Update: In light of the programming.dev update here https://programming.dev/post/8399272, the defederation is no longer going ahead.
However, something more needs to be said. Even here on Blahaj, some of our users took issue with the choice to defederate over this issue.
So I would like to give some background and context.
Blahaj Zone exists, because both Kaity and I left mainstream social media to escape transphobia. Reddit, with its lackluster approach to fighting transphobia, and twitter, with its outright celebration of transphobia pushed us here, to the fediverse, and to create Blahaj Zone and Blahaj Lemmy.
To that end, we will continue to treat transphobia seriously. Our goal is to create a space where gender diverse folk can exist and let our defenses down a little, where we don’t have to worry about getting dragged in to an argument with a transphobe, or a bad faith actor “just asking questions”.
If you are looking for a more reddit like experience, where in the interest of increased engagement, we let low level transphobia slide, and push responsibility for dealing with it on to community mods and individual users, then you will likely not be happy with blahaj going forward. If you choose to stay here, understand that we may defederate again in the future over similar issues.
The choice is yours.
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It has recently been brought to my attention that the lead admin of programming.dev is engaging in ongoing transphobia.
You can see the conversation in question here https://programming.dev/comment/6131539
For that reason we will be defederating from programming.dev in 48 hours.
There are only three communities on that instance used by small number of our users, so this won’t have a big impact, but if you are one of those users, you will need to use an alt account on another instance if you wish to access the communities.
Right? The admin here sees hexbears engaging in their typical bad faith spam-bullying tactics against someone who, unless there’s something really bad in that deleted comment, doesn’t seem to actually be a transphobe, for the crime of enjoying a popular mainstream video game, and the admin decides to defederate the victim of the bullying.
Yeah that game brings out the worst in the “woke” people. I haven’t played it, but its definitely good from all the reviews and this whole dogfighting behavior just harms the Trans people and their “allies” and makes them seem unreasonable and annoying, wich isn’t doing them good in a rightful fight against discrimination.
With good reason. Nobody has just picked a game at random and said ‘everyone must hate this game now for no reason whatsoever’.
But, as I said, in a previous comment, there is a difference between ignorance and wilful ignorance. Up until a couple of years ago I was totally unaware of JKR’s transphobia. This was because I read the first HP book when it first came out, thought it was shit and dismissed it and her from my mind. I’ve never had a twitter account and I don’t read the ‘celebrity’ bits of news websites so I knew nothing of the whole situation. As a result, when a trans friend of mine started talking about it, I responded out of ignorance. Thankfully, they realised it was ignorance not malice and took me through the whole thing.
My point being, it’s impossible to tell from just this quoted exchange if the PD Admin is being ignorant or willfully ignorant. If it’s the former I hope they come to realise their error and how it affects people. If it’s the latter, they can do one.
Its Harry Potter and JK has been in the shit storm for quite some time. (wich i couldn’t care less, fuck her she is rich and talks a lot of shit about a lot of things)
The problem with that thread was that the admin kept arguing and trying to educate trans people on transphobia. If they didn’t know about JKR’s transphobia then they shouldn’t have kept on arguing as long as they have.
I absolutely agree with that too. I’m not suggesting their subsequent statements were not transphobic as they clearly were. That’s why I fully support @Ada’s decision to defed.
My point was really that, the flashpoint seems (to me) to be the two sentences I quoted. The one from the Admin seemed ignorant rather than openly malicious, the one from the Hexbear user was just accusative. That, in my opinion, was an opportunity to address the Admin’s ignorance.
Everything after that, the Admin has no excuse over.
The only thing this comment gets right is the scare quotes around “allies”.
ohh nooo boohoo that poor admin had it pointed out that he put his own enjoyment of a mid-tier video game over his respect for a marginalized community.
Grow up lmfao
How does enjoying a mid tier video game make you a transphobe? Talk about a fuckin stretch lmao
You can see it by the way it is, this entire thread is full of stuff like that, especially from this particular user.
That user is a hexbear - their handle here is an alt. Which isn’t surprising given the nature of their engagement in this thread.
Behaves like one 100%
Absolutely unable to understand criticism or different opinions… Typical for hexbear people.
Transphobia isn’t a ‘different opinion’ numbnuts.
You cant just call everything transpobia and try to force everyone to agree with you/try to shut up everyone… This makes you look like a idiotic asshole.
This is my main account actually, but go off.
Where did I say solely enjoying the wizard game makes you a transphobe? Talk about a fuckin stretch lmao