Update: In light of the programming.dev update here https://programming.dev/post/8399272, the defederation is no longer going ahead.
However, something more needs to be said. Even here on Blahaj, some of our users took issue with the choice to defederate over this issue.
So I would like to give some background and context.
Blahaj Zone exists, because both Kaity and I left mainstream social media to escape transphobia. Reddit, with its lackluster approach to fighting transphobia, and twitter, with its outright celebration of transphobia pushed us here, to the fediverse, and to create Blahaj Zone and Blahaj Lemmy.
To that end, we will continue to treat transphobia seriously. Our goal is to create a space where gender diverse folk can exist and let our defenses down a little, where we don’t have to worry about getting dragged in to an argument with a transphobe, or a bad faith actor “just asking questions”.
If you are looking for a more reddit like experience, where in the interest of increased engagement, we let low level transphobia slide, and push responsibility for dealing with it on to community mods and individual users, then you will likely not be happy with blahaj going forward. If you choose to stay here, understand that we may defederate again in the future over similar issues.
The choice is yours.
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It has recently been brought to my attention that the lead admin of programming.dev is engaging in ongoing transphobia.
You can see the conversation in question here https://programming.dev/comment/6131539
For that reason we will be defederating from programming.dev in 48 hours.
There are only three communities on that instance used by small number of our users, so this won’t have a big impact, but if you are one of those users, you will need to use an alt account on another instance if you wish to access the communities.
This isn’t that.
This is the lead (cis) admin of a Fediverse instance telling trans people that a Potter game is “the opposite of transphobic” and then arguing with trans folk about it, diminishing the relevance of their pronouns as a side issue, and calling trans folk “insane” for having an issue with the game.
The hexbear pile-on clearly got to them, but that’s not an excuse for the other behaviour. I need to know that other admins will deal with transphobia even when it’s hard, not that they’ll resort to it when they’re frustrated.
You’re assuming bad faith instead of remembering Hanlon’s razor. programming.dev’s technical admin is not your enemy.
When confronted with something he did wrong, he chose to double down.
We know what kind of person he is.
What exactly did he do wrong? I’m super confused about what’s transphobic about the mod’s responses, other than that they disagreed with what a trans person (from hexbear no less) was saying
Having read the thread I really don’t think the programming.dev admin was being transphobic. I know I’m cis so I’m less likely to see transphobia, and I am more lenient with my judgement, but it really looks like they were at worst abrasive or indifferent towards the sensitivities of the issue at hand, and not outright transphobic.
Taking into account that this type of behavior is common in tech debates and that they have explicitly shown their support for trans people elsewhere, I believe that they are not transphobic, just bothersome to you guys in this debate topic because of how important it is to you to treat it with higher respect than some random topic.
Tell me more, cis person from another instance, how the queer people should run their instance
Welp… I knew this wouldn’t be productive. Just trying to respectfully provide an alternative opinion. Don’t dismiss others because of who they are, dismiss them because of what they say. If what I say is wrong then you’ll have a good reason to dismiss me without resorting to my gender identity.
Edit: To be clear, you can run this instance however you want, and nothing I say can take that away from you. I just think you’re acting on faulty information, so the result of this defederation won’t align with your intentions.