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.

  • PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat
    101·
    3 hours ago

    Like if this kind of shit arguing against a queer friendly instance for being queer friendly

    Nobody is arguing against blahaj for being queer friendly. People are arguing against some of their members for being unfriendly to people, including queer people, among them LittleRatInALittleHat. That’s the only reason people are caring about this.

    The type of mentality “you’re not allowed to criticize me, because I am X, and so unless you agree with me you’re being anti-X” is tempting but it is wrong. You might think dragon is a gender, or you might not, it is fine, but refusing to agree that dragon is a gender is not and has never been “transphobia” or in any way anti-queer.

    • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
      32·
      1 hour ago

      You might think dragon is a gender, or you might not, it is fine, but refusing to agree that dragon is a gender …

      Well, I’m gonna chime in again, because it’s a nice jumping off point.

      That argument, that anyone is actually saying dragon is a gender, is simply misrepresenting all of the subject.

      Regardless of one’s view on xenopronouns in specific, or neopronouns one general, the claim hasn’t been that dragon is a gender.

      The rule, and the argument behind it, is about pronouns. And it isn’t really about the pronouns themselves, as much as it is about who gets to decide when someone is deserving of being respected as an individual.

      We’re not biking being asked to share a belief that a person is a dragon, or fucks dragons, or that humans can be part dragon.

      What we’re being asked to do is to respect pronouns or just not talk to someone. That’s it. That’s what it’s about.

      The rule simply lays out what will happen if people don’t do one of those two things.

      You don’t have to agree with the word being used as a pronoun meaning anything other than that it replaces traditional pronouns and makes them happy. Does it matter if they think they’re a dragon, or a tiger? No. It doesn’t matter. If the cognitive dissonance of using a word in an unconventional way is so high that you simply can’t do it, that’s okay. You have multiple options at that point.

      One, you can ignore the request, and accept the consequences as they come. Fair or not, those consequences are known.

      Two, you can use them anyway, and roll your eyes while you do it. Nobody will know you’re rolling your eyes.

      Three, you can use them anyway, and complain about it, which may also have consequences, depending on how you complain.

      Four, you can block the individual and never interact with them again, thus preventing cognitive dissonance entirely.

      Five, you can choose to just not interact with them at all.

      Six, you choose to not interact, but complain about it elsewhere, with possible consequences (as these posts have shown).

      There’s even other options, but they’re absurdist stuff like juggling oranges while singing “I’m a little teapot”. So, you know, only entertaining to me.

      Now, that’s separate from anything else, I’m only talking about the idea that one has to share a belief to be able to use someone’s pronouns. Like, my pronouns are he/him, they/them, and I’ll accept any gender neutral neopronouns as well. But I’ll accept she/her in a pinch, though I may correct those if it’s relevant. It’s why I never list my pronouns, I’m cool with almost anything, up to and including “that asshole”. That’s not even a joke, I’m fine being referred to that way as a replacement for a pronoun, or in general.

      You don’t have to agree with my belief that I’m not obligated to behave in the way a pronoun implies to use any of those. You don’t have to agree with my belief that by accepting almost any pronoun that I improve myself by challenging my own concepts of gender in order to use he/him, or any of the rest.

      So, why would you have to believe in anything at all to use any pronoun? You aren’t expected to log off and tell your roommate or whatever, “jeez, this cat I was talking to was a real weirdo, he’s just nuts” and you aren’t expected to log off and tell the same person “I was talking to this cat from blahaj and drag sure did annoy me” you can use any pronoun you want when you aren’t in the presence of the person requesting an individual pronoun, or any neopronouns, or a xenopronoun.

      You don’t need to believe anything except that the person, the human being with their own life and needs and pains, is made a little happier by the use of it. That’s it. That’s all you have to believe.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
        12·
        2 hours ago

        Regardless of one’s view on xenopronouns in specific, or neopronouns one general, the claim hasn’t been that dragon is a gender.

        [heavy sigh]

        Drag’s gender is dragon rider

        • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          1 hour ago

          I’m speaking in the general, with dragon as the example used because drag is largely the focus of contention.

          The next paragraph, “The rule, and the argument behind it, is about pronouns. And it isn’t really about the pronouns themselves, as much as it is about who gets to decide when someone is deserving of being respected as an individual.” covers that. I was addressing the rule, and blahaj, not drag.

          It hasn’t been blahaj policy that I’ve seen that dragon is a gender, only that you have to treat people’s pronouns and genders with respect.

          It’s one of those where we don’t have to agree, we just have to be nice.

          Or have the admins specifically addressed the issue as a declarative, and I missed it? I do miss things ;)

            • southsamurai@sh.itjust.works
              1·
              40 minutes ago

              Ehhh, what that screenshot shows is admins deciding that you didn’t treat pronouns with respect.

              Obviously, you disagree with their assessment. I do too, really, though I have seen their argument about it somewhere to and down the various threads.

              That is a different thing.

              I definitely get why you don’t think it’s different, but, looking at it from this side of the screen, that’s not a statement of policy, it’s a reaction to their interpretation of what you said.

              • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                20 minutes ago

                Against my better judgement, I went into Blahaj back around the time of The Event.

                Gender was always meant to help identify where in the spectrum of sex one is. Whether that be male, female, both, neither, slightly female, etc. Y’all are free to say your gender is goth, or as one user on Lemmy is becoming infamous for, Dragon; but you’ll likely not be taken seriously, and ultimately you’ll be setting back both progression for oppressed minorities as well as already existing accomplishments. PS: op should say what neopronouns are for those who may not know.

                Removed: Gatekeeping

                If gender means anything then some things are not gender. That’s not “gatekeeping.” It’s a tautology. A word with no meaning is meaningless.

                Removed: Gatekeeping

                Just as I don’t acknowledge “dragonfucker” as a gender I don’t acknowledge “god” as a gender type. There’s a person around here who insists that they’re a god and that they’re pronouns need to be capitalized. No one is a god. And no one gets to go around demanding that they’re a god and that they should be acknowledged as one. I mostly linger here on blah as a habit really. If I eventually get banned so be it. I have my line in the sand for what will make me leave but until that happens I’ll keep lingering like a fart.

                Removed, no note

                Trans women are women. Nobody is a dragon. Dragons aren’t real.

                Removed: Gatekeeping

                No, I mean I’m no longer going to be on Blahaj, and those are the communities I’ll miss. Hence “but… well, Blahaj isn’t for me, since I don’t acknowledge ‘dragonfucker’ as a gender.”

                Removed: Gatekeeping (that one’s literally me)

                A lot of people say a lot of things, who cares? I don’t think it’s an unfair line to draw at all. We draw it at what’s real and what’s not. Gender as a spectrum is real. We know this. We also know that the person posting comments on Lemmy isn’t a fucking dragon because dragons aren’t real. Line drawn.

                Removed: Gatekeeping

                Neopronouns are fine, but not all neopronouns are part of gender identity. Not all identity expressions are gender related. The entire spectrum of gender has a biological basis, and anything which doesn’t have a biological basis is an expression of identity, which is also valid, but not always related to gender. Like, no one can get a medical cocktail to transform into a dragon or cat. Please don’t confuse gender identity with other types of identity expressions.

                Removed: Transmed stuff

                All of that points pretty firmly to disagreement with dragon as a gender as gatekeeping, not a matter of respecting pronouns.

              • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
                1·
                36 minutes ago

                Ehhh, what that screenshot shows is admins deciding that you didn’t treat pronouns with respect.

                Obviously, you disagree with their assessment. I do too, really, though I have seen their argument about it somewhere to and down the various threads.

                That is a different thing.

                I definitely get why you don’t think it’s different, but, looking at it from this side of the screen, that’s not a statement of policy, it’s a reaction to their interpretation of what you said.

                Legitimately, I don’t see how that can be reasonably interpreted to be about pronouns at all. My objection was to dragon as a gender. I was banned for ‘gatekeeping’. Redirecting that to a pronoun dispute requires a reading that I literally cannot see, not simply one I disagree with.