I’ve told this story on Lemmy a couple of times since being banned from Blahaj Zone, and I’ll tell it again.
I once posted a meme to a Blahaj community I moderated in which someone named Obvious_Troll@hexbear.net was attacking a trans person. It was a political meme, and I’ll try to avoid saying what the political viewpoint was so that this thread doesn’t get derailed. But as part of the meme, Obvious_Troll was being transphobic, and the reader was expected to agree that transphobia is bad and Obvious_Troll is… an obvious troll. The username wasn’t actually important to the meme, I was just including a picture of a Lemmy comment and had to include a name, so I made one up.
Ada then messaged me to say that the post would be removed unless I redacted Obvious_Troll’s name. Ada said that Obvious_Troll is a real, trans lemmy user, and I’m not to attack them. There is nobody on hexbear named Obvious_Troll, I made that username up.
Read bottom to top:
So Ada defended a fictional transphobic troll, deciding they were trans for some reason. The troll’s username was not the point of the meme, the point was what they were saying. So I made up a nonsense username to support the point of the meme. I don’t think anyone would choose the username Obvious_Troll unless they wanted to be seen as a troll. As near as I can tell, Ada defended Obvious_Troll because they were from Hexbear, and Ada seems to think every Hexbear user is trans. Even a made-up one who wants to be seen as a troll and who harasses trans people. Why did Ada hyperfocus on the instance name, and not notice that the username was ridiculous? I don’t know. I don’t understand it.
Blahaj is intended to be a safe space for trans people. And Ada’s intention with asking for redaction of this fake made up name was, somehow, to protect a trans person. And that’s good. But it’s really weird that Ada thought the way to protect trans people, is by defending fictional transphobic trolls.
EDIT: So, the discussion got derailed not by politics as I expected, but by Ada claiming Obvious_Troll is a real person again. Here’s the original post in which Obvious_Troll is being transphobic and the reader is supposed to agree that transphobia is bad:
Quit making fake nonsense up. That story didn’t happen. And recognising that a fictional character is fictional is not a question of tolerance, it’s a question of basic functional ability required to live in the world.
That story didn’t happen.
Then what is this? https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/14491263
It’s not someone insisting that their pronouns are goddess. It’s someone insisting that Their pronouns are capitalised. If transphobes are going to attack random people for existing, they should at least put in the bare minimum effort to be factually correct. Otherwise they deserve to be laughed at and called stupid liars.
Four years ago, I realised I was goddessgender, and My goddess-mother suggested I try out capitalised pronouns.
So I’m a transphobe for relaying an incident that actually happened now?
Or am I a transphobe for suggesting that guardrails are a good idea? I’m not suggesting gatekeeping pronouns or gender, but I would put forth that claiming one’s gender as “goddess” and that their pronouns must be capitalized and if you don’t you’re misgendering them has about as much validity as some maga asshole saying that they identify as an attack helicopter.
Of course inclusiveness is important, but it is also important to have a firm foot on reality and recognize ridiculousness for what it is, and possibly more importantly, call it out.
Unfortunately, in the trans community, it has veered towards an “all things are valid” approach, however while that is great sentiment to have, it breaks down the moment someone abuses it in bad faith, whether it be a maga asshole, or someone claiming that they are a goddess (and should be recognized as such) and that their preferred pronouns MUST be capitalized or it’s you misgendering them.
