cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/12273255
I’ve only been on Lemmy a few days and I’ve already witnessed a lot of thinly veiled transphobia, anything from people dismissing the existence of trans people, to trying to claim we are predators. I’ve also seen people downvoted in the general communities for expressing trans support, or seemingly for no reason other than simply being openly trans or visibly queer. I know it’s an ongoing effort to moderate transphobia on Lemmy, and the fediverse as a whole. We have to also address mentions of thinly veiled transphobia and transphobic users. Transphobia isn’t just a differing opinion, it is a dangerous hateful sentiment which causes harm to vulnerable people and it needs to be addressed, at the instance and community level. We need to put in the effort to identify transphobic dogwhistles and language used by transphobes to eradicate this type of behavior from our communities and servers alike.
Some people will argue that the light stuff isn’t something to worry about, but that’s not true. This is a tactic they use to blend in with normies and make them think that nothing they are doing or saying is wrong. It’s what transphobic right-wing YouTubers and Facebook users do to avoid being banned for hate speech. We are better than these corporations though, Fediverse is run by communities and for the users, we should not let these things slide as easily as Corporations do, they’re in it to make money, we… We’re in it to create a community for the users. Part of that means kicking out those who don’t have all our best interests at heart.
This thread transformed from being about a serious issue on the fediverse into a pile of accusations on a personal level. I don’t see this thread becoming any more civilized the way the comments are spiraling downwards. I’m keeping the post up because, as I said, this is a serious issue, but I don’t think keeping the thread unlocked is doing any good.
Block lemmy.ml and hexbear to start. I find their users to be quite toxic.
Of all the stupid, bigoted dogshit flung around by Hexbear, outright transphobia generally is not one of them.
I have many issues with hexbear, but transphobia is not one of them. They are explicitly and aggressively trans inclusive
Most of the people exhibiting the transphobic traits and behaviors I’ve mentioned had @lemmy.world extensions on their account. I saw only a few from lemmy.ml doing it, and essentially no hexbears doing it at all.
The downvotes on this thread might be a very good way for admins to identify transphobic people, most of them are likely either transphobes or bots run by transphobes. If you’re not interested maybe still collect the names and send it to @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone so she can use it to better clean up their instance from silent transphobia.
I’m surprised by the numbers too, why would someone downvote such thread?
It’s almost certainly transphobic people or bots run by transphobic people. Either way people who don’t bring anything positive to the discussion and who bear hostility to the trans community, hence why I say the downvotes on the post can be used to find some of the more quiet transphobes and ban them.
“anyone who doesn’t want my change needs to be banned!”
They’ll always exist and you need to accept that as a fact. Just silencing people you disagree with isnt a way to solve the problem.
I don’t support transphobia, but this sounds extremely aggressive and almost unworkable. Who gets to decide what qualifies as “thinly veiled transphobia”? or “transphobic dogwhistles” and what approach is used to disperse bans?
For example, in many countries some people who might be generally supportive of trans people (in the sense that they would want you to be the best version of yourself) might oppose inclusion of transwomen in natal-women’s spaces. Does this qualify for an automatic ban?
Some might claim this is transphobic, but my answer to that would be: How do you know? Do you speak the local language? Have you lived there? Do you have any knowledge about the region’s history? Do you know what the attitude of the local LGBT community is to the above-mentioned example?
We shouldn’t limit ourselves by the assumptions (and polemics) of a given region even if English is the lingua franca of the internet. A lot of people in the world speak English as second language.
Hopefully more people from lemmy.blahaj.zone can go through the general communities on lemmy.world and the like and report as many of those users as possible so they can be banned from their instance.
I would definitely oppose this without addressing specifically what qualifies as “transphobia” and what the specific policies are with regards to moderator actions. Otherwise this is just some rampage witchhunt against perceived enemies.
Terminally online people often get the feeling that everyone except a hateful minority agrees with them, when in reality they’re part of a secluded echo chamber.