I made some off-hand comments on a post on 196 and didn’t realize they’d be taken the wrong way. I made a few more comments to help clarify my idea but caught a blanket ban from blahaj.zone with no warning or message.
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&actionType=All&userId=588349
I’m mortified :( It’s never been my goal to make others feel bad online. I had a quibble with the wording on a meme and clumsily worded my idea of “Our differences shouldn’t be minimized because they make us special” was seen as transphobia/TERF rhetoric.
But with no prior warnings or even a message from a mod to ‘cool it’, I got banned from the entire instance. I love these communities (feel free to look at my 2.5 years of comment/post history) and I would like to be able to continue to participate.
So, is there a formalized method of ban appeal beyond messaging mods? Their instance has like 12, so I don’t want to spam them and have it seen as harassment.
I’m as trans-positive as they come, but ‘being able to give birth’ is actually a meaningful difference.
That’s true, but from a categorical standpoint, all trans women are incapable, which, at the very least, is a distiction with non-zero significance.
https://lemmy.world/modlog?userId=588349
Hm, good luck with that ban appeal
Oof yeah I saw those comments in the wild…
I don’t blame them for dropping the banhammer considering their instance rules and how strictly they enforce them (even if I don’t necessarily agree with some of the enforcement).
Yeah, blahaj, don’t bother. There’s an elevated amount of odd positions that are popular there, and don’t you dare question them.
Note to self: never comment on blahaj
You could just not be shitty and it wouldn’t be a problem to post on blahaj at all.
Was OP being shitty with their comment?
I guess birthing is a hot topic or maybe even a dog whistle in the anti-trans community. Just from OP’s deleted comments, I’d say they weren’t hating.
Yes. Blahaj is not a place to debate whether trans women are real women.
Was OP being shitty with their comment?
Yes.
Whether it was intentional or not. I mentioned elsewhere that there are cis folks who can’t have children. So that comment was shitty to a wider group than just trans folks. Its also pretty common terf stuff.
It also broke the rules for both the instance and the community.
Thanks for the reply. I see I am going against the grain here, so apologies if this comes through as hard-headed, but I still don’t get the violation.
Was the problem that OP was talking in general about the importance of being able to give birth? It doesn’t seem to diss trans or sterile people, just mentions that it can be important. Or is OP saying it is important, and that’s the problem?
Exactly.
I’m mortified :( It’s never been my goal to make others feel bad online. I had a quibble with the wording on a meme and clumsily worded my idea of “Our differences shouldn’t be minimized because they make us special” was seen as transphobia/TERF rhetoric.
Try not to take it personally. You waded into a subject which has become a sort of rationality-free zone. Perhaps more so even than Israel-Palestine, or immigration in Europe. On these topics there is almost nobody left who is interested in nuanced debate, it’s now only a question of identifying which “side” one’s interlocutor is on, and then unloading on them (or downvoting, or deleting, or blocking, or banning) as appropriate. You stumbled into sterile trench warfare, basically.
Soon after I joined Lemmy I was banned from a (somewhat serious) community for making the same mistake you made. I learned my lesson. With certain topics, genuine debate - open-minded, good faith discussion - is just not possible. I see it as a failure of Lemmy, yes, but mainly of the whole medium of text-based social media. It’s certainly not your fault.
@Zoomboingding@lemmy.world, @JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world is right. You stumbled onto an extremely hot topic on the fediverse. Blahaj is extremely sensitive to it, that’s just how the community is.
If they dont want your identity (the current account you are using), just create a new one and use that one to learn their ways and become a good member of their community.
However, and I’m saying this out of completeness not because I actually believe this is what you want, if you just want to debate their points and break their rules knowingly, please don’t. Just accept that they have different preferences than you do. Life is too short to willingly spend time where you aren’t wanted.
There’s a no threadiverse-wide appeals community, but it sounds like it might be useful if it becomes standard. We have !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com but that’s more about speaking truth to power, although it’s been used before to convince mods to reverse bad moderation actions
There’s UFoI, but to my understanding that’s only helpful in cases of litigations related to federation.
The one that banned you from !onehundredninetysix@lemmy.blahaj.zone was Ada. So I am assuming the instance wide ban was also performed by Ada. You should contact Ada through her Matrix: @ada:chat.blahaj.zone, your PMs via Lemmy will not go through.
Each instance will have its own policies and systems. I can’t speak for blahaj.zone.
I consider myself reasonable enough that im pretty ok with dropping a place that bans me. Its like I don’t expect to be thrown out of bars or restaurants I use because I don’t like go crazy yelling at staff or punching people.
it looks like you’ll need to message the mods
This is a disadvantage of the Fediverse: the owner of the instance dictates the rules, and the moderators are as prone to power trips as they are on Reddit.
Be glad you were banned from blahaj, it’s in the top instances of intolerance to group think defiance. If you manage to get unbanned, you’ll be always at risk of another impulsive ban.
Real life is hard enough to add gratuitous drama to it.
This is literally the advantage of the Fediverse. Users of an instance are capable of moving around elsewhere and still using most of the system.
Let’s say it’s a double-edged sword. It brings freedom, but encourages insulation and intolerance.
I’d really like to appeal it because I like several of the communities there. I also recognize that I was on a meme sub and people aren’t there to defend their identity with a stranger - there’s a time and a place. It was a post about unity and inclusion, and my gripe about an implication of the message wasn’t worth ruffling feathers.
But thank you for the comment, the instance didn’t seem to mention anything about messaging mods or appeals, and I wasn’t sure if there was some fediverse-wide method.
A bit about blahaj:
this is a server that is very protective of our minority members and bigotry of any variety will be squashed with great prejudice.
Embracing inclusion and acceptance means listening when people tell you who they are and what their needs are. It means not telling people that you know their experiences better than they do. It means not gatekeeping experiences of identities of others. It means no bigotry such as racism, sexism, anti LGBT commentary, ableism etc. It means doing your best to ensure that you don’t over-talk the voices of folk who don’t share your privileges.
Now as far as this:
I also recognize that I was on a meme sub and people aren’t there to defend their identity with a stranger - there’s a time and a place
I would point out two things.
One, that place will never be blahaj.
Two, many will sit in stark disagreement with what you’ve said - myself included - because no one should ever have to defend their identity from a stranger. Its their identity, not yours, you putting things to a place of their defense means you are already in a position of attacking their identity. You are on the offensive.
Thats never going to fly on blahaj, and I would really recommend you reflect on the meaning behind what you said before even considering messaging ada, or its just going to be a complete waste of time.
Thank you for this comment. I do hope that the instance continues to be an inclusive place for trans folks and their allies. I’d like to clarify that I didn’t intend to make anyone feel they needed to defend their identity; the fact that my message was poorly worded was the cause of that.
Cards on the table, I’m someone many would consider an egg. I’m a cis male, but I’ve always felt more comfortable talking with women, and have always felt that I wished I’d been born female (I’ve never had dysphoria though). After a lot of discussions with the trans community, I came to see that I’m ultimately comfortable with who I am.
So when I make statements to the tune of “It’s important to some people that their trans identity is recognized”, it comes from the heart. Again, I recognize that I initially worded that in probably the worst way, and I apologize sincerely to anyone I offended.Just to mention, your comments (that got you banned) were also deeply flawed logically.
Cis-gendered men and women can be unable to have children. Your statement says that they are not men and are not women by the (incredibly flawed) definition you provided.
I’d also note that the wording of your message was irrelevant, the meaning behind it was straight out of terftown, whether you recognized that then or now, it is what it is.
What you consider yourself and what you’ve considered in the past is honestly irrelevant to me, and I hope you realize that my comments are not made in anger or frustration, but just as an explanation and a hope that you can do better going forward.
It’s worth noting that there are (shitty) people in the world who consider cis people who are unable to, or merely choose not to, have children as lesser or not Real men/women. It’s a distinction that has relevance in some limited ways, but has no logical bearing on your identity.
Honestly, I’ve read through his comments, and I’m surprised at how much bad faith is being assumed here.
He never actually defined anything. He essentially said that trans women cannot get pregnant and trans men cannot impregnate someone - at least not naturally (although I am curious to see what science will come up with in the next couple of decades). That’s just a fact, unless you have some evidence otherwise.
Yes, of course there are cis people that can’t have kids, he never said anything to the opposite effect. Just because there are people with eyes who can’t see doesn’t mean that the statement “people without eyes can’t see” is false.
And OK, people from “terftown” apparently say similar things - honestly, I don’t hang out there specifically because I don’t like the transphobia, how the hell should I or anyone else who doesn’t hang out there know? Can we please just judge people by what they say, and not by what other people say? Because this is turning into a “Hitler also drank water” argument.
Can we please just judge people by what they say
That is precisely what I’ve done. Just because youre unfamiliar with the rhetoric doesnt mean trans folks aren’t, since they’ve seen these same lines of comments again and again and again… And again, and again, and again.
For you to say I’m applying bad faith here just tells me you aren’t actually reading my comments.
You should judge people by what they say without an assumption of ‘what they really mean’ unless there is more context from them, because they might be oblivious of some other context as well.
Not everyone can keep up with all the dumb shit that transphobes use to imply trans women are not women.
