I recently made a new account on lemmy.blahaj.zone, because I’ve been harassed and doxxed on my old account and I wanted a fresh start with a more lighthearted online identity that I could be more open about my gender identity on. I’d heard blahaj zone was good for trans people, so I made my account there. And yeah, [email protected] removed my post discussing neuronormativism from a queer perspective, but I hoped maybe “the trans instance” would be friendlier to trans people.
A couple days after making my account, I saw someone on Blahaj engaging in the tired old cliche of “I hate politics, there’s no politics on my social media and I want to keep it that way!” Well we’ve all heard the joke that the two races are white and political, the two genders are male and political, and the two sexualities are straight and political. Hatred of politics is a transphobic, sexist, and racist trope. And having sufferred harassment and abuse from people inside the queer community who “hated politics” and saw trans or nonbinary or xenogender identities as political, I knew this kind of speech was going to make bigots feel comfortable saying they also hate politics, and they think us trans people are it.
So, I responded to the transphobia. I started out by attempting to educate them on what politics actually means. But I was interrupted by the Blahaj admin Ada, who told me that politics is “anything I disagree with”, and that indeed politics isn’t welcome on Blahaj. This language was deeply triggering of my past issues dealing with abuse, and I knew from past experience this sort of thing is said by people who are getting ready to say some enbyphobic or racist hate speech. It is especially common for white queer people to talk this way to BIPOC queer people. I tried to reason with Ada, explained the history of the cliche, the trauma it’s caused many trans people, and the consequences this kind of speech will have on the community here, making us all less safe.
Ada wasn’t having it. She minimised my concerns by reducing them to my personal trauma while ignoring my wider concerns for others’ safety, and weaponised my PTSD to paint my opinions as invalid because I am mentally ill. She said she owns Blahaj, and she gets to do whatever she wants with it, and nobody is allowed to express a differing opinion, even one that protects trans people, because that’s politics. At the time I thought her concern was me speaking directly to transphobes and making them feel uncomfortable by calling out their actions, so I said I’d just report it instead, and she banned my account.
This behaviour protects transphobes, WILL lead to trans and BIPOC people being harassed on this instance, attacks and gaslights victims of trauma (my concerns can’t be valid because I have a mental illness), and forces out any trans person with a commitment to safety for the community.
The thread where all this happened: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2143969
I think the issue was more about forcing intense discourse on people who aren’t interested in having that conversation at that moment.
You werent banned for calling out transphobia, you were banned because you were being pedantic and argumentative. Plus you were on a new account so everything all together made it look like you were trolling.
I think if you had stopped after one or two comments it would be fine. My rule is generally to point out something if I feel it needs to be said, then maybe give one more clarifying response, then let it go.
Another choice would be to make a separate post somewhere discussing the neuances of ‘disliking politics’ – then people who comment on it clearly want to have that discussion and are opting in.
It seems like the situation triggered you, and sometimes the most productive choice is to step back from the conversation and move on.
Sorry you got banned, i hope you find a new comfy home on lemmy!
I just wanted to thank you for giving actionable advice to them and having a pleasant tone.
Of course :) might as well try and be helpful
By the way:
A Hexbear admin also gets involved and sends a message to the mods of c/196 demanding the removal of the sub-Lemmy’s banner, because it contains “fuck tankies”, arguing that tankies is a slur.
This is blatantly false. Our mod did not “demand” that they remove the banner, they asked politely, not expecting much to come of it, and absolutely nobody ever called “tankie” a slur. What actually happened is that after Moss posted this message to make fun of it, she used a word derived from “liberal” and “r----d,” and when someone criticized it she removed their comment, with modlog listing the reason as “imagine being this braindead.” When we pushed back on it, Ada scolded her about it but did not remove her as a mod. Since our mods and community had been making changes to better accommodate blahaj (they didn’t mention that we stayed out of their second thread once they actually requested that, or that the lemm.ee admin gave us permission to comment on their thread), we decided at that point that the effort wasn’t worth it.
Come to Hexbear! We love our trans and neurodivergent comrades, we’re super political all the time, and we have way thicker skin
Come to Hexbear! We love our trans neurodivergent comrades, we’re super political all the time, and we have way thicker skin
Yes, this.
Your offer is enticing. I still have concerns. I’ve heard rumours that hexbear is welcoming to genocide apologia. Are these rumours true?
No, although we are skeptical about certain claims of genocide. There’s a big difference between denying well-documented genocides like the Holocaust, vs being skeptical when a source starts making claims without evidence. Generally I like to think we do a decent job of investigating sources and considering multiple perspectives from around the world. You’re welcome to ask about any specific cases.
I’m gonna be upfront because you seem like someone who would respect that, so here are some of our positions that might get labelled that way:
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Many of the more egregious claims about Chinese Uighurs can be traced back to one guy, Adrian Zenz, who used some very questionable methodology to arrive at his claims. We’ll push back against any claims that rely only on his word, and some people call this genocide denial, but we don’t believe in taking dubious evidence as credible just to avoid being accused of that.
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During the war in Ukraine, Russia has transported war orphans to families in Russia, which some people have labelled as genocide because they’ll be raised culturally Russian instead of culturally Ukrainian. I don’t think the term is appropriate, because imo getting orphans to safety is the priority over preserving culture. Opinions about the war differ, and the whole situation is very fucked, but every war produces orphans and not every war is a genocide.
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We’re critical of Double Genocide Theory, the idea that Soviet actions in WWII constituted a genocide on the same level of the Holocaust, a theory which has been criticized by many Jewish historians as trivializing the Holocaust. That doesn’t mean Soviet actions are above criticism, but we don’t like when people equate them with the Nazis.
I think that covers the main things people criticize us for. Like I said you’re welcome to pick our brains and judge for yourself what you think of us. We don’t have any animosity against any ethnic group and racism is not tolerated.
Well, I don’t know too much about the Russian Ukraine war orphans controversy, but I had a discussion about the Ughur genocide two years ago in which me and my partner ended up reaching the same conclusions you’ve put there. And I had a russian ex-girlfriend who said Stalin was BFFs with the jews and that the Jews conducted a genocide of the slavs during the societ union, and I don’t trust a word out of her mouth so your views look correct there too. I guess I’ll explore Hexbear when I have the time
Hope you like us!
that the Jews conducted a genocide of the slavs during the societ union
That sounds absolutely wild, I’ve never heard anything like that
Yeah I’m not up to date on my soviet history, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt right up until she said the jews control the media. That’s when I dumped her.
I came to hexbear and I’m already banned, what gives? https://hexbear.net/u/PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES
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I came to hexbear and I’m already banned, what gives? https://hexbear.net/u/PM_ME_FAT_ENBIES
Modlog says “inappropriate name.”
We don’t share selfies on Hexbear due to privacy and safety concerns.
Hating politics is not transphobic.
I don’t believe that’s what they were saying. They were saying that transphobes often use the phrase to shut down conversation about their transphobic comments. That doesn’t mean anyone who uses the phrase is a transphobe using it for that purpose.
It’s literally what they are saying. Just look at their reply to me.
Thanks for the pointer, I agree with you now. What I get for giving people a shred of the benefit of the doubt…
This behavior is why hexbear has defeated from blahaj.
I heard it was just a moderator on 196 that the admin removed after they were transphobic. Am I misinformed?
Were they removed? Because the issue was that Ada was tolerating their transphobia because the community was big.
The moderator in question is trans Ada never told them to stop being transphobic. Hexbear users just can’t stop lying and making up bullshit drama can you?
You’re right, the issue was ableism. I’m all frazzled from talking about transphobia and couldn’t remember the hexbear drama very well because it wasn’t interesting to me until the transphobia stuff I experienced
So uninteresting that your supposed transphobia happened in a thread dedicated to the drama? You’re lies are showing, you’re not a very good troll.
I was new to the instance and wanted to familiarise myself with the topical issues that were occuring. Memory consolidation had not yet begun when I encountered transphobia and got into a drama about it. Here are some articles explaining memory consolidation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/memory-consolidation
The hexbear drama was less interesting to me than the transphobia.
I understand, you’re a drama stirring troll who found drama and decided to stir it and are now trying to brigade another instance.
