she/her
Grammar isn’t a tool to constrain thought. Grammar is a tool to assist in writing.
Gender is a social construct. Gender is made up. People experience gender in different ways. Some people experience gender in ways that cannot be put into words.
If you can’t tolerate people here using pronouns that challenge your world view, this instance is not for you. We are not interested in conforming to your personal view of gender. We do not tolerate intolerance.
Thankfully no one in these posts is claiming to be an ubermensch. Grammar is a tool to assist in writing, not a set of laws that need to be obeyed or officially amended. Dictionaries are best when they are descriptive and not prescriptive. Grammar guidelines are the same way. No one should have to wait for some English professor to say it’s okay to exist, via grammatical correctness, to feel accepted.
Grail openly claims narcissistic personality disorder. And then acts like the word “narcissist” is a slur. This is not a gender issue, this is a them issue. They want to be special and immune and always correcting the little people about how they’re permitted to disagree.
Notice how you were able to narrow your focus in your argument to the actual people in question and not entire groups. Please continue to discuss this topic in this narrower way.
My comment was not in reference to this post. I saw similar discourse in this post’s comment section and I wanted to address it. One of the comments has already been removed. I think the resources would be helpful for people who have questions.
This drama got started over not capitalizing a pronoun. From a perspective of wanting to get people’s pronouns correct, the underling reason why a group of people would want pronouns referring to members of that group capitalized doesn’t matter. The fact a person asked for the pronouns in question to be capitalized should be reason enough to do so.
There are people who use emojis as pronouns. Like (🙂🎃/💃🕶️) or 🎱. The combinations are unique to every individual and can change. These people’s experience with gender is highly individual and cannot be put into words. They are all welcome and accepted by the LGBTQ+ community.
I’m recommenting this from another post, about this same topic, in this community that got removed. I’m seeing the same kind of discourse here.
Xenogender is a known part of the LGBTQ+ community.
https://new.lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Xenogender
https://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/Xenogender
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/03/need-know-xenogender/
https://weareher.com/xenogender/
Godgender, in this case specifically Goddessgender, is a xenogender.
https://lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Godgender
https://gender.fandom.com/wiki/Godgender
Please don’t engage in pulling up the ladder. These people have a different experience with gender that doesn’t conform to society’s arbitrary constructs of gender. Goddesses and gods are something people made up. Women and men, as gender roles, are things people made up. People are real. When we disregard the experiences of people to legitimize ourselves we are harming real people.
The perceived legitimacy gained by excluding people whose experiences don’t match our own is ephemeral. It’s division for the sake of placating the people whose perceptions and beliefs should be challenged. The christo-fascists who want trans people dead will not be swayed by any amount of legitimacy. No one is good enough for a fascist, let alone someone who isn’t cis and straight.
That someone can just say that they identify as an attack helicopter and you’re transphobic for not respecting them. How did a transphobic joke go all the way into becoming something that queer people use against each other?
Xenogender is a known part of the LGBTQ+ community.
https://new.lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Xenogender
https://nonbinary.wiki/wiki/Xenogender
https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2022/03/need-know-xenogender/
https://weareher.com/xenogender/
Godgender, in this case specifically Goddessgender, is a xenogender.
https://lgbtqia.wiki/wiki/Godgender
https://gender.fandom.com/wiki/Godgender
Please don’t engage in pulling up the ladder. These people have a different experience with gender that doesn’t conform to society’s arbitrary constructs of gender. Goddesses and gods are something people made up. Women and men, as gender roles, are things people made up. People are real. When we disregard the experiences of people to legitimize ourselves we are harming real people.
The perceived legitimacy gained by excluding people whose experiences don’t match our own is ephemeral. It’s division for the sake of placating the people whose perceptions and beliefs should be challenged. The christo-fascists who want trans people dead will not be swayed by any amount of legitimacy. No one is good enough for a fascist, let alone someone who isn’t cis and straight.
It’s been down for about 10 minutes. The entire canvas will be down until they fix the issue, so there’s no way to access it unfortunately.
There is currently an issue. One of the devs is working on it.
Open the links to canvas in a new tab. Or open lemmy in new a tab. Either way.
Make sure to adjust the template opacity so you can see what pixels are needed! =D
The community is not made up of transphobes or accelerationists so there is no problem. I don’t post or comment there because I don’t see the point in taking the time to write or make something for an echo chamber that will just remove my comment or post. But just because I don’t agree with every take in that community doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.
I love the shark’s keyboard.
Is there a way in the Alexandrite UI to make the posts go over all the way to the left? Or is the appeal that it doesn’t? =/
I think defederation threads in general provide utility in the form of transparency and the possibility of feedback. I did not get the sense that there was no interest in input. Hopefully we could try the suggestion from Ategon so that other instances do not see similar posts in the future.
I don’t enjoy drama either. The drama infects everything and makes it difficult to have any conversation about the topic at all. There was a good faith discussion on the topic to be had and everyone in the thread made a solid effort to discuss it. It seems like most people got what they wanted as we did not defederate. To be clear, I am happy with this result as well.
I could be wrong, but I thought the intention of the 48 hours was to make it clear that the process would be concise and not dragged out. I think framing the post that way did not have the desired effect, for the reasons that you have listed. Mainly it created a countdown drama. The original post from programming.dev had its own share of drama as well which got carried over into the meta thread to a certain degree and again made the discussion harder than it should have been.
I think there is tension between wanting to create a safe place for trans people, as this is the stated goal of the instance, and wanting to be connected to the larger social media community, as that is part of the fun of a social media platform. As far as I can tell, Beehaw solves this problem by preemptively defederating with most of the Fediverse. This at least avoids all of the drama which is good, but then they are a more isolated instance. Hexbear seems to revel in being problematic for the sake of virtue signaling. I like that Blåhaj has not gone in either of those directions. In fact I think Blåhaj is striking the correct balance for moderation.
The federated nature of lemmy means we need to moderate against transphobia on an instance by instance basis. I think if the mods and admins here continue to be receptive to discussion then in the long run this community will continue to have positive interactions with the majority of lemmy instances. I think the nature of this continual process is not what most people expected from the Fediverse. I recall most people assuming things would settle down after an initial period of defederation. The fact is we are a part of a marginalized minority group which means there is more effort required to make this space happen than a space of similar size that benefits from heteronormative and cis privilege. Communication takes time and energy which our team of mods and admins have to provide for free. The process takes work, but I think the end result is worth it.
What I am hoping is that we will be able to learn from these early experiences and make the process as smooth as humanly possible. I don’t believe it will be completely without bumps. Hopefully future defederation threads will minimize drama and maximize efficient and fruitful discourse. edit: typos
I am going to repost my comment here because it was removed with the top comment and I believe it is relevant to the discussion. I would also like to add to it as well.
Here is my addition after I had a good night’s sleep:
I would prefer to federate with the larger lemmy community. However we are submitting ourselves to the standards and moderation practices of the larger lemmy community as part of that federation. In exchange, we should expect something in return, which should be a concrete goal.
Getting other admins to agree that the things that are harmful to the trans community, such as transphobic video games that fund anti-trans causes, should be the low bar we ask of other lemmy communities. This is not a purity test, as others have suggested. This is a consensus that we should reach with lemmy communities about our shared reality.
This consensus on our shared reality is desirable, because if the general lemmy community can agree on what is harmful to members of our community, then the larger lemmy community becomes a safer for place for members of our community. We are not asking the general lemmy community to stop playing the game or even to engage in a boycott, although we would of course appreciate that. We are specifically asking the general lemmy community to agree on what is harmful to trans people. This consensus on seemingly trivial issues establishes shared moderation practices that help us to achieve our goal of a safe place for trans and LGBTQ+ individuals on the internet. edit: typo
Here is my original comment:
This issue can seem insignificant and it can be tempting to want to brush it under the rug. I have personally have this urge to not to want to upset allies or potential allies. But Rowling as a famous, rich person does a lot of harm to trans people by contributing money to anti-trans causes. This game is the most recent piece of content that funds her ability to donate to those anti-trans causes. If this admin can understand that then we should be fine to stay federated.
Unfortunately the nature of discourse in the post obfuscated this issue. Simply explaining the error in the admin’s argument backed up with sources should have been sufficient. The personal attacks do not add to the discussion and make it harder to arrive at any understanding. I think the conflict and ‘finding a win’ is sort of the goal with the tactics displayed in the thread, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the issue seriously.
The error in the admin’s argument is that the content of the game is not important when the profits of the game go to causes that undermine the well being of trans people.
Again, I understand the nature of discourse made the topic seem childish. However, this is the fight we are fighting. There is no other hill for us to die on. We can only choose how we defend it, not who else is on the hill with us.
I’ll take the down vote if the articles I linked to at least get read.
This issue can seem insignificant and it can be tempting to want to brush it under the rug. I have personally have this urge to not to want to upset allies or potential allies. But Rowling as a famous, rich person does a lot of harm to trans people by contributing money to anti-trans causes. This game is the most recent piece of content that funds her ability to donate to those anti-trans causes. If this admin can understand that then we should be fine to stay federated.
Unfortunately the nature of discourse in the post obfuscated this issue. Simply explaining the error in the admin’s argument backed up with sources should have been sufficient. The personal attacks do not add to the discussion and make it harder to arrive at any understanding. I think the conflict and ‘finding a win’ is sort of the goal with the tactics displayed in the thread, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the issue seriously.
The error in the admin’s argument is that the content of the game is not important when the profits of the game go to causes that undermine the well being of trans people.
Again, I understand the nature of discourse made the topic seem childish. However, this is the fight we are fighting. There is no other hill for us to die on. We can only choose how we defend it, not who else is on the hill with us.
This article does a good job at explaining that Hogwarts Legacy is transphobic because some of the profits will be donated to anti-trans causes.
Rowling herself has implied that her royalty checks are indirect indicators of the popularity of her views on trans rights. She will be profiting off Hogwart’s Legacy, and at least part of that profit will likely go directly into the hands of those responsible for pushing the fight to roll back trans rights, causes Rowling has implied she donates to.
This article explains the antisemitic blood libel conspiracy theory that is a core part of the game’s plot.
Players can choose to align themselves with Ranrok, but the game explicitly paints this as an evil decision, aligning those players with the Dark wizard faction. On top of that, Ranrok and his Dark wizard allies in the Rookwood Gang have a plan to harness the power of this forbidden magic by abducting the player character (who is a teenager) and extracting and using their blood. This latter detail hews uncomfortably close to “blood libel” conspiracy theories which have been leveled at Jewish communities across the world for centuries, in which Jewish people were accused of abducting and murdering Christian children in order to use their blood in sacrilegious rituals.
I spent some time watching videos on the game’s plot. I couldn’t find a specific line in a cut scene where the villain explicitly says he wants to harvest the protagonist’s blood. But he does explicitly set some guys after the protagonist to try to kidnap them. They need the protagonist because they are the only one who can interface with the MacGuffins, ie plot devices. This MacGuffin interfacing seems to be hereditary in nature. Also, the villain’s powers, specifically the graphics, definitely seemed blood themed to me.
The game is transphobic and antisemitic. Arguing the game is not those things is transphobic and antisemitic. Whether or not the admin in question knew that is irrelevant.
No one is mandated to educate people about any minority group that they are a part of.
That being said, I wholeheartedly believe that it is in our interest as an LGBTQ+ community to educate people when an opportunity arises. So much hate and bigotry is derived from ignorance. The more we can do to educate people about transphobia the safer we and the people we care about will be irl.
Ada is going out of her way to talk to the admin in question which she does not need to do, but I am glad that she is. She would be perfectly justified in defederating the instance without further discussion. Making a safe space for trans people means defederating from instances that espouse transphobia. By defederating, users on blåhaj zone will not see what this admin’s posts or comments, regardless of where the posts or comments are made.
This is what the post in question looks like if your lemmy account is on blåhaj.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7199610
Most of the comments are not visible because we are defederated from Hexbear.
I’m really not a fan of how Hexbear users handled this. I am also not a fan of blåhaj being the admin’s trans best friend. Despite that, I think this comment from the admin is relevant so I’m linking it here.
https://programming.dev/comment/6173847
I get the sense that this admin is engaging in transphobia and antisemitism because of their ignorance involving the game. I hope that in talking to the admin, Ada will be able to explain the error in the admin’s position. Hopefully the admin will correct their position going forward and we can continue to federate with their instance. But I think that in the absence of that hypothetical success it makes sense to defederate.
It took me a bit to think about it, but it’s good that we take a proactive position on combating transphobia. Tolerating intolerance for the convenience it might bring, in not having to make multiple accounts or having more perceived allies, really doesn’t do us any favors in the long run. If we don’t stand up for ourselves we are only giving cover for transphobes to maneuver covertly in our online space. Rowling is a terf. Hogwarts Legacy funds her terf causes. We don’t need blåhaj to be connected to instances that fail to understand that. The point is to have an instance that is a safe space for trans people and more broadly LGBTQ+ people.
I’m adding this at the end, because this shouldn’t matter, but I think some people think it does. I am trans. I am ethnically jewish.
It’s undoubtedly made of some kind of fantasy metal like mithril, orichalcum, or adamantium. So it weighs less than a pen and can cut through solid blocks of steel. It’s not getting stuck in anything let alone something like human bones.