I recently made a new account on lemmy.blahaj.zone, because I’ve been harassed and doxxed on my old account and I wanted a fresh start with a more lighthearted online identity that I could be more open about my gender identity on. I’d heard blahaj zone was good for trans people, so I made my account there. And yeah, autism@lemmy.world removed my post discussing neuronormativism from a queer perspective, but I hoped maybe “the trans instance” would be friendlier to trans people.
A couple days after making my account, I saw someone on Blahaj engaging in the tired old cliche of “I hate politics, there’s no politics on my social media and I want to keep it that way!” Well we’ve all heard the joke that the two races are white and political, the two genders are male and political, and the two sexualities are straight and political. Hatred of politics is a transphobic, sexist, and racist trope. And having sufferred harassment and abuse from people inside the queer community who “hated politics” and saw trans or nonbinary or xenogender identities as political, I knew this kind of speech was going to make bigots feel comfortable saying they also hate politics, and they think us trans people are it.
So, I responded to the transphobia. I started out by attempting to educate them on what politics actually means. But I was interrupted by the Blahaj admin Ada, who told me that politics is “anything I disagree with”, and that indeed politics isn’t welcome on Blahaj. This language was deeply triggering of my past issues dealing with abuse, and I knew from past experience this sort of thing is said by people who are getting ready to say some enbyphobic or racist hate speech. It is especially common for white queer people to talk this way to BIPOC queer people. I tried to reason with Ada, explained the history of the cliche, the trauma it’s caused many trans people, and the consequences this kind of speech will have on the community here, making us all less safe.
Ada wasn’t having it. She minimised my concerns by reducing them to my personal trauma while ignoring my wider concerns for others’ safety, and weaponised my PTSD to paint my opinions as invalid because I am mentally ill. She said she owns Blahaj, and she gets to do whatever she wants with it, and nobody is allowed to express a differing opinion, even one that protects trans people, because that’s politics. At the time I thought her concern was me speaking directly to transphobes and making them feel uncomfortable by calling out their actions, so I said I’d just report it instead, and she banned my account.
This behaviour protects transphobes, WILL lead to trans and BIPOC people being harassed on this instance, attacks and gaslights victims of trauma (my concerns can’t be valid because I have a mental illness), and forces out any trans person with a commitment to safety for the community.
The thread where all this happened: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2143969
EDIT: The person who originally posted the transphobic views on politics is now misgendering me and calling me a “guy” despite me being very openly nonbinary: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2319669. And I didn’t call them autistic at any point.
Saying this as somebody just reading the post, I don’t know the whole context.
Being somebody who is BIPOC, you’re not doing us much of a favor either by having an outrage across multiple corners of the fediverse. Take a breather. Seriously, zoom out and just consider what you are writing right now.
…what if I just don’t like seeing news that only makes me feel angry or bad on my feed. People have different things they want to participate in and see. Just because you like it to discuss it doesn’t mean you should jump to accusations when someone doesn’t want to. Its a sensitive topic to begin with. I just come here to see tech, cars, and art.
This comes off very pretentious. Just let this one go bro.
Look, I don’t know what’s going on with this blahaj place’s moderation or whatever and its not my business. Just based on what I see here, you may want to take a good proof read at what you are saying and spreading around before you lead yourself somewhere that you regret. If you don’t like this blahaj server’s rules or anything, just leave. Its just the internet. You might find somewhere better suited for you if you just move your account to another instance. If you want to voice concerns, spreading posts like these across multiple communities isn’t the way to do it.
Yes, but, but …
‘What do you want me to do? LEAVE? Then they’ll keep being wrong!’
I really appreciate your advice
That’s not the meaning of the word politics. Politics means group decision making. Every group is constantly making decisions, like “Where should we eat? Did we enjoy that movie? Isn’t this animal cute? How are we going to deliver the client’s product in two weeks?” Those are politics, and they are also the bread and butter of human socialisation. This other thing you’re talking about, bad news, that’s not what politics is. Sure, bad news is political, but that’s because everything is political.
The belief that bad news and politics are the same thing has been used to justify transphobia, sexism, and racism. Because the belief leads people to hate politics, and that means any bad actor can (correctly) call something they don’t like political and stoke hatred. Trans people are political because everything is political. There will always be a way to paint trans people as political because it’s true. So if trans people are political and most people hate politics, then all a bad actor has to do in order to justify hatred of trans people is call us political while being dishonest about what politics means.
That’s why dishonesty and mistruth around the definition of politics causes transphobia. That’s why hating politics is transphobic.
This is the definition of politics (Merriam-Webster).
You’re taking it way out of context. If I tell somebody we should go for a walk its not anything beyond just socializing. Please stop jumping to conclusions.
I’ll just leave it there. Not really here to go back and forth.
Your link says politics is “the total complex of relations between people living in society”. That includes asking somebody to go for a walk.
I feel you missed a chance to get a less aggressive perspective on all of this.
The other person told you they “just come here to see tech, cars, and art.”. Probably hinting at a casual experience, with little to no opinionated or controversial topics. Maybe they have a mental health too, maybe they have a super political day job, or whatever. There are many reasons for people to seek another experience on Lemmy than you do. This does not necessarily imply they are your political enemies and need a lesson from you.
While in a specific way it is true that everything is politics, this does not mean it is okay to make everything about politics. You cannot connect a persons desire to have Lemmy without politics to justifications about transphobia, sexism, and racism. That’s crossing several lines.
Have you looked into non-violent communication?