I’m not sure what’s going on over there, but half the time I see a post from there or go into a comment section and it’s just…bad. Like old reddit the_donald bad. Constant trolling, etc. You TS just really bad vibes. I’ve been blocking the communities as they come up, but I’m not sure what else I can do.
Unless they start brigading heavily or cross a line in terms of the communities they house, we won’t be defederating them.
Their own communities are, quite something, but their admins have told them to be on their best behaviour when engaging in communities outside of their instance, and so far, they seem to be doing that
I think the fact that they’re more active in this thread than the blahaj folks is fairly emblematic of the problem. They can’t seem to help themselves with the brigading and they do seem to be drowning out local opinion with tankie rhetoric and spam.
EDIT: Just pointing out that if this were a blahaj exclusive thread you would get a very different sense of where popular opinion actually stands.
EDIT 2: I was initially pretty excited about federating with hexbear but I think after seeing the effect it has on the overall tone of discussion I’m pretty disappointed.
Not having downvotes does not, by any means, mean you need to post your disagreement. Our instance also does not have downvotes. You ARE drowning out exactly the sort of discussion this community is for. I can guarantee what you would like to say has already been posted and upvoting those posts and moving on IS the appropriate way to handle this issue in a meta community for an instance you are not a part of.
Responding to ridiculous claims which now appear on our own instance, comparing us to Donald Trump supporters, is not “brigading”.
You understand federation, right? It means that what you post here shows up on hexbear, what we post shows up on blahaj, and we can all interact. You wanna defederate - go for it. But don’t make ridiculous, outlandish, baseless claims about thousands of people (who are probably the best allies you have on lemmy as evidenced by other instances ITT) and call it “brigading” when people refuse those outrageous claims.
tankie rhetoric
The largest and most inclusive trans positive space outside of blahaj has “tankie rhetoric”. You might want to think on that.
I think the fact that they’re more active in this thread than the blahaj folks is fairly emblematic of the problem.
It’s a thread about us, so . . .
tankie rhetoric
My valiant neoliberal argument. Their insidious tankie rhetoric.
Just pointing out that if this were a blahaj exclusive thread you would get a very different sense of where popular opinion actually stands.
You can see the instance of the poster, can’t you? And it’s not like hexbear people are able to downvote posts, so our vote is (while still something) relatively weaker.
tankie rhetoric
It’s a thread about us, so . . .
It’s actually a community about us, so…
My valiant neoliberal argument. Their insidious tankie rhetoric.
I am a leftist.
You can see the instance of the poster, can’t you? And it’s not like hexbear people are able to downvote posts, so our vote is (while still something) relatively weaker.
We can’t downvote either, but a quick sampling shows over 3x as many hexbear users commenting as blahaj, so…
In a thoughtful and respectful dialogue, it would be more constructive to engage with differing ideas on their merits, rather than dismissing them with labels that may or may not apply.
No moreso than liberals are flooding it with liberal apologia. Also the vast majority of us aren’t pro russia, we’re anti NATO and Anti the war in Ukraine. Russia is fucked
to be on their best behaviour when engaging in communities outside of their instance
They weren’t in Lemmy.ca, got defederated for shitposting, and being trolls over there.
Hexbear is really queer friendly and polite. It’s also one of the few actual leftist spaces on here after the homogenization of lemmy.world and lemmy.ml. The main goal I’ve interpreted from Blahaj.zone is to be a queer-first and affirming space on Lemmy, so one has to prove that Hexbear is a large enough systemic threat to Blahaj’s members to warrant defederating.
I don’t think I’d describe hexbear as polite, they seem to get pretty rowdy, even antagonistic at times. Otherwise I agree though. It would be a shame to cut off one of the largest queer friendly instances out there.
Yeah, Hexbear is old Chapo, they left Reddit for Lemmy years ago. Because honestly, ChapoTrapHouse was a problematic community sometimes.
We do a little belligerence.
It’ll mostly blow over once we’ve familiarized properly with the federated experience, sometimes I’ll find myself outside local without realizing. also yeah toning down the emotes on other’s instances I fully get, that sounds unfortunately disruptive
We were able to purge a lot of the dumb stuff out of CTH and made it better. There was a lot of chaser stuff on the old subreddit, I usually avoided comment sections there because itd make me too angry. The new mod team is very good though and obliterates transphobes and chasers on sight
We’re polite when met with good faith, next time you see hexbears ask them a question about their beliefs or whatever is going on, a clarification, a tangent, whatever. Just ask a real question (not a bullshit weighted question designed to be a landmine) like “could you tell me more about X? I don’t agree, but I haven’t heard about that before” and you’ll get polite and friendly responses (usually lol)
And yeah we get pretty rowdy and antagonistic at times like when we tell people to fuck off for throwing a fit about pronouns (which we did, then we banned them, then we made pronouns on Hexbear mandatory lol). That’s how you protect your community from reactionaries, racists, and bigots
My issue isn’t with their takes or politics. My issue is the vibe. Maybe it’s because I’m older, and I want to have maybe an actual conversation with someone without having to deal with comments that consist of a pig pooping.
To be clear, when I said that it feels like t_d, I didn’t mean the political takes. I meant the edge lording and name calling. Granted, it’s mostly in their own community, but if you look at some of the behavior of their users here you’ll see what I’m talking about, and it’s leaked into other communities too.
Hiya! So, we do get pretty intense sometimes, but it comes from a good place and we love having extensive discussions about stuff, answering questions about our beliefs, why we believe them, etc. We’ll be happy to talk about it until after the heat death of the universe in fact. We do not tolerate bigotry of any kind and when we encounter it we do not hold back, so yeah, the intensity is warranted and necessary. We’re also good at smelling when someone is bullshitting us, because we’ve had to deal with people trying to fuck with us for 3 years. If you’re being earnest and you say as much and ask questions, you’ll get good faith interactions. Interesting and educational ones too, I’ll wager
As someone else said, how are they queer friendly when they vehemently support anti-LGBTQ+ countries?
They also support Cuba, a nation with the most queer affirming family code in the entire world.
China has slowly been making life easier for queer people in the same fashion as the US (slow, very gradual changes decriminalization for example)
By this logic the EU is explicitly anti-queer because Poland is an EU member state which houses the most regressive policies in the entire world (“lgbt-free zones”) Yet Poland is not sanctioned, nor cut off from the EU.
The US has hundreds of anti-trans bills and the supreme court recently struck down legal protections for queer people (this case was also entirely fabricated to game the court system). Florida exists.
Not to mention the solidarity we should show to queer people across the globe. Pinkwashing history is not a solution.
Poland should be ousted from the EU for it’s horrid treatment of queer people, and the US is a strange mix since it’s mostly up to each state, and some states are horrible fucking cesspits that should not be supported in anyway (looking at you Florida).
If they only supported Cuba that would be okay. But China and Russia, fuck no.
It can often get tense with them and I don’t agree with some of their takes, but they are definitely a voice to consider seriously and worth arguing (in a polite way) with.
Unlike those conservative right echo chambers, most of them are actually educated, historically literate and smart, and they actually provide sources for their claims instead of hand waiving and using every falacy in the book.
The problem is that they are in support of regimes which are currently or historically anti LGBT+. There is no further discussion to be had. Even if they claim to be whatever, they are against us. Their ideology is incompatible with our freedom and possibly our lives.
You cannot be pro Soviet, pro Russia, pro China or whatever else and LGBT+. You would fight against that for the same reason you fight against Nazis. The ecological politics or so are irrelevant at this point. Even if you agree with that, don’t forget that they want us gone.
This is so close to the Nazi bar problem and I fully understand why defederation might be the best course of action. Personally I don’t know what the right call is, but I blocked the instance using the Connect app anyway.
I actually view the rainbow-washing of us foreign policy as a big part of the problem- It allows reactionaries and conservatives to express bigotry and persecute LGBT people under the guise of being “anti-imperialist” or resisting western influences.
Fuck corporate pride and rainbow raytheon shit, America has historically been extremely shitty to gay and trans people and it makes me sick even being associated with their ‘foreign policy’. Just because they ‘legalized gay marriage’ via decree 8 years ago, doesn’t mean they’ve not done real genocides in the past to LGBT people, and aren’t laying the groundwork for doing it again in the future (eg Florida).
Allies marched gay people right back into the concentration camps when they liberated them, for example:
I don’t live in the USA and I am not fond of its politics in any way. It does not matter though. We are trying to survive and flourish with what we have.
What you are saying is that what I am doing is actually just bullshit. I am trying to improve the working environment for other LGBT+ people, I help them with problems they have. I fully support visibility of queer people in their work place and I spend a lot of personal time on that.
You know there are other problems people have which can be solved without a radical and forceful revolution. It is unrealistic and currently a daydream at best. I am actually trying to improve the situation with the cards that were dealt and for some reason you ridicule all of that.
Sorry, but that’s just a bad take. You are barking at the wrong tree.
I’d urge you to consider the fact that we are explicitly, radically pro-trans. Our mod team is over half trans people and our userbase heavily skews that direction as well. I myself am trans. And I’m a communist, partially because of the experiences I’ve had as a trans person living under neoliberalism. I didn’t start out as a communist, I slowly drifted that way as a result of learning, specifically learning more history. I’ll recommend the podcast Blowback here, I think all 3 seasons are really good, well-researched, informative, and entertaining. They give a lot of context to various US actions abroad and it’s a very approachable podcast. Season 4 is coming out soon and I can’t wait!
Also, check out Cuba’s family code if you want an example of a communist country being extremely socially progressive. It’s cool and good!
I know that the US are not the good guys. They did and they are still doing horrible things. But the world isn’t the USA.
I never will support an authoritarian regime, especially if they are anti LGBT+. Supporting anything like that is such an leopards ate my face take and on the same level as Polish or Jewish Nazis.
Your role models are horrible. Even if the ideology might have its merits there is nothing to discuss as long as there is so much widespread support for hostile regimes and their politics.
Honestly this whole thing is puzzling me for this very reason. I don’t know how a trans person could ever reason themselves into that position. I don’t know how a sane person could be so delighted to see the suffering of others (e.g. Ukraine or Uyghur genocide) as many comments are implying from your server.
Sorry if I have the wrong idea, but it just does not compute.
I don’t know why NATO even matters. Well I know why it is brought up, but seriously I won’t even entertain that.
What makes you think that I even would want to visit the US? I wouldn’t feel safe there for many reasons.
I don’t know what else to tell you. I don’t understand how you can in all seriousness support your position without glossing over all the anti humanistic and anti LGBT+ things going on. I doubt I can say anything to make you understand why that’s a line I like many others won’t ever cross.
I mean, a lot of us are pro-Cuba, which is AES and has some of the most progressive family policy in the world.
Also, your “historical” thing is just really hard to process. After all, standards change. Hell, within the “West”, LGBTQ+ acceptance is barely 40 years old (and often, as we see, under attack for the gains that have been won). Was the US in the 90’s really that much better for LGBTQ+ folks than the USSR before it collapsed? And while not LGBTQ specifically, the situation of women in the USSR was far superior to the West - especially in STEM..
This doesn’t mean that we can’t (and shouldn’t) judge the lack of LGBTQ+rights in the past – we can and should. However, Cuba’s family policy shows that there’s nothing inherent to communism that’s “incompatible with our freedom and possibly our lives.”
In summary (and here I’ll post my only emoji, since there’s the bug),
Of course I am referring to all the Stalin apologists on your server. Some people really want to argue for the sake of arguing.
So far no one even bothered to justify how they can even pretend to support Russia, the late Soviet Union etc. It’s just a bunch of whataboutism.
You cannot be pro Soviet, pro Russia, pro China or whatever else and LGBT+.
Communist countries generally speaking are better on lgbtq rights for their economic development.
You can’t be a capitalist and be pro-lgbt. Cuba, a marxist leninist democracy, has the most lgbtq rights in the world.
Also the reunification threw back lgbt rights in east Germany decades.
The stasi were assigned to defeat subversion by lgbt activists. Their recommendation, which was followed, was to give the activists all the rights they asked for.
The vast majority of us are queer, I’ve literally never been in a more trans inclusive space on the internet (except for the unofficial invite only trans hexbear user discord), I’m in DMs with like a dozen of the trans users from here pretty frequently and frankly without the amazing support from them I think it would have taken years longer for me to realise I was trans, the mods and admins have shown repeatedly over the last several years that they’re completely committed to the rights of trans people - including “provoking” reactionaries within the early hexbear user base into a massive site splitting argument that ended with one of the mods almost getting doxxed and the site getting ddossed because transphobes were angry at being made to respect trans people (we still have our lovely pronouns to this day and anyone who protested got banned on the spot for a while) and at one point there was a reading group on a book of trans liberationist theory by Leslie feinberg that was pushed as pretty much mandatory by one of the old head mods TransComrade69
historically anti LGBT+.
This strikes me as a silly way to complain about Cuba, since for the other AES states you’d probably just say “currently,” but today Cuba has the most progressive family code in the world, maybe in world history when talking at the national level, along with other merits regarding state support of HRT, etc. We all recognize that the early ban on gay marriage was an error, one for which Fidel Castro himself apologized publicly and encouraged the reversal of!
hi, i live in capitalist florida and my human rights are worth about as much as week-old dogshit. if you’re pro-nato or pro-u.s. then you are anti-lgbt rights
as an interesting note of comparison, china, while historically quite bad on trans issues, has been making pretty impressive strides as of late, even opening their very first gender clinic (for children) a few years back
idk what you’re going on about “their ideology is incompatible with lgbt rights” a plurality of people on hexbear are some variety of gay or trans or both (like me!). i’m pretty sure a solid 70% of our userbase would commit a murder with their bare hands if it could meaningfully improve the station of lgbt people even a single iota
your entire comment is very ignorant. ironically it’s probably closer to propaganda than anything you’ll see on hexbear
I am anti LGBT that’s a new one. I am repeating myself, but NATO is irrelevant for LGBT+ rights and it is just brought up as some form of whataboutism for the 20th time. The world is not the USA, but most of you seem to have a very narrow view. Yes, the US sucks. So far none of you mentioned that you were jailed or killed for being LGBT+ in the USA, even though it is so much worse than the Soviet Union or Russia or anywhere else in the world (lol).
Yes, recently you took many steps backwards especially in Florida and the problems are real, but it is still a better situation than just a few years ago. Get a grip.
Seriously, it is just annoying at this point. It is ridiculous that you believe that you are somehow special and won’t be prosecuted by dictators like Putin, killed by Stalin for “anti communist behavior” etc. I am not saying any of this, because I disagree with communism as a whole, but because the regimes you associate with would never allow us to live and flourish like we do and I don’t want to find out.
is this your second ever comment or does your profile display incorrectly for me?
hexbear, with a mod team that is 50% trans, a user base that heavily skews trans, has the largest collection of trans emotes I’ve ever seen on any website, and enforces pronoun tags, is anti-trans.
this does not make any sense. you are writing off an entire community based on foolish (and provably false) preconceived notions.
Do people at hexbear ever show support for Russia? China? Soviet Union? Stalin? Mao?
If there is a single yes then explain me how that does compute? All those countries or dictators are known to harshly discriminate, jail or kill LGBT+ people.
Soon I will probably receive another 10 replies explaining why the USA is bad or some unrelated NATO rant, but so far no one gave a clear answer how anyone in their right mind would want to see any of those regimes to succeed or even come back.
Without ignoring this major problem which is incompatible with our lives and our freedom I don’t know how any sane LGBT+ person would ever want that. I am not sure how I am the foolish one and so far with all the replies I have yet to read one single agreeable take which isn’t some form of whataboutism.
This is a good way to put it and one of the reasons I’m so perplexed about how queer the instance is. I genuinely don’t understand how LGBTQ+ people can simp for regimes that simply want to/wanted to murder them.
And before someone jumps in with “but America/the West/liberals are trying to do the same thing”… if you don’t think it’s easier being queer in the US, even with all the problems, than in Russia or North Korea, I just don’t know what to tell you.
Posting a reply I just wrote elsewhere:
I’m trans and know people that live in China, their conditions are basically the same as the USA, but slightly better these days because they don’t have a hate mob spreading lies about them in the media and trying to genocide them in select states like America does. In general, there is next to zero awareness about transness in China, whereas the opposite is true in America (they are highly aware and full of hate about it), so it is a different flavor of bad in that regard. The emphasis the government has on accessible affordable housing and food makes that aspect of transness easier than in America, though, the trans women I know in China all have their own safe place to live in.
Now Russia… yeah… they’re doing what those American states were doing federally now. But Ukraine does similar too, unfortunately. Source: I’m Czech and can read/speak most slavic languages by virtue of that, I also have been part of an illegal network to help trans/queer refugees leave Russia and Ukraine. In this organization we would typically help people move to Prague, St. Petersburg (for people who cant leave Russia, this is the best choice of city), and in the east, to China, particularly Shanghai and Harbin (large russian community there). Language barrier and cost of living are huge factors in where we’d help people move.
spoiler
Hexbear is widely old Chapo. They’re an odd bunch, but honestly I’d defed Lemmy.world long before Hexbear was in sigh.
