likely in response to my comments on the beehaw post, which i linked to (hopefully im doing this right?). apparently, calling people you dont know for the first time "they/them" before being told their pronouns is "misgendering". absurd. this kind of attitude threatens the larger LGBTQ community and is partially why cishets hate us after we won so much progress back in the 00s and 10s.
im a queer person. im neurodivergent. this shit is so goddamn fucking annoying, especially as an older queer who got physically assaulted on a near daily basis for being queer in the 90s. the kids today get their panties in a twist over being supposedly "misgendered" by someone calling them gender neutral pronouns before being corrected. narcissistic victimhood bullshit.
anyways, now banned from one of my favorite instances. meanwhile in the US theyre planning on hunting us. but yeah, lets ban fellow queers over their view that people who get mad about being "misgendered" when they arent (cis people are also referred to as "they/them" before further context in a conversation with a stranger) are just attention seeking brats that threaten the larger movement. its so obvious to me that the brats who find reason to be offended over innocent pronoun use never faced real adversity, like getting repeatedly physically beaten.
edit - the best part of all of this is i faced no moderation from beehaw and all of my comments are +1 or higher. power tripping oversensitive neurodivergent hating bastard of a mod over at blahaj IMO.
edit 2 - did this wrong. heres a link to the post i think got me banned from blahaj and a screenshot about it https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/37659465
Edit 3 - apparently I did nothing wrong until I made my thoughts known about how the pronoun police fucked over the larger LGBTQ community as our rights are backsliding in America. Yall are gonna whine about being misgendered to the concentration camp guards at the rate we’re going. God forbid I be angry that while queers were busy fighting over pronouns our adversaries stuffed the courts, stuffed the school boards, couped the government, and are installing a fascist dictatorship. When I say that these fucking toddlers are going to learn what real oppression tastes like, that’s what I mean. It’s not that I want us to be hurt or oppressed (as the dog piling idiots have interpreted), it’s that the younger generation is weak as hell and lost the fucking plot in the fight for our rights. I grew up getting beaten in the streets for being queer only for these kids to claim their pronouns not being mind-read is oppression!
TL;DR: ~~BPR~~ CSPR (charged situation-provoked reaction). OP was gatekeeping a wee bit but this was definitively not worth a permaban, at most a "chill your head!" 1d ban. OP being queer and the issue happening outside Blåhaj are also relevant.
Sorry in advance for the WORDS, WORDS, WORDS.
Also, I'm not queer. Or an instance owner. I'm open to hear about things that I got wrong. I'm judging things here because it's how this comm works.
I don't disagree with the core of what you're saying, it's sensible stuff:
100% agree with the above. But even then, check your own comment:
You're arbitrarily drawing a line and saying "up to this point, it is not an important matter. Past that point, it is". Well... this is gatekeeping! Cat shit might not be as serious of a problem as elephant shit, but both are still shit, you know?
Then there's the matter of this happening outside Blåhaj. I get why the admins there ban people for activity outside their own instance: the instance is home to extremely marginalised groups, that requires getting rid of bad faith actors (haters, chasers...) even before they set their feet there.
So for example. Let's say that I (cis, hetero) said something that can be understood as bigotry. It would be only sensible if Blahaj banned me on the spot - better safe than sorry, right?
...however that clearly does not apply to you - even if not trans you're gender-diverse. (I always check profiles before judging people.) Blahaj is supposed to be inviting to people like you. It shifts the issue from "some cis hetero got banned by mistake" to "someone who should feel safe in that instance got banned by mistake". Plus what you're saying isn't even bigoted, it's simply gatekeeping.
Based on all of that I think that some intervention from the Blahaj admins would be sensible, even if this happened outside their "turf", but they went a bit too far. [/two cents]
No.
Are you familiar with the siege syndrome? Then there's this American notion of inequality 'cism', that only members of certain groups can be critical of them. That's bullshit. Your gender or sexual orientation doesn't invalidate your opinion (nor validate it).
That's correct but not the full picture.
What matters here is more than just the validity of the opinion; it's also weighting the impact of a potential ban, when you don't really know if it's justified or not. Both a false positive (unjust ban) and a false negative (not banned when they should) are bad, but which is worse? This depends on the gravity of the reason (gatekeeping vs. bigotry) but also your target audience (gender diverse people vs. someone who is not gender diverse).
Also note that Blahaj admins are not from USA, they're from Australia. I'm not from USA either (I'm from South America.) I'm not sure on how much siege mentality applies in either case.
"Better safe than sorry" and the whole vibe of preemptively banning because everyone out there is here to get 'em.
It’s not gatekeeping, and this narcissistic faux outrage over being “misgendered” is harmful to the LGBTQ community.
You’re not queer and you don’t understand the level of anger right now that American queers have. As someone who faced outright physical abuse chronically for being queer as a kid seeing permanently online baby queers get pissy over pronouns while we’re about to be hunted again is absolutely fucking rage inducing for good reason. These fucking piss babies need to get their shit together.
I really feel like the old fight is over. I openly walked hand in hand with my boyfriend in 1996 in Sydney and didn't even get strange looks let alone shouting or hitting
Boys who acted gay in my all boys high school in the 90s did get bullied for acting gay about as much as I got bullied for having the wrong accent, so pretty bad.
I think it's fair for the youth today to try and improve less significant issues when they feel safe, and I don't think I have seen people told off for using they/them/themself when they don't know someone's pronouns because they have never met before
It's also the trans people who are getting overt threats from the US government more so than gays, they also rely on hormone therapy and government could deny that usage, driving them to black market hormones and a lot of suicides
And in 1996 I was getting choked out in America. I’m glad things were better for you in Australia.
You've got a lot of "kids these days don't know how good they have it!" energy, and it's really not helping you here or anywhere.
Seriously, you're complaining about these people fighting all the wrong battles, but here you are still fighting in that exact battle? In your eyes, they're wasting their time turning on each other... but here you are screaming at them and about them? Do you think the things you are saying in this thread will prevent discrimination and violence? Do you think you're changing minds?
I understand you're rightfully pissed off about a lot of things. But you really are drawing a line in your life and saying "I struggled. They didn't. They don't have the right to question me. Which isn't necessarily true and also isn't a very productive line of reasoning.
More so I struggled with physical violence so they have the ability to see pronouns as an issue worthy of feeling “oppressed” by.
It’s just straight up disrespectful to queer elders. And yeah, they don’t know how good they have it. Our violent struggle makes their minor qualms seem major to them. It’s obvious they grew up in a time where oppression was mostly eradicated. It’s telling that the older generations don’t give a fuck about pronouns. Because we were being physically beaten in the streets.
My battle here is that this insane focus on pronouns is HARMFUL to queer people. Excluding queers for …. using they/them as a pronoun for people they don’t know is HARMFUL to queers.
You think they're disrespecting their elders and they don't know how good they have it? Do you genuinely not see a problem here? Have you ever heard someone say anything like that and thought "hmm, actually they have a point"? Especially when you don't actually know how good they've had it?
I think if you'd expressed yourself a bit more reasonably you'd probably be fine expressing the general sentiment that some segment of the queer community is overly focused on performative actions and calling out people who aren't toeing the line of ideological purity over real world gains in rights and acceptance. You can express criticism in a measured way or you can try to use it as a means to insult and inflict insecurity and hurt. Those are very different things.
It's the difference between "hey idiot, I ordered this without ketchup, make it again" and "hi, sorry, this wasn't supposed to have ketchup on it". One is abusive and unreasonable, the other is a polite way of getting your point across. Dr House is funny to watch on TV, but he's not a model for effective communication in the real world. If you focus on being as angry and unpleasant as humanly possible at every turn, people will ignore you and shut you out regardless of whether you would be making a good point.
It costs you nothing to find a slightly diplomatic way to make your point, but being overly harsh about it may cost you everything.
I’m not going to tone police myself when these piss baby queers are threatening the physical safety of the rest of us with their stupid pronoun temper tantrums.
I fought the real fight for acceptance and to watch these main characters piss away all we fought for so they can get attention and feel important is not something I’m going to be nice about. Not when society is actively turning against us and the violence I suffered my entire childhood that me and my fellow millennials and those who came before us fought the real fight to end is now returning.
I’m not putting up with main characters faking “oppression” and I guess I no longer belong to the queer community since I’m not going to put up with fake attention seeking claims of being “misgendered”. These people are chronically online.
Then prepare to get banned from spaces that don't tolerate abusive behavior. And prepare to push people away in any and every relationship that you take this approach in.
The uh scare quotes aren't really helping your case. Being queer doesn't mean you automatically understand the seriousness of other queer people's concerns and it also doesn't mean you're free of bigotry.
Consider like lgbt erasure from official histories, many people scoffed at concerns like this and thought it was hysterical pearl clutching to make a big deal about whether or not someone's sexuality was mentioned or whatever. Others will tell you it literally saved their lives knowing that people like them existed in the past.
I don't think it's that hard to just be kind, and if you can't be kind be funny and then block them and move on :P
Being called they/them by a stranger for the first time IS NOT MISGENDERING.
Being rude and belittling people's concerns, calling people that disagree with you little soft children who have never known hardship, saying that people's concerns are less valid than yours, blaming trans kids figuring themselves out for the hatred we receive. All of that if being a complete dickhead and a bigot.
Look I'm a 35 year old queer, I have been beaten within an inch of my life and left to die in a gutter, I have lived through cops murdering us for fun and being unable to hold hands in public to now. Hell my government made me get steralised to recognise my gender and gay panic was only removed from the books as a valid legal defense for murder in like the last decade.
I know that looking at some of the online discourse can seem a little strange or trivial, but that's also what straights have been doing to us for centuries about literally all of our concerns. You don't know what other people are going through, you don't get to be the judge of what matters to them, and even if you think someone is being more sensitive than is warranted THEY HAVE TOLD YOU THAT THIS MATTERS TO THEM AND THAT IS TRUE. Regardless of what you feel about it, IT HURTS THEM. Why do you want to hurt people?
There is no line of acceptable behaviour that will make you welcome among the broader straight culture. Don't beat up on comrades, and if you can't tolerate that kind of culture then being banned from blahaj is doing you a favour because that is the culture there.
Just... log off and check your head mate.
If they’re gonna have hurt feelings over not being misgendered by being called they/them by a stranger then they deserve to be called the oversensitive piss babies they are. And their behavior is threatening to the larger queer movement.
Yeah so people tried to kill me before most people even knew what a trans person was. I uh, don't think some people figuring out their identity was to blame for that ya know?
You seem really transphobic, and I really think you should reflect on that. Like you're straight up blaming transgender people for queer oppression but that is predicated on the idea of being going back to behaviours they engaged in long before people even discussed trans people. So clearly the drive to harm queer people doesn't require pronouns to surface yeah?
I am going to block you now because I think you are an odious and horrible person.
And you seem dramatic as fuck.
Everyone I don’t like is tRaNsPhObIc!
you’re correct, it’s not.
THANK YOU, case closed, power tripping bastard of an overzealous admin.
no, because that’s not what the conversation where you inserted insulting language was about. re-read my top level comment to this post, please.
You're 100% right that I'm not feeling the anger you queer people are feeling. And, again, I agree with the core of what you're saying. It boils down to "goddammit can't those bloody kids get their priorities right???", doesn't it?
And even with your anger being justified, and even with the core of your complain being spot on, there's still gatekeeping there. And it's completely extraneous to what you're likely trying to say. You could say the same stuff that you're saying without it.
And the people who hate you queer people would still do it regardless of pronouns. It's just an excuse from their part; the actual reason why they hate you is that you're subversive (and that's a good thing). Once they remember "hey, trans and gender non-conforming people exist", all that "God, then man, then woman" hierarchy goes down the bloody drain. Without those kids talking about pronouns they'd pick on something else. Like they already do, their go out of their way to make shit up about you.
[Regardless of agreeing or disagreeing I genuinely wish that you stay safe. And the kids too - even if acc. to you their priorities might be out of place, they still deserve safety.]
I'm all about reclaiming the word queer, but "you queers" sounds absolutely terrible. Something like "queer people" would probably come across a lot better
Fixed.
I interpreted the original statement more as "Accidental misgendering with gender-neutral pronouns is not an unreasonable thing to happen; attacking people over it is unreasonable" more than a question of priorities, and the addition of "I was queer Back In The Day" was meant to establish that the poster isn't some outsider who doesn't know what queer persecution is like, but someone who is genuinely pointing out that accidental misgendering is not an attack or an offense that needs the call to arms to be raised against the individual who made the mistake.
I'm saying that it's a matter of priorities because of this comment chain. Special emphasis on:
See, I'd interpret those same quotes with different emphasis.
ie, I interpret it not as "This is a real problem, but a minor one, and we have major ones to deal with"
But rather as "This is not an offense any more than someone stepping on your foot by accident is an offense"
It's more like "Accidental misgendering is not a real problem that you should feel offended for. We're facing a serious threat dammit." So it's a bit like both.
Note that OP was the one bringing the part of the threat up; before that people were focusing on the pronouns. That means that the part of the threat is more relevant for what OP is saying, it's what gets the focus.
Yeah, the second interpretation. This whole “misgendering” bullshit is just looking for something to be mad about.
Meanwhile the physical violence that I grew up fighting is about to return but sure let’s go be mad at our fellow queers for not reading our minds about what pronouns we want to be called because they/them is offensive to us despite being standard English for hundreds of years!
It’s not accidental and it’s not misgendering. They/them has been used in English to describe all genders for hundreds of years. Even more so for the first time when meeting a stranger and not knowing them.
This was just a piss baby who never took a fist to the face for being who they are wanting to feel “oppressed.”
It’s extremely offensive to older queers like myself who had to fight the real fight so these fucking toddlers can get all pissy about being “misgendered”.
I'm sure you know oppression comes in many forms and intensities.
I'm not disagreeing with you that "They/them" is appropriate upon meeting a stranger, but you are definitely coming at this with a good deal of aggravation which may not be the best way to see this, however justified that aggravation might be. You're pretty deep in the comments section here, wherein most people have agreed with you that the instance ban on you was unreasonable, and you're still fuming. I get it, but it's not necessarily helpful to parsing why there are people in here, even who agree that your ban was unwarranted, who feel that your responses were quick on the trigger.
If violence against LGBT folk were completely extinguished, for example, but they were not allowed to legally marry, that would still be oppression. A lesser form? A MUCH lesser form? Certainly. Likewise, even in a society where LGBT folk can marry, a refusal to use the appropriate pronouns is a form of (mild) social oppression. A lesser form than being forbidden from marriage? Of course. A much lesser form than violence? Certainly. But a form nonetheless, just like the normalization of calling Black men 'boy' was (and in some parts of the country, is) oppressive.
I get that things are looking pretty fucking horrific in the real world right now, that violence, never extinguished, seems like it might have an exceptionally vile and widespread comeback, and focus on pronouns seems misplaced in light of that, but what you responded to in the OP was an aside comment, at most.
Just like it's okay for you to be upset at the overall focus you feel is placed on pronoun importance, and especially in pronoun witch-hunting, seeking out an enemy to be angry at to validate themselves; it is also okay for someone to be upset at the prospect of being misgendered, or, rather, a refusal to be gendered correctly, if you prefer. It is passing, but it is worth their comment; it is not inherently invalid for them to be agitated by this phenomenon, it's not absurd to regard it as a form of social oppression. The mistake they make is in attributing accidental or unknowing misgendering the same or similar quality of offense, which I think we are in agreement on.
You're attributing a lot of intent into the statement you responded to in the OP, but even if correct, it's committing that same essential mistake of attributing a type or intensity of offense that... is not there, at least not in a strict reading of the original comment. The same way that the offense of misgendering someone on accident is a type or intensity of incident that is not comparable to intentional misgendering, regardless of how a quick emotional response can mistake the two, in practice or in abstract.
tl;dr; you're not wrong to be angry at the concept, what you were doing was not gatekeeping in any serious sense, the instance ban is unwarranted, but continuing to attribute motive and rationale to the person you responded to is an entirely different question, and one you are not coming off as justified in.