Edit: I also just got banned for apparently being a troll. Me. Not the person they believe to be a dragon though.
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”.
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.
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.
Regardless of what the “normie world” thinks, gender is a social construct and people can do whatever they want. That doesn’t make them a troll and doesn’t invalidate them. We can’t just throw people out for being “too different” for fear of what the “normies” think. We all were too different not that long ago. We live for who we are, not for the approval of anyone else.
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?
I’m not speaking for you. I’m speaking for me, and telling you how I see it. If you think my opinion on this may not hold much weight, which seems fair, you can scroll down a little and have a conversation with a trans person who sees it 100% the same way I do.
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).
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.
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
Grail basically did that, and it got a moderator booted out for not capitalizing pronouns in a well-deserved ban message.
By the sound of things - this is about the same asshole. They just changed accounts and switched gimmicks.
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?
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?
Some people will argue that being trans isn’t real
And they’re wrong.
See how easy that was?
Having a line doesn’t mean all lines are equally valid. The possibility that someone, somewhere, might make a similar-shaped argument, does not eternally invalidate all possible forms of that argument.
And women are demonstrable. Women are a thing people can be.
The shape of that sentence is not validation for all possible mad-libs. ‘Snickers bars are a thing people can be.’ No. ‘The City of Pawnee, Indiana is a thing people can be.’ No. ‘God is a thing people can be.’ No… and there are follow-up questions.
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.
YDI.
The post clearly said “respect people’s pronouns, this rule will be enforced” and everyone getting mod action clearly states in response that they have read and understood the rules, but fully intend to break them.
There are absolutely ways to say “hey Ada, I think your judgement of this particular user is wrong and I am concerned about the damage drag does by engaging in trollish behavior” without also saying “but I plan to misgender people anyway.” The ones getting banned here fail on both counts.
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.