Transphobia in the fediverse - Discuss Online
discuss.online
I’ve only been on Lemmy a few days and I’ve already witnessed a lot of thinly veiled transphobia, anything from people dismissing the existence of trans people, to trying to claim we are predators. I’ve also seen people downvoted in the general communities for expressing trans support, or seemingly for no reason other than simply being openly trans or visibly queer. I know it’s an ongoing effort to moderate transphobia on Lemmy, and the fediverse as a whole. We have to also address mentions of thinly veiled transphobia and transphobic users. Transphobia isn’t just a differing opinion, it is a dangerous hateful sentiment which causes harm to vulnerable people and it needs to be addressed, at the instance and community level. We need to put in the effort to identify transphobic dogwhistles and language used by transphobes to eradicate this type of behavior from our communities and servers alike. Some people will argue that the light stuff isn’t something to worry about, but that’s not true. This is a tactic they use to blend in with normies and make them think that nothing they are doing or saying is wrong. It’s what transphobic right-wing YouTubers and Facebook users do to avoid being banned for hate speech. We are better than these corporations though, Fediverse is run by communities and for the users, we should not let these things slide as easily as Corporations do, they’re in it to make money, we… We’re in it to create a community for the users. Part of that means kicking out those who don’t have all our best interests at heart.

cross-posted from: https://discuss.online/post/12273255

I’ve only been on Lemmy a few days and I’ve already witnessed a lot of thinly veiled transphobia, anything from people dismissing the existence of trans people, to trying to claim we are predators. I’ve also seen people downvoted in the general communities for expressing trans support, or seemingly for no reason other than simply being openly trans or visibly queer. I know it’s an ongoing effort to moderate transphobia on Lemmy, and the fediverse as a whole. We have to also address mentions of thinly veiled transphobia and transphobic users. Transphobia isn’t just a differing opinion, it is a dangerous hateful sentiment which causes harm to vulnerable people and it needs to be addressed, at the instance and community level. We need to put in the effort to identify transphobic dogwhistles and language used by transphobes to eradicate this type of behavior from our communities and servers alike.

Some people will argue that the light stuff isn’t something to worry about, but that’s not true. This is a tactic they use to blend in with normies and make them think that nothing they are doing or saying is wrong. It’s what transphobic right-wing YouTubers and Facebook users do to avoid being banned for hate speech. We are better than these corporations though, Fediverse is run by communities and for the users, we should not let these things slide as easily as Corporations do, they’re in it to make money, we… We’re in it to create a community for the users. Part of that means kicking out those who don’t have all our best interests at heart.

  • Blazingtransfem98OP
    236·
    2 months ago

    Just as well, the Lemmy.world one was filled with transphobes and transphobia apologists. No progress to be made there unfortunately.

    Lemmy.world might be a lost cause, maybe defederation of .world should be more widely considered…

    • MBM@lemmings.world
      14·
      2 months ago

      The lemmy.world thread reminds me of a similar “racism on the fediverse” thread, and the occasional thread about misogyny (dismissive, uninterested and/or personally offended)

      • Blazingtransfem98OP
        92·
        2 months ago

        It does have all the worst qualities of Reddit, including the hate speech and the hateful downvotes, I saw many people on Reddit heavily downvoted in unrelated threads because they were openly trans on their profile. I’ve unfortunately seen the same thing on Lemmy from Lemmy.world comment sections and that’s just in the first 5 days of being here.

          • Blazingtransfem98OP
            2·
            2 months ago

            Yeah, and Reddit is one of the most toxic cesspits out there, they only banned subs like fatpeoplehate and itsafetish because of being advertiser friendly. If they hadn’t complained those subs probably still would be up spouting hateful garbage.

            • LustyArgonian@lemmy.worldEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              Yes I’ve been asking around, was new to Lemmy when I made my account, and have narrowed it down to 3 instances but am not totally sure which one to pick. I want to be able to post nudity, and I also do not want to be around people who are authoritarian (eg tankies) if possible.

              • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
                5·
                2 months ago

                You can always just have multiple accounts, if you’re specifically trying to avoid Marxists but also liberals, dbzer0 is probably what you want, but you could also have a Lemmynsfw.com account as well.

                Lemmy is lacking in Anarchist and NSFW instances from what I know of, so either you will want to go with a general purpose instance that doesn’t block NSFW instances and deal with liberals and Marxists also federated with the general purpose instance, or maintain 2 accounts. Some apps let you swap at the press of a button without needing to relog in. I personally have a Hexbear.net account and a Lemmy.ml account, the former for relaxing and checking the news, the latter generally for trying to get liberals to read theory, so I use Jerboa for Lemmy.ml and Hexbear.net through my browser (so I get access to the unique Hexbear emotes). Works well for me!

                • Blazingtransfem98OP
                  1·
                  2 months ago

                  If going with lemmy.zip I recommend staying out of most of their local communities, a mod there who runs a good amount of the local communities on lemmy.zip is a transphobia apologist, maybe it won’t bother some people or won’t be an issue to them but generally I find that hanging out in communities run by people like that doesn’t end well when they eventually use their mod powers to push an agenda.

    • NaevaTheRat [she/her]@vegantheoryclub.orgEnglish
      6·
      2 months ago

      vegan theory club defedded world and while I miss some content the quality of commentator went up dramatically. Yeah I see some stuff I disagree with and I’m sure I bother some people too, sometimes accidentally ;) but that place is a fucking cesspit.

      • Cowbee [he/him]@lemmy.ml
        41·
        2 months ago

        Browsing Hexbear’s All vs Lemmy.ml’s All is night and day different in terms of average post and commenter quality. Lemmy.world and similarly aligned right-wing instances really drags down the average quality of discussions.