• WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    They do. There’s a power-tripping mod for most of the big trans communities that loves to ban people for silly ideological reasons.

    Look at this ridiculous shit. What did I do to deserve this? Did I go onto a trans community and start throwing around slurs? No! I would never do that. I’m trans myself. I’m active and help run actual trans support groups in the real world. No, I got mass banned for “gatekeeping” for completely innocuous posts like this:

    Or another one here:

    The person that moderates these communities is completely out of touch. If any discussion organically arises about the nature of pronouns or the bounds of who counts as trans arise, this out of control mod mass bans anyone that disagrees with her ideology.

    Note, I didn’t go around harassing people who were using neo-pronouns. (Pronouns other than she/he/they.) It was simply an open discussion that organically developed. I personally find some neo-pronouns pretty ridiculous. Often they don’t even meet the definition of a pronoun. But I wasn’t forcing that belief on anyone or shoe-horning it in random discussions. I wasn’t even addressing anyone who use them. But I went against the party line, so it was time for a purge. These comments had very high upvote/downvote ratios, with greater than 90% of people upvoting rather than downvoting. So her views are clearly extreme even within the Lemmy trans community.

    And worst, this power-tripping woman banned me from a bunch of other communities, all justified by the same childish “gatekeeping” bullshit. What’s worse is that it’s so sudden. Like, it’s not like they have a list of topics that are banned from discussion. The mods will allow discussions of these topics and then ban people who give answers they don’t like. If your answer to “what does it mean to be trans” is anything short of “it’s completely meaningless and has literally no real definition anymore,” then you’ll be banned for “gatekeeping.”

    • Skavau@piefed.social
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      5 days ago

      Not commenting on the validity of your ban or not, but if you get instance banned on Lemmy - the system will automatically directly ban you from all communities on that instance that you have previously commented on. So it looks like a mass community ban.

    • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      Your points make perfect sense, arbitrarily conjured pronouns serve no purpose. I also don’t think anyone should be harassed for deciding to describe themselves like this, if it bothers you, you can just ignore them.

      They do make me irrationally angry though. The roleplay they put everyone through… it’s like, I already have to jump through hoops for social interactions and you want me to accept your pronouns are ‘of the air’?

      Nope, just like the dragon rider or wyvern rider or whatever the fuck — I refuse. Easy block. Like I usually don’t even have anything against what they try to say (if the topic isn’t about their roleplay), I just simply can’t interact with the roleplay.

      Not to mention I’ve got the sneaking suspicion that many people only do it for attention and cast doubt on anyone who tries to say otherwise with stuff like ‘you’re gatekeeping’ ‘you’re a bigot’ ‘you’re xyz’. Thought terminating clichés and whatnot.

          • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Sorry you have to deal with that clown. I follow your approach. If someone in my circles starts demanding that people respect their “pronoun” that is something completely ridiculous they invented from whole cloth? I don’t misgender them. I don’t call them by something other than what they ask. I just refuse to engage with or associate with people like that at all. I’ll just cut off contact. My response is just, “I’m not going to try and change you. You have your own issues unrelated to being trans, and you clearly don’t want help. I leave you to your demons.”

            • Jax@sh.itjust.works
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              5 days ago

              Oh, no worries, I’ve had this person tagged for a long time. I know exactly what to expect when dealing with them. I’ve tried to refrain from demonizing .mlers lately — most of them aren’t bad people. This one, however, I’ve seen saying some real awful stuff. Shit-slinging is all they get from me.

              I just refuse to engage with or associate with people like that at all.

              I’m not a perfect guy. I struggle with remembering ‘normal’ social interactions (like not giving an honest answer when someone asks how I am), let alone ones that are tailor-made to each individual. I’ve recently defaulted to just calling everyone they — you’re god damn right it’s because I’m lazy. If I’m lazy enough that I call cisgendered people they, why would you (proverbial) ever assume I want to get used to calling you ‘drag’ or ‘of the air’? One person out of billions, I can literally just go talk to anyone else.

              Oh but of course, that’s bigotry! I am a bigot for not wanting to interact with someone that lays out landmines that everyone has to tiptoe around in every conversation. I am a bigot for refusing to participate in this person roleplaying as a dragon rider and referring to themselves in the third person as ‘drag’. I’m a bigot for not believing in air elementals.

              What a load of shit! It’s exactly like you’ve said, people like this spit on every LGBTQ+ person that has ever experienced suffering or death as a result of expressing who they are. It is a viscious, hideous mockery.

              You’ve chosen a tough path but I’m glad you speak your piece. I think we can all agree when I say we could all use a little more sanity in our lives.

              • chloroken@lemmy.ml
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                3 days ago

                I’ve had this person tagged for a long time. I know exactly what to expect when dealing with them.

                Lmao, I have no idea who you are. Amazing.

            • chloroken@lemmy.ml
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              3 days ago

              Literally demonizing and dehumanizing others because you don’t understand grammar, lmao. Gross as fuck.

    • diaphragmwp@discuss.tchncs.de
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      5 days ago

      Was thinking of that once as well, though nobody would take a straight white man on this topic seriously. Interesting to see I am not alone.

      • kolmaskommentoija@sopuli.xyz
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        3 days ago

        The online trans communities are only for certain types of people, and it is not only straight cis men that are not welcome. I have found I have no place in the rainbow communities online either, even though I am trans. Only certain types of opinions seem to dominate the discussions… and they do, because the people thinking differently are not taking part in them.

    • Wren@lemmy.today
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      5 days ago

      As much as I think some people abuse neopronouns, that sounds like gatekeeping to me. Someone’s identity shouldn’t depend on a larger democratic agreement.

      I know a kid, a friend of my neice, who identifies as bunny/bun. Bun’s friends, family and teachers respect Bunny’s pronouns. As far as I know, Bun is just trying to make sense of bunself and the world, and if this helps, it’s no problem for me. In fact, we all socially agreed to do it.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        That’s not a pronoun though, that’s a name. No one can know what social role this person is aiming for or how they want to be treated, as rabbits do not exist as free people in human society.

        “I identify as a rabbit, treat me like a rabbit.”

        “What, do you want me to lock you in a cage and raise you as a pet or source of meat and fur?”

        If a child wants to play make believe, and the adults around them want to humor them, that’s fine. But we’re talking about adults in the real world here.

        Again, the only way anyone knows how to treat this person is by learning their very specific “pronoun.” And if a word cannot form as a useful shorthand, it by definition isn’t a pronoun. This person doesn’t have “bun” as their pronoun. That’s just their nickname.

        And what’s really odd in these conversations is that this has fuck all to do with trans people. Going by a quirky nickname you just made up doesn’t make you trans or anything other than a person with a quirky nickname.

        If you have to explain it, it’s not a pronoun. If it has nothing to do with gender, it’s certainly not a pronoun. And gender isn’t just vibes. It has to have some actual relation to human sexuality and gender roles. Do you think your gender is a cat? I’m sorry, but you’re real gender is apparently clown. The purpose of pronouns is traditionally to indicate male and female. And pronouns should stick to that axis, though nonbinary folks fit neatly into that.

        To me, a pronoun is something that:

        1. Is a useful and practical shorthand. (A pronoun is not a nickname.)
        2. Maps to a real gender that has some relationship to male, female, man, woman. (Could be various forms of nonbinary that say you identify between male and female, as neither male nor female, etc. But it has to actually have some connection to male/female.)

        I just fundamentally reject the idea that the definitions of “gender” and “pronouns” are so meaningless that you’re basically using the word “gender” interchangeably with the word “vibe.” We have so many words to describe “bunself” without muddying the word pronoun. You could just say some has a rabbit-like personality or character. There’s no need for cis people to appropriate trans terminology for things that have nothing to do with trans issues or the gender spectrum.

        • Wren@lemmy.today
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          4 days ago

          Bunny doesn’t identify as a rabbit. Bun is non-binary and the pronouns are bun/bunny. Not a name. We use it like they/them and ze/zem. And not a child, a teenager.

          Super weird arguing specific language rules in english, of all things. Multiple languages recognize more than three gendered classes. Most importantly, language changes to fit our needs, no one should change how they express themselves or identify to fit a language model.

          • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Bunny doesn’t identify as a rabbit. Bun is non-binary and the pronouns are bun/bunny. Not a name. We use it like they/them and ze/zem. And not a child, a teenager

            This is nonsense. And, as I said, a child.

            Y’all got issues beyond being trans. And whatever it is, it has nothing to do with trans people or our struggles. I leave you to your demons.

            • Wren@lemmy.today
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              4 days ago

              And you clearly have isues with gatekeeping what pronouns someone is allowed to use, according to your arbitrary rules. It has everything to do with trans people and our struggles when people dictate how others are allowed to identify.

              • kolmaskommentoija@sopuli.xyz
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                3 days ago

                Is denying that nicknames are pronouns really gatekeeping, is it not more of an argument of semantics? They said you can use whatever nicknames you want, but that does not make them pronouns by definition. That is not a direct argument against someone’s identity, it is an argument about what words mean.
                Nobody owns the English language, it is again a tool of communication, a social construct that is defined by the rules people agree to use. The argument made is that English pronouns (or gender for that matter) are not an expression of personality by the very rules that agree how to define what the word “pronoun” means. Not that people cannot call themselves anything they want.
                You can disagree with the argument (the rules of languages are everchanging after all), but saying it means an intent to prevent people from using words to describe themselves is unrelated to the actual point made.

                  • kolmaskommentoija@sopuli.xyz
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                    2 days ago

                    The argument is, that it’s a nickname you are using a as a pronoun.

                    I’d word the problem something like… Inserting completely new words into a language can be very difficult, and inserting them in place of existing words is even harder. If a significant portion of the speakers will not accept them, they essentially will not become part of the language. Stretching the meaning of “woman” to include transwomen too? relatively easy, transwomen already fill most of the requirements people have for the meaning of the word. Adopting loanwords for new concepts, something like schadenfreude? also relatively easy, since it did not have a word before and people can quickly grasp the concept.
                    But if I say something like “uiminen” means swimming in English, will enough people adopt it and use it instead of “swimming”? Absolutely not, why would they? Replacing something like pronouns is even harder than that, since they not only have solid meanings, they are associated with a rigid role in the English language. Does that mean you cannot use them like it? also absolutely not, of course you can. But you cannot force the change you are using to become part of the English language, since a lot of people refuse it as it breaks the existing rules harshly and they have no reason to accept that.
                    You can obviously try to make “it’s a pronoun, not a nickname” true, which is what you are doing, and which the commenter above is arguing against. But as things stand, the majority of the language speakers will take the side of “it’s a nickname you are using as a pronoun”, which means that’s the reality of it inside what constitutes as the English language.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        Performative victimhood helps no one. Your comically expansive definition of bigotry disgraces the memory of the trans people killed through acts of actual bigotry. You’ve just been pavloved into believing you can win any argument by shouting “bigot!” loudly enough. Frankly, I’m done with that shit. I have no patience for this kind of clown behavior among trans folks. I fundamentally reject your bullying.