and if you can’t get along with that, you can expect to get thrown out of a space that explicitly welcome anyone regardless of their identity or pronouns.
People get to be (more or less seriously) humanoid animals, fantasy creatures and races, and if you can’t get along with that, you can expect to get thrown out of a space that explicitly welcome anyone regardless of their identity or pronouns.
If I were a transgender person, I would not go within ten miles of a community that was applying the same rules to fantasy creature role playing as it was to my gender pronouns. The normie world doesn’t need to have any assistance in seeing the whole thing as made up, equivalent to wanting to be called a dolphin or a mermaid, and confusing those two very, very different concepts, or treating them as deserving of precisely the same treatment and rules, sounds very wrong to me.
FWIW I am trans and I 100% agree with you. Been thinking about making an account on another instance, just not sure which yet.
Yeah, this is basically like trying to reclaim the “I sexually identify as an attack helicopter” meme. I get the admins’ logic and see what they’re going for, but IMO the cost in credibility is too great.
100%. It is wrong to elevate roleplay (which, let’s be clear, is exactly what this is) to the same level of importance as someone’s actual gender identity.
It’s a false equivalence and does a huge disservice to trans people who are fighting for their right to even exist.
Don’t speak for trans people. Regardless of whether drag thinks drag’s an actual dragon or if it’s roleplay or just a fun neopronoun, respect people’s identities. I don’t have to get it. If someone says “I’d like to be referred to as fae,” then I’m calling fae exactly what fae wants. I have a friend that uses “love/love” as neopronouns. I don’t get it, and yes it can be confusing, but that isn’t roleplay or hurting anyone’s right to exist. This is exactly the type of infighting that conservatives try to start, and you’re either falling for it or white knighting for people that don’t need it.
Gender is made up and entirely a social construct, and some people choose to make their own rules because the rules don’t actually exist. For some reason that really pisses people off that otherwise think they’re being allies.
If I were a transgender person
Thanks for “cisplaining” what a trans person would feel.
As a trans person, I would rather have a space where everyone’s identities aren’t questioned, than some kind of (potentially hidden) requirement to be in place that your identity has to be “real” in some way. If “normies” have trouble respecting trans people just because we also happen to respect other identities in our spaces, then shrug. If fellow trans people are uncomfortable with that, they don’t have to be part of this space, either.
In the end, you’re once again making this a much bigger deal than it has to be. Someone broke the explicitly written out rules and got bonked for it. And if you think this person is a troll, they sure are a good one with how much they’re being fed with all these posts.
Makes me wonder if the “I got banned” posts are just a continuation of the trolling to make as much drama as possible.
Move on. There’s trans people dying out there. This isn’t worth fighting over.
I care about issues of censorship and trolling, and the social contract on the network, that’s the only reason I am in this discussion. I think the whole “call me drag” thing is not worth that much attention, yes, but banning a bunch of people for saying dragons aren’t real sort of drew my attention to it.
I don’t know. It is your instance. You can do what you like with it, but keep in mind that not everyone who is obeying the rules to the letter is your friend.
It isn’t censorship if you get your post / comment removed or banned for breaking a rule. That’s just the moderators / admins doing their job. And there’s a subtext to saying “dragons aren’t real”, which is “I don’t think I need to respect this person’s identity or pronouns”. That’s why it’s gatekeeping. You don’t get to decide what identities / pronouns are valid or which rules apply to you because you think you made a good point.
It isn’t censorship if you get your post / comment removed or banned for breaking a rule.
Sure it is.
By my reading of the db0 terms of service, you’ve broken them here, because you are advocating for systems of authoritarian control and against the open discussion of ideas. Would you support banning your user from db0 so we can’t have this conversation? Is that censorship?
I don’t think you should get banned, of course. Because you’re clearly talking in good faith, and I like being able to talk with people, even when I disagree with them. I just would have a wish that the network as a whole generally works like that.
You don’t get to decide what identities / pronouns are valid
But the blahaj admins do! If I showed up and said my pronouns were “thatsaspicymeatball,” they would decide that wasn’t valid. They would not ban people for not using that as my pronouns, or for discussing the issue. They’ve just decided to make their judgement call in one particular place instead of another. That’s fine, of course, but then mechanically enforcing that everyone has to act in exact accordance with where they drew the line, even though there’s room for reasonable disagreement, is what will get people talking about you on PTB.
The reality of human life is that people look at things differently sometimes. I get wanting to protect your space against ignorance or people who will make someone feel unwelcome. But this is taking it to an extreme, forcing everyone to look at things in exactly the same chosen way, which is tearing down the thing you’re trying to accomplish, I think.
Does db0 have a ToS? I can see an “Anarchist Code of Conduct”, which seems to only support my points. In addition, db0 Lemmy has its own rules that could be seen as censorship just the same. Pointing out either instance’s rules existing presumably doesn’t imply that I’m advocating for authoritarian control or against discussion of ideas.
If you said your pronouns were 19 characters long, then one would argue that it is no longer functioning as a pronoun. drag/drag, other than being exotic, works fine in place of a pronoun. (Though one could argue it is so unique it’s more akin to a nickname, but that’s another discussion to be had.) If you instead said your pronouns were that/that, and being serious about it, it would likely be accepted. Sure, you could argue it’s a line being drawn elsewhere, but it’s not on the matter of identity.
I know numerous people that use fae/faer pronouns, some friends. Fairies aren’t real, either. Does that mean people should be allowed to make those same arguments, be allowed to openly be disrespectful and arguing against the use of those pronouns, in a space that explicitly asks you to respect them? No, of course not. Admittedly, I don’t know anyone who isn’t also okay with certain non-neopronouns being used for them as well, but if they weren’t, I personally wouldn’t think much about it and just use them.
In the code of conduct is:
Voluntary interaction, especially when it includes:
- Inclusive language and behavior,
- Welcoming attitude and approach,
- Rational debate and discussion,
- Genuine exchanges of ideas,
What is Unacceptable
- Authoritarianism, or the spread of behavior that is designed to overturn the standards described so far
You could say that’s misleadingly trimmed. I was mainly just trying to make a point: Just because something is according to the written rules doesn’t make it right. Also, you’re currently coming into a space and violating its community standards, and no one is banning you, nor should they, I think. That is one way you can wind up talking with people even if at the outset they may not agree with you on everything.
If you said your pronouns were 19 characters long, then one would argue that it is no longer functioning as a pronoun.
You don’t get to decide what identities / pronouns are valid or which rules apply to you because you think you made a good point.
See how that works?
My point was that they’re exercising judgement already, as you would to my requested pronouns, because of course they are. Everyone who’s doing moderation has to exercise judgement.
It isn’t censorship if you get your post / comment removed or banned for breaking a rule.
…
Alright I suppose it technically is censorship. I’m not a native English speaking person. You certainly shouldn’t be surprised about a community’s rules being enforced, though. I don’t think it would be sensible to complain about “censorship” if (as an example) one is spouting bigoted nonsense at family dinner and is getting thrown out the house as a result.
I would say this is more like being told “No prejudice” at Thanksgiving Dinner, and then being thrown out for saying that mashed potatoes were a mistake of god.
It is technically prejudiced (against mashed potatoes), but it is not the assumption most people would have upon being told “No prejudice”. Likewise, being told “Don’t discriminate against anyone’s gender identity” does not, for many, call to mind “Don’t say people can’t be dragons or that dragons aren’t real, they can be dragons if they want”.
In this thread:
Blahaj Community: If you’re not trans, you don’t get a say in how trans spaces are run.
You: If I were a transgender person, here’s how I think I’d feel!
But mate, you’re not trans! How great, your opinion literally doesn’t matter a half fucking iota. It’s not needed or even wanted. Cishets run the world, so fuck right off out of trans spaces with your “but if I were trans” opinions. You’re not, no one cares.
I notice that literally 0 of the several people who are lecturing me on how I don’t have a right to make this statement have engaged with the trans person who said they feel 100% the same way.
I suspect the reason is that you have no interest in giving the same level of respect you’re demanding, and mostly you want to give the lecture, and receiving one would be unacceptable, even from someone who has the same badge of “I’m allowed to give a lecture” that you’re trying to cash in.
Honestly? I think you should talk to that person. They might be able to tell you things like “Just because you’re trans doesn’t mean you automatically speak for all trans people,” or “Just because you’re trans doesn’t mean you automatically are right about everything, yes, even when trans issues are involved.” I can’t say that, because I have no authority to, it’s just offensive. With them, you could have a real interaction, and you, or they, might be able to learn something. As you rightly pointed out, the usefulness of what I have to say on it is going to be limited.
I realized a while ago that me and blahaj weren’t going to vibe, and I left them alone to do their thing and me mine. This, however, is a space that I like to call home, to some extent, talking about issues that are important to me. I’m a little bit reluctant for my opinions to get kicked out of it completely because they’ve intersected with your issues. Hopefully that seems fair.
Again: If you’re trying to have this interaction for an exchange of views between qualified people, I’m not the person to talk with. If you’re just into the idea of giving a lecture to an unqualified person, but not in that other thing, which to me seems like it would be a lot more useful… why?
If I were a transgender person,
I’m trans and while I appreciate your attempt to empathize, I would like to ask you to never question a trans person’s pronouns again. When cis people start drawing lines about what’s “acceptably trans”, I get extremely uncomfortable. I don’t care how weird or crazy it seems, it’s not your place to do so.
I have had some very bad experiences with cis people trying to tell me that I’m not trans enough for them; that is why I get pissed off when it comes to cis people sticking their noses where it doesn’t belong. Hell, America is going turbo-mode on anti-trans rhetoric because a bunch of dumbass cis people think they know better than trans people.
I don’t care how strange drag’s pronouns are; it isn’t your place to decide whether or not drag is valid (drag is literally just asking you to refer to drag by a shortened version of drag’s name instead of he/she/they/xe/whatever, it’s not that hard).
The users are taking issue with the admins falling for the troll and allowing the troll to make the space hostile. Their engagement is with the admin/mod response, not with the user.
If you genuinely believe dragons are real and they are able to type and have some understanding of the English language, go gather the data, get it peer reviewed and objectively verified, and go collect your Nobel Prize. Otherwise, if you occupy a space in which people must act as if dragons or Santa or Groot are real, that is an improv roleplay in which failure to say “Yes, and” is a bannable offense. Reality persists. Eppur si muove.
fantasy creatures
By using that adjective, you are implying there are creatures which do not exist. You’re defending the admin response by partaking in the same act which got the users banned.
Imagine dragonfucker instead said “I am Jesus Christ reborn, refer to me as the Lord.”. Obvious madness and I doubt any community would respect it. It’s the same fantasy shit just dragons are nominally aligned with furry culture
Why are you hung up on the “dragons aren’t real” thing? That was never a requirement. Some people will argue that being trans isn’t real, being plural isn’t real, being genderfluid isn’t real, being bigender or another gender entirely isn’t real. (Not that you are claiming this.) As such, the admins there simply decided that there won’t be a line drawn. Let people do what they want. Heck, you could consider it “roleplaying” if you’re more comfortable with that, or alternatively, simply don’t engage. It’s disrespectful and not to mention disruptive to make it an issue.
Why are you hung up on the “dragons aren’t real” thing? That was never a requirement.
It was never a requirement that serious expressions of identity be real?
Yes. Them’s the rules on Blåhaj Lemmy.
I mean, apparently so, but I was not operating under the assumption that “We don’t believe in gender, this is all roleplay” was the base state of the instance, and many others seem surprised by it too.
What part of the removed comments do you think was considered gatekeeping by the admins, if not the statements that dragons aren’t real?
there won’t be a line drawn
Then any interaction in that superposition of reality and fiction is pointless. Acknowledgment of reality will be arbitrarily censored, such as above. It ceases to be roleplay and becomes a localized Ministry of Truth with the admins kowtowing to the trolls.
Let people do what they want.
People wanted to state the obvious about objective reality. Admin did not let them do that. People wanted to distinguish between reality and fiction. Admin did not let them do that.
It’s disrespectful
Disrespectful to whom? Trolls? Reality?
By questioning the person’s neopronouns, you’re gatekeeping which identities or pronouns are acceptable. Nobody cares whether dragons are real or not. Many letters of the alphabet mafia have been questioned on whether they are real or not, and even continue to be, so over here, we’re simply not doing that.
As for why you’re being disrespectful: You broke the rules of the space and now you’re making a big stink about it. Considering you’re admitting yourself you think this person is a troll, I think it’s time to admit your loss. You “fell” for them, got “tricked” into breaking a rule, and got banned as a result.
Have y’all never seen assholes abuse the language of sexual preference?
We’ve had to deal with people insisting that fucking kids is their identity. NAMBLA was a whole thing, to the point it became a South Park episode and a running gag on the Daily Show. Over on Tumblr, people tried pushing “minor-attracted person” or MAP as just another humdrum flag under the rainbow. If any forum said ‘you will not question that or imply the slightest disagreement with that,’ would you suddenly respect those people?
Hell, 4chan tried pushing “super straight” to mean, only cis women count. This was a deliberate organized effort (by 4chan standards) to appropriate the shape of queer activism, specifically to shit on trans people. As if calling those bigots, bigots, was the real bigotry.
Some things are not sexual preference. Calling that gatekeeping, instead of just having a definition, is a thought-terminating cliche. Acceptability has nothing to do with it - this thing is not that thing. It’s a category error.
Why is it powertriping if you clearly broke the stated rules.
That’s like agreeing to a contract without any comolains and then complaining the contract is unfair if you break it.
Blahaj was never intended to be a free speech zone, it was intended to be the one place on the internet trans people feel safe, so they really don’t care what you think, it isn’t made for you.
As stated elsewhere here, most people would not interpret “Don’t question people’s gender identity” as “Don’t say dragons aren’t real or that people can’t be dragons”.
I disagree. It is a community for gender diverse folk and the rules are there to protect them. This is not about the dragon. It is about respecting someone’s identity. “Dragons aren’t real” in the context of someone identifying as a dragon is no different than a TERF telling a trans woman that trans women don’t exist. It it inherently questioning her identity, transphobic, and attacking her.
Can you see how that would be problematic? I think anyone surpise pikachu’ed by this should consider learning how to be a better ally instead of thinking they can say hurtful stuff.
I disagree.
As I said, ‘most people would not interpret’, and there is certainly a large number of people who quite clearly and vocally did not interpret the rule in the way that it has been clarified.
It it inherently questioning her identity,
Yes, in this case, because dragons are literally not real.
Questioning an identity that is at odds with reality is not a sin.
As i said, it’s not about drag. Regardless if you think drag is trolling, there are people who identity as fae/faerie. Are you going to tell them they don’t exist too?
As i said, it’s not about drag. Regardless if you think drag is trolling, there are people who identity as fae/faerie. Are you going to tell them they don’t exist too?
If they mean ‘faerie’ as in ‘literally one of the fae folk’? Yes, this is not much of a surprise to anyone past the age of kindergarten, but the fae folk aren’t real either. Holy shit.
Sounds good. Thanks for making it easy to know who to block
Sounds good. Thanks for making it easy to know who to block
Christ.
Imagine being such a jaded fuck that you can’t simply allow someone to identify how they so choose. Eat shit, PugJesus
Not actively and unprompted, but since you’re asking: yes, fae aren’t real (and if we ever discover them hiding somewhere, I’ll happily apologise!).
And no, I’m not a transphobe or whatever label you’re gonna try and put on me. But obvious trolls baiting people into getting banned, because dragons aren’t real no matter how you “identify”, are not a good look for you.
Looks like you prefer trolls to people who actually care about trans issues, in which case: good luck with your communities!
“Gatekeeping” is an especially funny thing to accuse people of while you are gatekeeping.
Now that everyone has had a chance to argue all day about this, I’m gonna lock this post so you can go touch grass.
I agree that Drag is a massive troll and that user has been banned from many instances over the past few months, including this one.
Maybe try leaving it up to the folks at blajah to decide what they want to be called and maybe just play along with it, even if you find it weird. “Normal” is so fucking boring anyway. If you really can’t cope with occasionally coming across an unusual pronoun and being asked to simply accept it without having a meltdown, you probably don’t belong on blajah anyway. Just move on.
The “gatekeeping” bans seem like a BPR to me given the context in which it was posted. Having said that, I don’t entirely understand the rationale for blajah’s rule, since the effect seems to be that you either need to be 100% behind fantasy neo-pronouns and identities (including drag? dragonfucker??) or cop a ban, but if that’s how they want things then that’s up to them. Not every space is for everyone, and diversity of communities and instances is mostly a good thing.
As far as our instance (dbzer0) goes, malicious/intentional misgendering of users is not permitted, similar to blajah. However, like others in this thread have argued, I agree that someone who literally identifies as a dragon fucker does not deserve to be taken seriously about anything, and it’s entirely reasonable to simply assume the choice of pronouns is just another form of trolling. The context and drag’s extensive mod history (along with previous alts) are important factors here too.
It’s also concerning to me that people are being attacked and reported for being “bigots” or “anti-trans” in the comments just because they have hesitations over what are effectively contentious edge cases involving neo-pronouns and an infamous troll. I know for a fact that many of the commenters in this thread are very supportive of trans people, trans rights and respecting a person’s chosen gender pronouns. They just have a problem with this particular dragon-fucker, not because Drag is trans, but because Drag is a narcissistic troll and a community wrecker who thrives on all the drama.
I’m leaving the comments intact for the record, but will add a CW below:
CW: possible misgendering in comments below, at least if you agree dragon fucker is a gender
Just to add to this. We don’t have problems with people identifying with fantasy races. Go be weird and whatnot. But there’s a line between what you identify as and with rubbing your kink in everyone’s faces constantly. So just to be clear out stance is not pro-disputing anyone’s identity and not respecting third-party person neopronouns. It about disputing whether your gender is being challenged because someone said “you”.
I suppose I should thank everyone in this comment section. I was initially feeling a little like I might have overreacted to an admin making a decision that no one in their right minds would actually defend when I sadposted on 196 about leaving, but seeing the wellspring of support for dragonfuckergender, I now feel comfortable in that leaving Blahaj is, indeed, the correct choice.
You absolutely did over react.
Not at all. Like I said, considering the reactions of Blahaj users in this thread, Blahaj quite clearly is not any place I want to remain active in.
Ah yes, they’re all crazy, where have we heard that line before? God forbid we treat people with the slightest bit of dignity.
You didn’t get banned for saying dragons aren’t real, you got banned for rejecting their identity. YDI.
Their identity isn’t a dragon. Like they might identify as a dragon but thats a very different thing from sexuality or being trans. And I’m not gonna start calling them a dragon because of it.
Their identity is someone who “rides” dragons. Nobody ever said anything about sexuality or gender identity.
You don’t have to respect that, but if you walk into a community that says “we will ban you if you disrespect anyone’s identity” you don’t get to act like you’re the victim when that happens.
I’m gonna be honest, y’all kinda fucking dumb lmao.
Let’s say drag is a troll. If so, then drag’s wanting you to do exactly what you’re doing now. You have taken the bait, hook, line and sinker. Congrats! You’re helping drag cause problems! To avoid taking the bait, you gotta use drag’s pronouns. Do that, and there’ll be no drama for drag to stir up.
If drag isn’t a troll, then you’re just being a dick and intentionally causing drama when you could just use drag’s pronouns. By doing so, you’d make drag feel happy and accepted; which would be very progressive of you.
Soooooo… By posting this, at best you’re just feeding a troll and making other trans people question whether or not their pronouns will be respected (no, really, when cis people start drawing lines for trans people, I get extremely uncomfortable; it’s not your place to do so, fuck right off), at worst you’re being a piece of shit.
Edit: the fucking entitlement of cis people telling trans people how to run their spaces is sickening. I thought Lemmy was supposed to be fairly progressive, yet once again I’m being shown that cis people believe they deserve a voice in something that has nothing to do with them. You don’t get to call yourself an ally when you question someone’s validity.
You disgust me.
The discussion is about people being banned from blahaj, not about whether we want to use these particular pronouns.
I’m sure the dragon user is tickled pink about all the drama, yes, but talking about policy when people are getting banned seems like a good thing to do even that notwithstanding.
YUP. no notes. i see no shortage of “i’m blocking you now” in comment replies to other people. it’s two easy clicks to block a single divisive user. why not drag?
because you all clearly enjoy the drama. you wanted to flex your rejection muscles in the face of clearly stated rules in a community space that was not designed for you. enjoy! yall brought this on yourselves.
You’re acting like this is a bunch of posters getting together to dogpile on poor drag instead of a bunch of posters being upset at the actions and statements of the admin.
