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.
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.
On the User A side
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
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.
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.
I know that there’s no amount of complaining about misgendering that could convince me to use certain slur pronouns.
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.
I get that we’re talking about edge cases of edge cases here, so maybe the whole thing is purposeless anyway.
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.
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.
