cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/25042034
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.
It's a pretty common dogswhistle. The problem is the literal statement itself, that is not wrong in a vacuum.
The problem is that people who think trans women deserve zero rights keep using phrases like this to justify discrimination and hatred, and to funnel people into a position of hatred.
The words, just as defined in the dictionary, are true. But with all the social cargo they carry, it becomes a very insulting and hateful thing.
And that itself helps the haters, because people like you will say "but... This is true, why are you acting like this?". The answer is because the other 99% of people who make these claims absolutely deserve such a reaction.
Thank you for the explanation, but by your logic any deviation from unconditional, thoughtless, unquestioning support is a dogwhistling hateful statement?
By reacting like the people in comments did they're alienating anyone unwilling to follow that group blindly.
Look, I'm queer, from Poland, I marched, donated, volunteered and housed alphabetical people in need, and I can see the societal pendulum swinging back right because people are tired of being pushed down for thinking or downright bullied.