That post explicitly says it’s not a place for debate or participation from users of other instances.
I’d like to respect that but I think events like this need debate and discussion because it helps to develop and evolve the culture of lemmy and the fediverse in general.
The post says:
This post is “FYI only” for blahaj lemmy members. It is not a debate, and is not intended for non blahaj lemmy users to weigh in and offer opinions.
I recently received reports of a feddit.uk user espousing transphobia. Specifically, this was a feddit.uk user refusing to use the word cis, repeating the “adult human female” dog whistle, and claiming that trans women are not women. I approached a member of the feddit.uk admin team and raised my concerns and sought clarification of their stance on posts like this, where the transphobia is mostly dogwhistles, and “civil disagreement” on the validity of trans folk.
I was told by the feddit.uk admin that their preferred response is this kind of transphobia is to “sort it out through discussion and voting”. However, the comments in question are currently more upvoted than downvoted, and little “sorting out” has occurred. The posts remain in place.
At this point, the admin stopped responding to my messages despite being active elsewhere on lemmy. When it became clear they were ignoring my messages and had no intention of removing the posts in question, I made the decision to defederate the instance.
I know some folk agree with the feddit.uk admins approach of pushback through discussion and voting, but this instance is not designed to be that kind of space. Blahaj lemmy is meant to be a place where we can avoid the rampant transphobia universally visible on nearly every other social media platform, and where we can exist without needing to debate our right to do so.
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I find it absolutely crazy that they de-federated over 1 user, when a block would suffice.
I don’t agree with transphobia (of course), but Blåhaj can’t demand that their rules be enforced in other instances.
Ada‘s post contains no details or reasoning. Linking to the offending content would make this appear more deliberate.
The offending content was apparently this.
A woman is an adult female. A transwoman is an adult female who used to be male. It’s not difficult to grasp that they are different things. You can admit that and still believe that transwomen should be treated with dignity like anyone else.
Personally I don’t give a shit what bathroom people use or what they want to be referred to. I’ll go along with whatever… But a woman and a transwoman are different things, and it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Always have been different things and always will be, no matter what the law states, now or in the future.
Kier’s words are still not transphobia. There is no fear, dislike, prejudice, discrimination, harassment, or violence in his statement. The scream of ‘transphobia’ is thrown around too much for anyone who disagrees with a narrow definition. Any disagreement is labelled as hate, and it’s silly.
Should a transwoman have the same rights and respect and opportunity as a woman (as per the legal definition)? Absolutely. Are they the same? No, they are not. Is that a hateful bigoted viewpoint worthy of scorn? I don’t believe so.
I don’t use the term cis. I use the term woman and you knew exactly what I meant. A blonde woman is a description of a woman’s hair colour and is a semantic-based response that is nothing to do with this point. You know this; it’s a foolish riposte that’s nothing at all to do with the clear and simple fact that a woman who used to be a man is not the same thing as a (cis) woman.
I can call it a woman who used to have a penis or a woman who used to be a man if you want me to be pedantic about it. Nothing to do with hair colour, or skin colour, or anything else except previously being a biological male and now identifying as a woman.
‘adult human female’ is not a dog whistle. It’s a legal and common-sense definition that you clearly understand but are trying to make out to be hate for some reason. I am not denying the legitimacy of transwomen; nor is Keir.
Transwomen and (cis) women are different things. And Transmen and (cis) men are different things. They have different names, which you yourself use for a reason. That reason being they are not the same thing. This is exactly the same as saying transwomen are not women, because they are not. They are transwomen.
It’s pretty simple.
If you’re not vehemently loyal to the trans agenda, you might as well be a nazi in their eyes.
It’s why rational people take their complaints less seriously every day.
This is exactly how they propagandize fence-sitters and convert them into extremists.
They start with a factual and level-headed stance that’s hard to argue against, here being that “Trans women are biologically different, but shouldn’t be treated any differently,” but then, by the end, they’re sprinkling dog whistles and covertly separating them, because once you can view them as something external, it’s easier to ignore or even support what happens to them later.
This is exactly the same as saying transwomen are not women, because they are not. They are transwomen.
Blatant transphobia wrapped in a level-headed blanket to covertly shift perspectives. I mean, even if you look over the first reply, having their actual intentions in mind, it becomes apparent that they were very careful not to imply that trans people are in any way the same as cis people, making sure to use more general terms like “deserve respect” in order to not contradict the idea that they’re a totally separate entity. If the admins of feddit[.]uk are okay with this, defedding them was the right move.
Nice slippery slope.
Brand new account searching for opportunities to make transphobic remarks? Yeah, fuck off, troll.
Someone saying transwomen exist and deserve equal rights to women is not exactly an extremely transphobic position to hold.
That’s a progressive view overall still. Take all the allies you can get. Competitions in ideological purity and playing political commissar only serve to divide.
We live in a time now where equal rights for transwomen and women are under attack.
Rights and identities are not the same thing or equally important.
What many people consider a „real woman“ or „real man“ varies and often excludes cisgender people.
That said, I totally understand that Blahaj defederated and has a more strict stance.
People are entitled to have their own opinions on a topic and should be free to discuss topics with out harassment from mods on other instances.
This line of reasoning is gestapo.
you are gonna talk as I told you or you won’t talk at all
🤡
Everyone has the right to be bigoted without being harassed for it!
Okay, bigot. Blocked.
I love the irony of my comments being deleted for calling out the weaponization of tribalism by the .blahaj community.
Dragonfucker is not a serious gender, grow up.
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That’s crazy. I mean it’s their instance and I don’t think it was out of the realm for blahaj to do but over the post of one guy is crazy.
but over the post of one guy is crazy
Not the post of one guy. The response of the admins to that post. Refusing to remove the transphobia (because of, if we take them at their word, a misinterpretation of an unjust court ruling). Refusing to communicate with the blahaj admins.
And why couldn’t they just ban the guy from posting on the blahaj instance?
They could, and probably did. The issue here is with the UK admins’ failure to act in a timely manner on the basis of some nonsensical reasoning, and their terrible communication.
Defederating from an instance over one guy not being banned in a timely manner is a bit overblown though.
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Defederating an entire instance over the actions of a single user instead of simply banning that user along with creating a post to bring it up but not actually discuss it is just the kind of extreme reaction I expect from Ada.
TDI (they deserved it) unless Feddit admins pop in with some extravagant response
They chimed in elsewhere, sounds like they want consensus amongst the admin group and they are worried about the recent (frankly transphobic) UK Supreme Court ruling. They also expressed understanding that blahaj wanted to move faster and defederate.
Edit: Source I was referencing. Not advocating for or against, but there at least appears to be a bit more nuance than straight up support of or apathy about transphobia.
I’m not sure there is any nuance there.
Rule 1 for feddit.uk is explicitly against transphobia. The comment was transphobic and against the rules and should have been removed.
The UK Supreme Court ruling is, as you said, blatantly transphobic.
So they have two options:
- Adhere to their own rules
- Drop rule #1 and be OK with transphobic comments.
Regardless of the excuse (and I will not call it “reason”, because it is just an excuse at best IMO) the only option for blahaj would be to defederate. Feddit.uk has, in their lack of moderation of transphobic comments, chosen option 2.
At present, feddit.uk is totally cool with transphobia.
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Just a sense check here, are you asserting that Ada is a PTB for defederating from feddit.uk after their admins failed to take action?
Blajah Zone is specifically run as a safe space for trans folks, so it’s an emphatic YDI to feddit.uk from me.
Given that the UK Supreme Court recently ruled that the legal definition of a woman in the UK is based on biological sex, and the supposedly Labour PM Starmer is running with it (wtf Starmer???), it’s not surprising to me that TERFs and their supporters are coming out of the woodwork on feddit.uk.
Fuck TERFs and fuck Starmer for jumping on Trump’s anti-DEI bandwagon just to pander to transphobic voters.
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OP seems pretty neutral and this is just a “here’s what’s going on in lemmy moderation/administration”.
Then why did they post about it in this community?
100%. If this was an information only style post, they wouldn’t be saying that it should’ve allowed debate… and we have a whole fediverse lore sub specifically for info.
They pointed elsewhere they didn’t understand the purpose of this comm.
I don’t think we should use “comm” as an abbreviation for community.
Comm is already taken to mean ‘communication.’
makes sense to me, that is what blahaj is for 😒 besides people that agree with that user don’t want to interact with blahaj. And those that do could do it elsewhere
literally the fediverse working exactly as intended… blahaj clearly states its purpose and lives by it. on any other instance it might be ptb, but on blahaj thats just good instance administration
terfs fuck off.
That’s why I chose blahaj zone as my instance. It’s nice not having to justify my existence
How are people still struggling with the basic concept that the person who runs Blahaj can do what they want with Blahaj?
All I get from this type of moaning is: “I joined a decentralised platform and now disagree with decentralisation in action.”
If this kind of action is what it takes for Blahajists to protect their necks then this is how it’s gonna be…
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I feel like this community serves a great purpose. And I’m a massive fan of drinking my tea and reading all the drama it attracts. But I am just beyond tired of the same handful of commenters popping up to always agree with whoever is opposed to blahaj.
I give this one a YDI. Anybody posting anything transphobic who gets caught by Ada is gonna be banned. Any instance with a mod or admin who makes transphobic posts or comments will get defederated. No one is entitled to having their content served on Ada’s servers, and the people who join blahaj know that, and seem to appreciate it.
Which is sort of why I always wind up agreeing with her. Her server has clear, concise beliefs, and clear, concise administration, and she has the clear-throated consent of her governed or they would leave.
The only server whose vibe I appreciate more is divide by zero. Shout-out to what I feel is the most neurospicy, nonconformist bunch of pirates I ever met.
It’s totally reasonable for them to enforce their level of anti-bigotry protections to protect their safe space instance. It’s not power tripping. Besides feddit.uk is full of full time labour centrist true believers and/or probable astroturfers and is is largely low value subreddit copy paste for their most substantial communities.
