Personally I think not having karma limits is nice currently! I understand why they were used but grinding karma as a lurker on reddit was frustrating.
Personally I think not having karma limits is nice currently! I understand why they were used but grinding karma as a lurker on reddit was frustrating.
Censorship. All the major subreddits became political echo-chambers. Reddit was founded on free speech and open discourse, especially when it was really uncomfortable. I’d love to see the same for Lemmy. Over the years I’ve seen authoritarianism creep into the moderation policies of most major subreddits. Today, even posting on the wrong subreddit is grounds for being banned from dozens of major subreddits. Even having a polite disagreement about, for example, anything to do with “trans,” is grounds for being banned.
So the one thing on Reddit that you wish to leave behind is mods deleting transphobic comments? Lol
Would you please quote where I wrote that?
Can you be more specific about the type of authoritarianisms you wish to avoid?
Many centrist are closet transphobes and often use the verbage of authoritarianism as a dog whistle.
I’m a centrist with a trans kid and no issues beyond worrying how they’ll be treated by transphobes
Being a centriphobe is still bigotry
“Being a centriphobe is still bigotry”
Generally it’s not bigotry when your critizes peoples choices. It’s usually reserved for things people can’t change. Like their race.
Example
“Centrist ideas are usually not well thought out”
See this isn’t bigotry because you could have better ideas.
I’m glad your good with your trans kid tho.
The Cambridge dictionary definition of bigotry
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/bigotry
Beliefs can be changed. Beliefs are just opinions really.
I think it’s very inappropriate to call some one a bigot for criticism someone elses political beliefs.
When someone says many centrists are transphobes, that’s being bigoted towards centrists…
Seee lookey here. OPEN DISCOURSE. WE DID IT GUYS. Also yeah centrists could and should have better ideas. And not the easy ones.
Hatred of proponents of political affiliations generally isn’t viewed as bigotry because it is quite easy to stop being a proponent of a political affiliation. It is much more difficult (or impossible) to stop believing in your religion, to not be gay, to not be black.
I don’t like bigotry and centrism is, depending on your interpretation, either support of the wretched status quo or support of a mixture of progressive and backwards policy. Neither position is respectable.
I definitely get what you mean and I think the idea that you can get away with no censorship is naive. However, they could just as easily be talking about r/conservatives use of conservative only posts and their banning of anyone sharing opposing viewpoints.
I doubt it. Just the word authoritarianism has been mostly co-opted by the ultra right in American colloquialismz.
I don’t know of many people on the left in the US that are complaining censorship.
Idk I feel like I’ve heard loads of media call desantus and trump authoritarian. The don’t say gay stuff is definitely censorship. I think the right just has an obsession with calling out BS censorship.
Yeah I guess your right. It does it get used by left groups as well. It’s just different contexts.
Calling desantus authoritarian is accurate imo.lol
“Authoritarian” is a stupid word, just call DeSantis a fascist.
The second I see or hear someone start complaining about cancel culture I just roll my eyes and move on. Telling on yourself.
I think people posting and commenting racist and transphobic stuff should be banned. Full stop. And I’m not afraid to say it.
Do you disagree with this stance?
No problem. I quoted it below. If you need something even more specific, I am referring to the part where you say something that’s obviously not true and put the word trans between quotation marks in order to further emphasize the impolite nature of your “disagreement”:
Anything to do with “trans”?
I’m sorry I’m not sure how else to describe it. Trans people are those who believe their sex doesn’t match how they feel inside.
I am aware of the concept of being transgender I am just wondering what your “polite disagreements” are with it
Are you genuinely interested or just looking to start a fight? I know recreational outrage is a thing on Reddit and I had hoped to leave it there.
No I’m genuinely interested to hear your perspective and why it was a point of contention
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@dessalines@lemmy.ml this is exactly why tone policing is bullshit moderation policy.
Your modteam is allowing this transphobic screed to exist, and has in fact unbanned the user that posted it despite the very very obvious fact that they are a transphobe doing concern-trolling and “just asking questions” style veiled bigotry, while simultaneously banning everyone that has reacted to their behaviour by rightfully calling them the names they deserve to be called.
This policymaking is what results in people in the left calling someone a terf or a fascist getting banned while the fascists and terfs roam free. The site will be taken over by this and the left will slowly be banned and pushed out by it. The fact that the team can’t seem to get into their heads that trans people might get a little fucking heated when bigots are allowed to exist and clearly defended by some of the incompetent members the modteam is another part of the problem.
You should get some trans people on your team to keep the rest of the idiots on it making these shit decisions in check. This nerd should absolutely be rebanned and every other person that copped a ban over this shit should be unbanned.
Demanding that lgbt people, racial groups and the lower classes engage with their oppressors in a suitable “tone” without ever getting heated is unrealistic. The outcome of tone policing is that the oppressed get banned from spaces when they don’t behave with the right tone when discussing their oppression while those doing the oppressing (this fucker) come to dominate it more and more. The oppressed come to be alienated by it (leaving the space as a result) while the oppressors come to be empowered by it. Tone policing should NEVER come before principle and protection of the marginalized.
ty for articulating this so well o7
What the hell is this? Trans person here. This is not the thread to start concern trolling about trans issues. If you really want a space to talk freely about your concerns you can start a community or even your own instance.
Yeah, this is just run of the mill transphobic sealioning. They even complain about reddit having been run by tankies and repeated the “current thing” conservative reactionary trope. I’m totally fine if this kind of person doesn’t feel welcome here.
He was asked multiple times to answer questions.
They were brief, another user asked for a longer version. The user even intro’ed their comment with “my reticence to speak freely”, and then went ahead explaining since the other user seemed genuinely interested.
In a way this whole episode including your participation is very relevant to “avoid as the user base grows”. I also don’t think concern troll fits here, or maybe we use different definitions.
Personally, I wish people could get along with each other despite having different points of view. That’s one major, major value I see in platforms like this. I want to be exposed to views challenging my bubble.
I hate to say it but they were asked - what they have to say may be unappealing but someone did tell them to say it.
He’s literally responding to a user who said
So he explained his perspective. Concern trolling lmao.
If you want a space where you don’t encounter other perspectives, there are plenty of spaces like that both in the real world and on the internet.
Someone asked me, repeatedly, about my position. I asked them if they were sure they wanted to read the answer. Why are you accusing me of derailing and not the person who pressed for an answer?
I understand that on Lemmy you are able to block users. I suggest you block me so you won’t have to see this comment. That seems like an appropriate response for a comment which offends you.
I am completely appalled at this instance right now for allowing this absolutely vile comment to persist on here, but since some reactionary admin decided your disgusting falsehoods should remain up, allow me to provide an extremely easily-found data point you “couldn’t find” in your search:
Regret rates for sex reassignment surgery are among the LOWEST for ANY type of surgery OF ANY KIND. They’re even lower than the complication rate! (Yes, really!) How’s that for hard data?
Given the fact that this was incredibly easy for me to find (a single Google search pulled it up easily), I can only conclude that you “couldn’t find” evidence that transitioning is beneficial because you weren’t actually looking for it; you were looking for evidence of exactly the opposite point.
If this comment is indicative of things you said to your relative who took their life, then you should absolutely feel partially responsible; this kind of patronizing pseudo-concern BS is exactly the kind of toxicity that makes trans people feel that they will never be accepted by the people in their lives.
I’ve removed it. Please understand I’m a human and overloaded
They’re probably simply overloaded right now. Traffic has shot up several fold over the course of a few days and many of the people don’t understand the rules yet. From my recollection, these sorts of comments would usually be removed fairly promptly. For a comparison of mod teams, /r/moderatepolitics has 18 moderators (plus bots) compared to this community’s 3. Likewise, the instance has 7 moderators.
You’re saying you haven’t found any evidence and that proves there isn’t improvement but it’s impossible for any properly done study to prove any changes to those categories. The simple reason is there is no environment that has existed for long enough to do a comparison. It’s impossible to conduct a proper study on the life expectancy of trans people if they transition at 12 years old or 20 years old because the treatments have not been around long enough and people can live a long time. Even a study that tracks suicide rates over 5 years based on treatment type takes much more than 5 years.
The only studies that can be done need to use historic data and we can’t change the past plus retroactive comparisons are super dicey and very prone to bias. Remember how dead patients were added post-moterm to that COVID trial published from Egypt which totally skewed the results? That study lead to large numbers of people taking ivermectin and fueled the antivax movement worldwide https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/93658
The absence of research studies can not be used to prove or disprove something and should not form your opinions based on this. As least people aren’t trying and doing it poorly then people write catchy articles about it and it creates whole industries (I’m looking at you, nutritional science).
@dessalines@lemmy.ml please reconsider reprioritizing civility fetishism, particularly in defense against transphobia. The course of events here was extremely uncool and is tantamount to making this space systemically transphobic.
All it will take to drive trans people off is for you to ban them when they defend themselves against transphobic hate. And all it will take for transphobes to make that happen is for transphobes to harass people here until they react. This pattern has happened many times on many platforms and I’m surprised if you’re not aware of it.
I’m torn on this. One the one hand there’s something to be said against insta-banning a person just because they wrote “I don’t know if a 12-year-old can meaningfully consent to gender affirming care”. On the other hand you get people who engage in that kind of discourse just to hide their power level. e.g. one of the links in the above-discussed comment goes to transgendertrend dot com, a website I did not know of until today, but it took me exactly one look at its main page and its “about us” section to suspect that anyone who linked anything from there must be way more radicalized than the stage where they are “open to evidence and to honest discussion and debate”. As a filthy moderate myself, I know that a fellow filthy moderate would at least make the minuscule effort to find a source that pretends not to be propaganda.
The author of that manifesto two levels up is not making an argument out of the bottom of their heart; they are proselytizing. They are engaging in what the Musk fan, Tim Urban, once described in his blog as “thinking like an attorney”:
“Civility fetishism” is a real problem and I have personally seen it destroy some spaces I have held dear, via attorneys attorney-ing all day and shouting “debate me, debate me, it’s just facts and logic, what are you so afraid of”. So I fully understand the weariness of the person I am replying to.
I’m not gonna lie, when someone calls out about censorship and not being able to talk about trans I’m inclined to think they’re not people that have interesting to say.
But your comments is exactly how we should discuss a subject, thank you
Although I think that in an enormous community like reddit, YouTube, Facebook, etc. the moderation is necessarily a bit aggressive since it takes time to analyze the real intentions. And with the army of bots, and trolls organizing, or masking their intend behind falsely neutral point of view, it’s easy to start blasting.
Still, I agree that lots of mods, drunk on power or following the subreddit trend was abusing and just censoring.
Ps: sorry my comment is not really a response to this one specifically haha
This is pure comedy ✌
Others please note I did not see the above message, but instead it was already removed by a moderator.
This comment is well researched and helpful! Thank you
I’d say that a fairly debated topic related to transgender people, which isn’t just transphobes attacking people trying to live their own life, is the presence of transgender athletes in competitions. Some will take it as a personal attack whether you take a side or sit on the fence. I’m not looking to start that conversation here, but yeah. It’s definitely possible to hold a polite conversation about this while disagreeing on parts of the question. In a healthy space.
I disagree, that isn’t a “polite disagreement” and is, absolutely, “just transphobes attacking people trying to live their own life” as you put it. Every time that “Argument” happens it’s openly done in biologically unfounded ways by people who simply don’t understand how our bodies actually work- yet those arguments get mass upvoted by people who also don’t understand how biology actually works and who believe that trans athletes get some insane, unfair advantage.
If you want to pass laws to restrict trans people from sports, then you want to pass laws to discriminate against trans people. That’s not really up for debate IMO, it’s a straight up fact; it’s what you’re doing when you advocate for laws that are not founded in science, that are specifically targeting a tiny minority for the chance that one of that tiny minority might beat cis athletes in an “unfair” way, you’re advocating for bigoted laws.
Such arguments are also inevietably filled with people misgendering trans people, deliberately calling trans women “men” and hiding behind the “I’m talking about biology” argument to do so.
Replace the word “trans” with “black” and you’ll find that people are making literally identical arguments to those against desegregating professional sports leagues 80 years ago. Literally word for word.
The thing I don’t understand around it is that the people who are making the argument “trans people shouldn’t be able to participate in sports” are usually also people who are not interested in the sport at all. As in are they upset because someone on the telly told them to, but they really don’t care about the sport except in this very niche aspect which impacts a very slight minority of participants. I mean would half the US public be very interested in the deep technicalities of competitive high-school running?
Same with HRT. Why do I even have to know about it? It’s a niche medical treatment for a comparatively small amount of people suffering from some very specific conditions. I can barely understand what the difference is between ibuprofen and paracetamol, and I’m sure most people are even less informed. Why is it not the sole interest of people affected by gender dysphoria (IDK if I’m even spelling or saying it right, sorry for my ignorance), and their doctors?
The thing that actually grinds my gears is that this culture war stuff takes over places and trans people have to get defensive over their existence, and a forum on fricking Bionicle gets full of trans memes. Don’t get me wrong, if you’re a trans person, or a Zulu, or IDK what niche minority, and you’ve made a Bionicle that uniquely represents you, I’m going to upvote that shit so hard since it’s frickin awesome. But having the whole place be full of low effort “trans people are people” memes is about as funny or interesting as having the whole place full of “the sky is blue” memes.
People are getting outraged about what some socially disadvantaged minority is doing with their lives instead of actually contributing to society, because some idiotic grifter TV host told them to. Fucking lemmings.
I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know how our bodies work, but I think explaining it will be more helpful in the long run than just making the subject taboo and banning everyone who asks it.
At the beginning of the pandemic a common argument against masks was “the virus is too small to be caught in a mask” - which made sense from a layman’s point of view. When people started explaining that masks did stop the water droplets the virus needs to be airborne - that argument become a lot less common.
Not everybody who has questions is “just asking questions”, if you catch my drift.
I agree with that statement, context is everything.
I think that in the context of someone starting out going “it’s unfair for men to compete in women’s sports,” the person is “just asking questions.” That context poisons the well for questions.
But if someone comes in and makes a thread like “I don’t understand how hormone therapy works, can someone please explain it?” that, to me, is a good faith question and 100% should not be bannable.
All good :)
Now that I have your attention though, what would be a good counter argument on why trans women should be allowed to compete in the same league as non-trans women (please excuse my lacking vocabulary)?
Like I mentioned, at first sight as a layman, the argument that trans women would have an competitive advantage makes sense to me. So I’d be grateful if you could take away my ignorance.
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I think that after HRT the difference is not that big. Trans athletes may even be at the disadvantage since there are some cis woman that have higher than average amount of testosterone.
In the long shot I think it would be for the best to abolish gender based separation altogether and replace it with something more like weight categories.
There are things that don’t completely change with HRT (particularly when started after puberty.) Height, bone density, lung capacity, hand/foot/limb size etc. do not vary significantly after HRT and depending on the sport can make a huge difference (eg. Hand and foot size or lung capacity in swimming even where the two swimmers are the same height.)
Then we should allow people to access gender affirming treatment earlier, no?
That could be one conclusion since it may lead to more desirable outcomes. On the other hand, we generally don’t allow children to undergo other permanent procedures (eg. Nose jobs, tattoos etc.) because children change their minds. It can be argued that medical transition is necessary medical care (eg. like how we give chemo even though it may have permanent long-term effects.)
However, since dysphoria is a psychiatric diagnosis (there’s nothing physical to test like a tumour) we cannot be sure in the same way that treatment is medically necessary. Therefore, I believe that the care providers should have to be extremely sure that the child is not going to detransition before making any medical moves like puberty blockers or HRT. I’m not convinced they can be sure enough or at least that they are being that rigorous (they clearly weren’t here: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-62335665.)
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Here is a surprise for you: HRT actually does things to your body. I don’t think this should have been that hard to find on your own, but I can’t judge your circumstances.
Transphobes always make the same tired arguments about “biological differences between men and women” and then scream and run away when you bring up actual science, because they don’t care about the science. They care about being bigots, and using science to make their bigotry look legitimate.
Mitochondria is the powerhouse of cell. I don’t think this should have been that hard to find on your own, but I can’t judge your circumstances. (You see, I can respond to things you did not ask as well!)
How is your comment a response to my question? I was replying to your comment of
which practically means stopping women from participating in sports
What does an athlete that’s a man have to do with trans people
Ok, that’s literally completely irrelevant to the topic at hand. You just flat out stated in this comment that you think that all trans women are actually just men. You’re flat out wrong about that.
We have more than enough science that demostrates conclusively that a person on hormone therapy is athletically more similar to the sex they are transitioning to than the sex they were born in. You’re just ignoring all of that and pretending that it doesn’t exist. YOU might not like that it exists because it makes it clear that you’re just being a bigot, but it does exist, and it demonstrates exactly that.
No, my MMA teacher was female and she’d kick my arse regularly
Now you’re undermining your first point, you’re not comparing same heights and weight. Physics is real.
I was going to object that this is an anecdote because it is, but after thinking about it more, because weight is being controlled for and men have higher bone density, I wonder if the woman might actually have the advantage if they have the same height and weight, depending on the sport. They might do better in soccer for instance if the disadvantage in lung capacity due to the smaller chest cavity isn’t too great.
Okay.
Ellyse Perry, the fastest bowler in women’s cricket is 176cm at 60kg (amazing athlete, represented Australia at both Cricket and Football world cups!). Her fastest ball was 130.1kph
Shoaib Akthar, the fastst bowler in men’s cricket is 180cm at 80kg. His fastest was 161kph
Laws of cricket dictate that women should use a ball that is between 415⁄16 and 55⁄16 ounces (139.98 and 150.61 grams); which could be up to 13⁄16 ounces (23.03 grams) lighter than the ball used by the men.
Also made me think, the whole height-weight distinction will only work in purely physical sports like boxing (maybe even some american sports like baseball and nfl). It is not going to work in global sports like Cricket and Football. Think about the greatest footballers of our generation. Cristiano was 183cm (6ft) and Messi 169cm (5ft 6in).
Okay thanks for the input
All good! Sorry for the paragraph. I’m just bad a writing short messages… 😅
That’s the same here unfortunately.
It also sucks when you’re not American, like Reddit auto-banned a load of Irish and Brits discussing stopping smoking due to the colloquial term there.
Unfortunately all these American-based websites really force the American views and positions on everyone.
Well that explains it. I’m not American either and I really feel like I’m being forced into their weird social war. I just want to talk about cool gadgets without some culture warrior banning me everywhere because I didn’t show the requisite fealty to whatever the current thing is.
Yeah, one thing I hope to leave behind with Reddit is every major subreddit farming outrage w.r.t. American politics.
It just became exhausting and made me unsub from a lot of the big subreddits. So far, Lemmy has been quite positive! It’s refreshing.
I don’t know if it is true but I feel like Lemmy is not really USA centric at the moment. More like assuming that a user could be from any country. I think that we should keep it that way.
Fediverse is really international since instances are everywhere in the globe
Yes! I haven’t seen a single answer starting with ‘in my state’ yet and I’d like to keep it that way.
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You are showing plenty of fealty to bigotry, sinophobioa, pseudoscientific transphobia, and American notion of ‘free speech’ on web forums.
I’m deleting a few of your comments (they’re in the modlog, if anyone wants to see) and generously giving you a 1 month ban. If you decide to come back then, or sooner with another account,I recommend posting about cool gadgets (which you don’t seem to have actually done yet).edit: my ban was overridden by another admin; i’m new at this and might have overstepped.
edit2: they were later re-banned.
You were right to ban them, I don’t understand why they aren’t still banned
You were right; whoever overrode you is being too nice to bigots. I’m honestly sickened right now.
Which admin overrode you?
Whoever overrode you is a coward
It’s exceptionally easy to just hold your tongue. No one is forcing you to sign all your posts with “- I love trans programmers :3”. If you keep getting into spats, maybe your problem with the conflict is a little different than your account of it.
You’re not exactly bringing up cool gadgets at the moment, kid. You’re deliberately poking a sensitive issue for attention. Waging that social war you speak of. Pretending like transgender rights are only an American issue is pretty darn comical of you when it’s one of the political hot-topics in most occidental countries. As you know, or you, fellow “not American”, wouldn’t be bothered enough to dump that ^ wall of text up there.
Also seriously? Bringing up the dog whistle that is “HRT for children”? Doesn’t happen and you damn well know it if you’ve read half as much as you’re implying. Teenagers are sometimes allowed to take hormone blockers to delay puberty. This is risky, especially for AFAB youth, since taking hormone blockers basically puts them through menopause, hormonally speaking. Which is why in some places they can instead directly take hormones after being evaluated by psychologists, sexologists, you name it. And with their parents’ consent. Not on a whim. Not for attention. Not to be ‘trendy’.
Take all the time you want misrepresenting studies and articles, you’re still not owed anyone’s energy “debating” you. I already put way too much into writing this. It’s not unfair censorship to shut down antisocial trolls who only want to argue in bad faith about the latest political issue. No matter the talking point, this hijacking of conversations doesn’t lead to chill spaces. It’s not fun. You’re just being an asshole right now. Go be angry somewhere else, or have that “debate” in a relevant thread.
Yeah, I got banned from loads of random subreddits for posting in /r/LockdownSkepticism just supporting the policy of where I live (in Sweden). It was bizarre.
Likewise if you dared oppose the US-specific policy of forcing toddlers to wear face-masks. Wasn’t a thing anywhere in Europe, but you’d get banned for misinformation on Reddit.
Hopefully with more and more instances located in different places around the world it shouldn’t be too hard to find a community or communities that are not so US-centric…
I hate how their news tends to take over everything over there too. I remember knowing way too much about a certain US president and that was annoying
Yeah, there were protests over George Floyd’s death here in Stockholm even. I don’t agree with the police violence at all, but it’d be better to focus on local issues here like the use of private security overtaking police (even on public transport, etc.)
Go back to reddit
You were banned for transphobia but were jUsT AsKiNg qUestIons, amiright?
Turns out when people complain about being censored and “free speech” it’s because they got in trouble for not being able to call people the N word or becasue they want to “politely discuss” why certain people shouldn’t be allowed to exist.
We should never tolerate the intolerant.
Well what would you call a “polite disagreement”? After all if you’re questioning the existence of trans people, no matter how politely you do it, you’re basically being a reactionary and I don’t see why that kind of posting shouldn’t be banned.
They’re not “trans”, they’re just “people”…
There, a polite argument. 🌈
No matter how politely stated your disagreement is, if it boils down to “I don’t think I should have to respect trans people’s identity”/“I don’t think trans people should have rights” then it’s transphobic and I’m 1000% fine with that being bannable
I would like to have a polite disagreement with you about how you shouldn’t be allowed to exist. If you refuse then you are the hostile one… I say as my skull struggles to contain my powerful engorged brain.
Well, if you replace the word trans with black/hispanic/asian/disabled/etc and it gets you banned… Then maybe, just maybe, that was warranted.
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I think some people did take it too far, which seems to be a problem with a lot of social justice oriented communities, in particular people who are not part of a marginalized group making decisions to ban or otherwise censure your people on behalf of that group (I’ve seen it on both Reddit and Facebook in relation to trans and autistic people specifically).
That said, a lot of “polite disagreements” on Reddit really are/were transphobic, and even many questions were just bait to set the stage for anti-trans rhetoric, so I can see why it was easier for mods to come down heavy-handed.
The whole trend of “You are autobanned from subreddit X because you replied to a front page post from subreddit Y” did get extremely annoying though.
Do you think CP is free speech? That’s what Reddit was founded on.
But please, let’s go back to the website full of pedophilia and racial slurs because at least then trans people won’t get mad at you for politely telling them that they’re transvestites or whatever it is you got banned for. Everyone has different things they are comfortable with.
A subreddit I moderate, /r/moderatepolitics, has had to do a delicate balancing act around this. There are site-wide rules banning many statements around trans people, and the red lines are not well defined. Reddit’s “Anti-Evil Operations” (site-wide moderation team) frequently swoops in and deletes comments that are offensive to trans people, but well within current political discourse in the US. That has undermined our mission of being a forum for diverse voices to hold productive but difficult discussions. At a certain point, we entirely banned the discussion of trans issues because one side was able to speak freely and the other side was walking on egg shells. I’m solidly pro-trans, but that’s no way to have a conversation.
This likely was done to try to keep Reddit from becoming a cesspool like the “free speech” sites like Gab, but it has turned out to be a lazy way that short circuits necessary conversations.
There is only one necessary converation around trans people, in which trans people say, Let us exist without being harassed or persecuted, and everyone else says, OK. Anything else is just allowing bigots a platform.
I wish the world worked that way, but in practice there are just too many ignorant people out there. They can walk out their front door and talk to their neighbors who are more than willing to pass on the latest slander about trans people. Our sub’s mission is to provide a space where they can try to pass on something resembling the latest slander and get push back. As-is, too much of the US is so segregated by ideology that people may not ever meet an out trans person. We want to foster those human-to-human connections instead of letting them rely on Tucker Carlson’s latest Very Concerned mouth diarrhea.
Edit: I value safe spaces for their function as a reprieve for trans people, and I don’t think every platform should provide a space for unrestricted speech. But at the same time, I think it’s beneficial to have some spaces that require a bare minimum of good behavior so that society can talk about these topics and move forward into a better future. There’s too much ignorance of trans people as-is.
See, the correct definition for this here is “no transphobia”
It’s cute that you think you can fight back against reactionary BS by arguing with it, but history does not bear this out. What you end up doing is creating another space where people can post Tucker Carlson’s latest Very Concerned mouth diarrhea, only distilled into a more toxic form that even Tucker couldn’t get away with, as long as they say it politely. Your way has led us here, to a political situation where people are actively trying to eradicate trans people in law.
Our sub’s way has largely not been followed in the US. Everyone’s retreated into their corner. Trans people have tried to keep safe, both physically and emotionally. Those hostile to them have cloaked their fear and hatred in the usual: family values and “think of the children”. The country is rife with tribalism. Different parts of the country have vastly different ways of thinking. There are fewer and fewer spaces dedicated to talking across ideologies, even closely related ones. We frequently hear that ours is one of the few spaces where people can talk over difficult issues without being shouted down.
I’m under no illusions that reactionaries just need to hear the right words and they’ll be enthusiastic supporters. But I have found that when forced out of their zone of comfort, their minds change inch by inch. Even just starting by not allowing the worst slander helps jolt them out of that mindset and filter out people who will never be interested in discussion. Civil rights are gained by winning hearts and minds of our fellow citizens. The LGBTQ rights movement has moved amazingly fast, with under 55 years having passed since the Stonewall Riots. We have moved this fast partially because LGBTQ people are harder to “other” because any family member or friend can turn out to be LGBTQ.
The thing that irritates me about this comment and the ideology your subreddit represents (well, the pertinent thing) is that the popular world “polarization” obfuscates the massive difference there is between radicalism and dogmatism. That is to say, when two people disagree politically, some people like to imagine for various reasons that their level of animosity is a function of how different their political views are plus some ability to compartmentalize. These things are factors, but ones that lead to political illiteracy on their own.
Dogmatism is the common word for having a circumscribed set of “correct beliefs” and being hostile to any deviation from that set. Radicalism is the sheer extremity of one’s views. It’s entirely possible to be a radical and to be accepting of people, and it’s quite easy to be both a centrist and a dogmatist. We know that second one because that describes a huge portion of the Democratic base! They are people with very little commitment to progressivism who nonetheless are deeply hostile to people on both their left as well as their right.
Of course, sometimes the two traits coincide, like in the Republicans, which have a massive portion of their base that is both pretty radical and pretty dogmatic – though ironically they could be said to be accepting in an extraordinarily cynical way, what with how Evangelicals supported Trump, who is literally the fakest Christian to ever be President (“Two Corinthians”).
Anyway, my point for saying this is that hucksters, useful idiots, and some who I’m sure are good people like to characterize American politics as a situation where there has been a sizable shift towards radicalism. There are new radical (QAnon) and “radical” (Bernie socdem) movements today as there are in any age, but overwhelmingly the Democrats have been getting more conservative if you look past their lip-service, while the Republicans have mostly also become more conservative. The world doesn’t need more centrists, the Democratic Party has plenty! When Obama said he’s “less liberal in a lot of ways” than Richard Nixon, that wasn’t his attempt at absurdist humor!
What would actually be useful is functional empathy and – god forbid – a political ideology that has some ability to explain why people have political differences beyond some puritanical insinuation about moral failings. That does not mean we need to be nihilistic or appeasing with our actual political ideology as though nothing is true or else the truth is the median of whatever everyone happens to believe right now.
Paraphrasing Lafayette, “If the world is divided between people who say 2 + 2 is 6 and those who say 2 + 2 is 4, that does not make it the most reasonable position that 2 + 2 is 5.”
If I was writing it, I’d probably say that the camps in America are “4+4 is 44” and “4+4 is 64”, with “4+4 is 54” being the Enlightened Centrist answer (and ironically perhaps the most deeply irrational).
The subreddit was somewhat poorly named. It’s not about “enlightened centrism,” as the insult from the left goes. The idea is to build a space where people with a fairly wide range of views can discuss those views without personal attacks. There are of course areas where different people will have different definitions of personal attacks, but for the most part we manage to keep a baseline of respect. What we’re not doing as moderators is deciding if 4+4 is 44, 64, 8, or a potato. Commenters talk that out and we keep them polite.
Just for a little bit of context, Obama was griping that Fox and other right wing media was doing their usual “X Democrat is basically the avatar of Marxism” shtick. But the comparison with Nixon was not a good one. Nixon was constrained by a heavily Democratic Congress, while Obama was constrained by a lesser Republican House. Since Obama was comparing the outcomes of both administrations, his comparison looked at a Republican administration pushed hard to the left domestically with a Democratic administration push mildly to the right domestically.
ach, did it eat my reply?
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