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’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:
Now as far as this:
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.
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.
You realize they kept expanding on the comment, right? And doubling down on it?
Well intentioned or not isnt really relevant. I’m not calling them a bad person, I pointed out the problem with what they said, and that the wording wasn’t relevant.
When it comes to the ban though, it wouldn’t matter anyway. They were in violation of both site-wide and community rules.
There is no other context that matters here. They could be trans and it still wouldn’t matter. The comment created an arbitrary (and altogether meaningless) distinction on how to define women, specifically separating trans women from women.
A rule violation on both counts.
So what exactly is your point here?
It looked like you weren’t getting the point of what they were saying and was offering another way of saying it. Since your reply is clear that you disagree that context matters, you got the point but disagree.