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The entire “different time” excuse is meant to apply to media, not people! Most texts written in the 1700s that include references to people of color are probably going to at least use outdated language, if not straight up racist perspectives, but because it was a different time you’re supposed to acknowledge that it can still impart valuable ideas so long as you take it in context. Taking that scholarly technique and trying to apply it to
crotchety assholesreal people spouting hate makes me want to explodedeleted by creator
seizes excuse with all paws and extra-bitey jaws Oh, oh, is it time to talk about “crazy” and “insane” and “dude” and “guy” and “bro?” And apparently we also still have to mention that the r-slur and “ree” are ableist shit too?
…Am seriously fed up with people who seem to know very few words and all of them inappropriate. And yes, treating everyone like a male buddy is inappropriate. And yes, “crazy” still clearly has its association with mental illness. While many people obviously think it means literally anything at any time in any context they also still call people that as a way of suggesting a person’s got mental problems.
I expect I’ll get trolled for this (as always, 'cause people absolutely cannot stand being asked to change or even consider their own behaviour) but I’m sick of how bad this place is about gendered language and slurs in particular, to the point where I assume somecritter I otherwise respect is gonna misgender me and I’ll just immediately delete my account and be done with this place altogether.
Anyway, that’s my lil tiny rant about some of the lack of care I see floating around, which reminds me to point out that it’s not the words that cause problems (outside of straight-up slurs, anyway) but rather how they’re used. Some seem to think there’s some constantly-changing list of banned words but “don’t call me that” means “don’t call me that,” not “you’re going to gaol for not having the latest word list.”
yapyapyap squeek!
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Thank. You.
It’s really irritating to see such language anywhere, but especially in ostensibly progressive spaces. I’m trying to change my language (never used the r-slur, but I’ve used “crazy” so much that … I try not to, really). And I see male-centric language all over the place. It’s unfortunately ubiquitous where I live.
The one that never sits right with me where I live is “guys.” The counter-argument is that it is no longer gendered, but after educating myself more on the nature of casual sexism, I think it’s actually an example of how male is perceived as the default, the norm. I don’t think anyone is deliberately trying to be sexist by using it, but claiming that “guys” is gender neutral really seems to be a male-centric perspective.
I used to have an account on raddle, and I also learned a lot from them about why ableist language is harmful. I’m working on it, but it’s almost like I need a buddy to help call me out when I lapse and say something like “idiot” or “crazy.” And the frustrating thing is, as someone with mental illness, I feel like I should know better.
The one that never sits right with me where I live is “guys.”
The one positive thing I took away from living in the south was the gender-neutral “y’all.”
For those who don’t know, “y’all” refers to a small group of people and “all y’all” refers to a larger group of people.
I like to play with words and create colourful, cutesy terms. Probably my favourite for this purpose is “critter” :3 Everycritter, anycritter, you critters, those critters. … Of course if that stops being weird I’ll have to come up with a new one. Hmm. I suppose I must mandate that only the cutest critters use this particular term >:P
Also, it’s nice to see I’m not totally alone in caring about these things. Though some common themes around here (such as the problematic careless word choice issues referenced above) are quite upsetting I at least manage to say some things like this that typically get me attacked. … Though maybe it’s just because I only say them three-plus layers down a comment tree nocritter’s gonna see. 🤷♀
This is completely a tangent but Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed is a good example of media that is “of it’s time” but had good intentions. He uses a lot of outdated terminology for trans people, but he was dating and living with a trans woman at the time. As well, he uses the term “coloured girls” for his backup singers. But that’s because he was drawing attention to them. He paid his singers proper wages which was a big deal at the time, and was drawing attention to their presence in music in a subversive way.
Yes, louder!
Someone elsewhere in this thread is suggesting that we’re all obstinate and inherently resistant to change, but … I can’t relate.
The ability to learn from our missteps and prejudices, and subsequently change and grow, is a hallmark of being human. It’s not about education, either. I’ve known people who only went through grade 3 who are not so destructively stubborn. It doesn’t seem like any way to live to tear other people down because I encounter something new to me.
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They’re lying about my position for no discernible reason aside from poor comprehension. I’d recommend you read what I actually wrote.
No I didn’t? What? I was referring to people with bigoted beliefs and cited a real psychological phenomenon. Don’t lie about what I said for validation.
The subject of your post was tangentially about correcting bigots so that’s what I’m talking about.
Not sure which post you’re talking about, but in general, yeah. Any kind of excusing of transphobia is 100% not tolerated here. I’m not a mod of this particular community, but please use the report button if you see anything like this happening.
I did report it. The problem is many of these arguments come clothed in the fabric of politeness. Similar to how white nationalists have tried to persuade me by calling me “brother” and speaking kindly, it might not be immediately apparent to someone why these arguments are harmful. After all, the person is being “polite,” and the person who responds appropriately often seems like the unhinged one.
It’s by design.
yaps loudly in agreement about how fucked it is that people pointing out a problem get blamed for being the real problem by privileged asshats!
Avoiding “bad words” and “hostility” doesn’t mean a person is good or nice. Sometimes hostility is justified or at the very least has a point.
I did report it. The problem is many of these arguments come clothed in the fabric of politeness.
Yup. And Beehaw is already doing the thing I predicted they’d do back during the Reddit blackouts: They allow polite genocide endorsements but warn/suspend/ban people who tell those people to fuck themselves because we’re not “being nice”. Shocked Pikachu when Beehaw ends up being no different from shit-just-works.
They allow polite genocide endorsements but warn/suspend/ban people who tell those people to fuck themselves because we’re not “being nice”.
if you were going to make this argument and sustain it i’m not sure this thread supports your argument. there are like 20 comments in here telling transphobes to go fuck themselves and exactly one actual ban has been levied total (against a transphobe)
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return rant incoming:
i’m glad it’s you saying this, and not me. i think it’s important to say, but i cannot handle all the bullshit hot takes that i would have to deal with afterwards.
i cannot stand when people tell me to try to be nicer, say it in a gentler, more pleasing manner, try to be more considerate of others feelings, maybe try wearing some nice clothes or makeup so that i feel more confident. i do all of those things in my day to day life, and it works. that’s kind of the problem. it’s expected of me, a woman, to speak or act a certain way. if i behave in a way that is not matching ppls’ invisible expectations of how a woman should behave, they get very uncomfortable with me. on the internet, it translates to ppl thinking it’s their business to tell me what to do :) i am pretty sure that if i were to write this same post in a “feminine-sounding” way, the reaction would be different (IMO in a bad way).
it also pisses me off when i come across ppl who think of life as a game that needs to be won. the moment i show any amount of emotional or passionate speech, i lose - my words become invalidated because i am expressive, therefore i cannot control myself? i don’t really get it. i think there’s a good number of people on the internet who take pride in holding back their emotions. i guess public display of emotion is shameful for them? basically anytime i say anything passionate online, ppl think it’s their duty to convince me that i’m wrong LOL
my family members are purposefully ignorant towards LGBTQ+ and i’m terrified that they’ll say something hateful in public. for now, i’m trying my best to hate the behavior, not the human.
Yes!
Thank you!
I feel all of this but lack the ability to verbalize it. (I’m no wordologist)
You make me feel thankful I made this post. I almost didn’t post it because I wasn’t sure it was my place to speak up, but I know how exhausted I feel with all of this (including the “you got angry, I win” style of discourse). I hope things improve.
Thank you for making this post so we don’t have to.
Transwomen are women. Transmen are men. Bi-sexual people are valid and shall not be erased.
We stand with our brothers and sisters.
Thank you. I got shit on just yesterday for being bisexual.
Sorry to hear that. (Virtual hug)
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I love that! That’s a really clever word for some genders, I guess the adrogynous types?
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Did it…? Peace talks definitely didn’t, but if “that ^” had been enough, there wouldn’t’ve been proud “ex-nazis” 30 years later, or any modern neo-nazis.
I don’t think we’ve found an effective way yet.
It stopped them from ruling Europe at the time, yes.
Not to mention the fact that Nazism thrived on the devastation wrought by Germany’s defeat in 1918.
And It wasn’t the World War II that broke the cycle of wars in the heart of Europe (WWI was consequence of the war in 1870). It was the project to build a peaceful European union.
They returned cause we let up .
I’d like to remind everyone that “bee kind” includes not accepting, normalizing, and ignoring transphobic opinions and beliefs. We’re all together in this.
I’d like to remind you that you don’t get to redefine words.
Having said that, I spent many hours having reasoned talks with *phobes and getting then to slowly see some light somewhere. Even if it’s a glimmer, I think that’s worth it. You don’t get to tell me that I should yell at those people.
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i don’t think this chain is going anywhere productive, so i’m going to pre-emptively nip it in the bud. i think the first two comments between you are sufficient and that past those two comments this is going to go nowhere.
Inaction against intolerance is a form of action, is it not? “Bee kind” is not just a call to not be mean, it’s a call to act in kindness.
I believe the poster is probably right in that it stirs more toward fostering acceptance rather than simply ignoring hate.
It’s not compelled speech, per se—Beehaw users need to have an active role in order to make it the kind of place people want to bee.
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I didn’t notice any attack against me. I was just commenting on that I don’t think that aggression against -lets call them- consevatives, neo-Nazi’s, right wingers, whatver, works or is wanted
I was just commenting on that I don’t think that aggression against -lets call them- consevatives, neo-Nazi’s, right wingers, whatver, works or is wanted
I’ve been nice to them and trying to politely educate them for over 20 years now, since W was in office. I’ve convinced a grand total of 2, and in the meantime, 30 million worse ones have arisen.
Fuck them. I’m done assuming they only hate me because they’re uneducated. They hate me because they get off on hate, and all the education in the fucking world doesn’t matter to them. So I treat them like scum, and their arguments like jokes, because they are.
Don’t like it? Too bad. Cry more, salty.
The internet is expanding everyday. You and I are likely to stumble upon people from different regions and backgrounds, who some have no clue who liberals or conservatives are, but share great amount of that *phobia due to their upbringing and religion.
My guess is that the “fuck them” attitude is even more useless towards them. They’re not crying at all because they don’t even interact with people they despise.
If you give up on the world then don’t cry when the world gives up on you and i you become more hostile to them, they will get more hostile to you.
You don’t want things to become better, you just want revenge for whatever slights they did you
You don’t want things to become better, you just want revenge for whatever slights they did you
personally i think “murdering or wanting to murder queer people for being queer” is more than a “slight” and is fine to answer with “revenge”. this sort of placation has never worked for any oppressed group in history—it’s certainly not about to work for queer people—and you should probably not be here if people calling that placation out for what it is makes you like this.
I’ve been nice to them and trying to politely educate them for over 20 years now, since W was in office. I’ve convinced a grand total of 2, and in the meantime, 30 million worse ones have arisen.
holy shit are you me?
I’d like to remind you that you don’t get to redefine words.
Yeah I don’t think that’s what happened and definitely didn’t read it that way in the post.
This is how we take the conversation back. Good on ya!
Thanks. It’s not least appreciated I guess, looking at other comments.
The current climate of “discourse” in the US works against effective teaching. I do know what I’m talking about here; teaching emotionally charged subjects was my strength but it’s nearly impossible to online these days.
I have no idea how you get out of this dynamic when it’s become so deeply embedded in how things are done, just that for every person who manages to learn something amidst the shouting, another is driven further away from what you wish to teach. But this is where we are and what we have to work with.
This can be true along with the unfairness of putting the burden on the disadvantaged side. I don’t know the answer. Perhaps there isn’t one.
I’ve been in forums since the 90s, and if anything it seems to me like many people are more open to discourse now. I got called the f-slur so much back then. The reason it probably seemed better back then to non-LGBT+ people is that they were excluding and marginalizing us.
And if we welcome people like those I refer to in my post, we will be once again excluding and marginalizing LGBT+ people by creating a hostile space.
I don’t think things have gotten worse. It’s just that whenever we get the slightest step towards equity, bigots push back. The only solution I know is to make that impossible for them.
Agreed with points all around, just wanted to add:
- “People need to be educated, and you’re not going to change their minds by becoming hostile.”
It frankly isn’t our job to teach bigots to not be bigots. That’s on them to learn to be better people, and if they can’t, then fuck 'em.
Also, frankly, being over forty years old has taught me that not becoming hostile and trying to educated these fuckin cretins doesn’t work either, because they don’t give a fuck about anyone but themselves. They will only care about a political issue when it affects them directly, and even then, they’ll only want solutions for themselves and still act like it shouldn’t be a big deal for others.
They are not acting in good faith, so why the fuck would we waste our time teaching people who want to erase us?
- “[Famous person] literally did the bare minimum to support gay people, so I doubt they’re transphobic.”
The only person who can name someone as an ally is someone from the community that needs allies.
If I am cisgender walk around calling myself an ally, even if I participate in allyship: I’m kind of an asshole.
If, on the other hand, I walk around participating in allyship, but rather, describe myself as “aspiring to be an ally,” then: Maybe, just maybe, I’ll actually do enough good works for someone in the community to think I am an ally. You don’t get fucking bonus points for being Cisgender and bare minimum not being a shitheel. Actually stand up for the trans community, or take a hike, we don’t need performative allyship.
I haven’t seen a single megastar really stand up for the trans community.
- “They’re from a different time.”
Maybe they should go live in a fucking cave, then, if they can’t fucking hack it in the modern world. Fucking neanderthals.
I mean Jesus tittyfucking Christ, The Second Sex was written in Nineteen Fucking Forty-Nine. How old does the concept of gender identity need to be for these jerks to fucking accept it? They need to crack open a fucking book once in a while. The idea that they’re from a different time is a fucking joke when the concept itself is seventy-four fucking years old. (and very likely much older, just not articulated in Western literature)
It’s no one’s job to do anything. But if you want to achieve real world results you have to work with the psychology of real world humans. This isn’t a game with an even playing field, it’s real life where people that pursue truth have to work way harder than those that peddle lies.
It’s a completely understandable sentiment because it’s an inherently unfair dynamic, no argument there. But if you want to change things you have to change people and that requires acknowledging that human minds are resistant to corrections and get even more obstinate in the face of hostility. Especially when there’s a whole political movement of reactionaries that will lie about you to get their way.
Not everyone is worth the effort of course, some are too dogmatically attached to their beliefs and others are just contrarian assholes that like hurting others. But the existence of close minded assholes doesn’t mean they are the only people that exist.
This is tone deaf asf tbh. The post is in reference to Beehaw, a place with exceedingly high trans* representation, not the world at large. It’s reasonable to expect people to educate themselves pretty heckin quick in a community like this.
I guess that’s fair. I went a bit too broad for the specific topic at hand. Didn’t notice it was exclusively about one server.
Sorry for derailing.
resistant to corrections and get even more obstinate in the face of hostility
Projection much?
Actually it’s a well established psychological phenomenon:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.2466/09.02.10.CP.1.17
Got any actual response to my point or just more arrogant snark?
I think you were probably blocked for good reason, but that analysis does not mention a single thing about being obstinate in the face of hostility or aggression. In fact, the paper states “Several studies have tried to analyze components and qualities of resistance to change, but their conclusions have been, to a large extent, divergent.” So the answer is actually “We dunno” not a trans person was mean to them for good reason and now they refuse to change.
But yeah, by all means, keep tone policing and mis-representing meta-analysis
I was blocked because their insult didn’t land and they got upset. If you want to keep looking into it you’ll see, I’m referring to a real phenomenon and how it can affect the success of activism.
Honestly though blocking me for a good faith comment and providing a source kinda backs my point to be honest.
You’re missing the forrest for the trees. It doesn’t matter if people are obstinate in the face of a change in view. Nobody is denying that. The point is that it is not up to oppressed people to be nice to their oppressor. That
- Does not work
- Is at best tone policing
The problem isn’t the reaction to hate, the problem is the hate.
Yeah I heard at the end of World War II the Jewish people all got together and bought presents for Hitler and he was like “Oh wow, I’ve been so wrong, Jewish people are good!” (it also helped that he watched 21 Jump Street) and then he released them all and that was the end of that. /s
The idea that you can bring your oppressors around by being kind to them is some fucking stockholm syndrome shit.
I haven’t seen a single megastar really stand up for the trans community.
The only ones I can think of are those who are transgender themselves, such as Lil Uzi Vert
How old does the concept of gender identity need to be for these jerks to fucking accept it?
Forever. Some will always oppose it; whether just to be jerks, or because it gives them control over someone.
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You say that
People need to be educated, and you’re not going to change their minds by becoming hostile.
Is a bad take, but then your follow up explanation doesn’t really go into detail about the sentiment behind this statement and reads completely off topic. Do you really think hostility is necessary to educate? Like when responding to an ignorant comment, are you yelling at them? As irrational as some phobics are, I agree you’re not going to change their minds by flying off the handle and yelling at them or using hostile language. Not only do many people of all opinions respond poorly to that, the ones making bad faith arguments want you to get pissed and make you look irrational. Don’t fucking let them.
your follow up explanation doesn’t really go into detail about the sentiment behind this statement and reads completely off topic
Are you misinterpreting my post? These are not arguments said by me – these are arguments that come from bad-faith actors who are polluting what are supposed to be welcoming forums by putting the onus on us to behave politely when they are coming into threads with their nonsensical gish gallop. Here you can read more about this. It’s the “You got upset, I win” bullshit that infested reddit and is now infesting Lemmy.
Like when responding to an ignorant comment, are you yelling at them?
Sometimes, yes, and it is not my place to defend my right to exist, and now I’m yelling at you.
you’re not going to change their minds by flying off the handle and yelling at them or using hostile language
Again, changing their minds is not my place. In an inclusive forum, LGBT+ people don’t have to defend our right to exist constantly. If someone wants to learn, there are places they can go that won’t exhaust a bunch of innocent people trying to exist.
the ones making bad faith arguments want you to get pissed and make you look irrational
Yes, and this is why they need to be removed from this community. They don’t belong in a space that is supposed to be validating and welcoming to all.
Don’t fucking let them.
Oh wow, haven’t heard this one before a million times from bigots and their defenders. Thanks for the contribution, Dr. Phil. Now go fuck yourself. Reported.
i don’t know why you’ve reported this because the person you’re talking to clearly is not doing what you’re charging them of doing. they just disagree with you–and, well, we’re not going to throw someone who clearly isn’t a bad faith actor or a nazi off the site for disagreeing with you on whether or not hostility toward transphobes is a good tactic or not.
I disagree. I don’t mind if they want to be polite to transphobes and take that approach, but I think I made it clear in my post that I’m disgusted with people who arrogantly presume to lecture us on how we need to be nicer. It’s all part of the severely misguided idea that people withdraw allyship because we’re not kind and patient enough. Sometimes anger is justified. I’d much rather someone be angry at me while defending equity and human rights, vs. someone being a polite bigot.
Please do let me know your thoughts though, because maybe it is I who needs to take a break.
Personally I feel that asking a marginalized community to “be nice” to those oppressing them is complete hogwash; I believe it was Martin Luther King Jr. who said “riots are the voice of a rebellion.”
That being said, I think that what Kolanki was trying to say is that a majority of the time, transphobes aren’t looking to have their mind changed when they log onto the internet to spread their bigotry; they’re looking for an outburst of violent reaction from the people they torment.
Oftentimes they may be looking for this as evidence to support whatever claim they’re making about trans people (they’re violent, they have an agenda, they want to take people’s kids, etc). Coming from a background of abuse, I agree that we shouldn’t feed the bigots much like one shouldn’t feed trolls; they never leave once you start unless removed by force (i.e. banned from a community, in this case).
I do agree that people don’t withdraw allyship because we’re not kind or nice or patient enough or what-have-you; that is something that I have not seen personally and anecdotally from other marginalized people (in fact, I’ve tended to see the opposite).
If the argument is that people shouldn’t react with hostility towards bigots, that’s fine on the condition that the bigoted people are removed very quickly. No hearing them out. No giving them the benefit of the doubt. Otherwise the space is just tolerating them with extra steps.
Are you misinterpreting my post? These are not arguments said by me – these are arguments that come from bad-faith actors
If that truly is the case, I guess I did. My bad. But considering you said it was a bad opinion you saw, and not someone else saying that opinion was bad, you should maybe reword your post or re-read mine because I disagree that one argument is a bad opinion.
Oh wow, haven’t heard this one before a million times from bigots and their defenders. Thanks for the contribution, Dr. Phil. Now go fuck yourself. Reported.
This is exactly what I’m talking about. Two misunderstandings, but your first instinct is to tell me to go fuck myself and report my comment. Now it’s hard to tell you’re actually being genuine about this argument not being your own. You’re not going to change minds by being a cunt and just having them removed. You clearly do not care about changing opinions; just protecting your own.
I mean, swap out the implied “protecting your own (opinion)” with “protecting your own (place on the Internet where we can live largely free from well-meaning but ignorant people, actual bigots, and sea lions)” and I do think that was OP’s point, yes.
That’s valid; but that’s not going to change people’s minds which is exactly what the original statement was talking about. If you’re actually going to engage in a discussion with these people, hostility won’t help. Just block them, and if they are violating the rules of the community/instance, report them. You’re just wasting energy if the only thing you’re going to engage with is name-calling; even if it is warranted.
It is literally part of Beehaw rules to be nice to each others, cf this excerpt from beehaw rules:
If you aren’t nice, we’ll remind you to be nice. If you continue to be problematic, we’ll escalate from there, but it will be on a case-by-case basis. If your first reply when we ask you to be nice to each other is to tell us to “fuck off”, we will respond in kind.
It is also part of the rules to not be transphobic, cf
we simply do not tolerate intolerant behavior. Being explicitly racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, or bigoted in any other fashion is not tolerated here.
If you find a transphobic post and you feel that you are unable to reply nicely, the correct course of action would be to report said transphobic post.
If you are not content with this rule of “be nice” I’m afraid Beehaw is not for you
It’s the “You got upset, I win” bullshit that infested reddit and is now infesting Lemmy.
It’s what I call the “4chan mentality” where they just want you to react - they’ll do or say anything to get you to interact with them. As long as you’re responding, they feel like they won on some level.
But getting upset and hostile doesn’t stop them. They enjoy that. That’s part of the problem.
“Never argue with stupid people they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience” -Mark Twain
Besides which, it’s not kind to spew vitriol, nor is it productive. It’s certainly understandable to be outraged. It makes sense. You certainly can’t ignore such things, it’s not right. Responding in hatred only feeds the conviction of the ignorant and diminishes the righteousness of your own stance.
It’s a lose-lose.
I won’t even start talking about who benefits from everyone fighting each other… Certainly not us!
Bad take. I don’t want it to be up to me as a trans person to educate anyone anymore. And if they’re bad faith ban them lmao.
Bad take. I don’t want it to be up to me as a trans person to educate anyone anymore.
No, this is a bad take. You’re in the best possible position to educate people about your own thoughts, feelings, and what it is like being trans. Your voice can make changes that would help other trans people. If everyone shared this attitude, the only people educating others about trans would be non-trans people who have no idea what it’s like to be trans.
If they truly are in bad faith, you would still have to engage them beyond reading one question to know that for sure, and this side of the LGBTQA+ community has a really bad habit of immediately being triggered by pretty much any questions about trans topics, regardless of how they are presented or by whom.
It’s not a trans persons responsibility to have to explain their existence though. Can you imagine how exhausting that would be? Give them a break. Give them some cover. I actually love all my trans friends and I try to listen and see what they want. I don’t put the burden on them to be the trans explainer in all situations.
I just give them love when they need it, and an ear when they need it. I think, just like all of us, they just want to exist and not be hassled about it most times, and if given the right space and the right moment they might tell you about their experience and maybe you’ll get a chance to help.
I see this as being the difference between covering a friend and coddling them. I’ll defend everyone in this community with my life if it came to it. But I’m not going to coddle anyone from non-threats, and take the time to actually make sure if someone is simply curious or is a bad faith actor before hand. While it can be obvious sometimes, many times it’s just a non-trans ally who wants to learn. I think it’s best to give benefit of the doubt at first, until any ulterior motives are exposed.
oh my god if educating transphobes was our job we’d never have time to do anything else
I read this thread and I agree with you. I can’t give up on those who don’t understand.
I wanna add though, I chose Blahaj Zone (the trans safe space instance) because I’m finding arguments distracting. I think at this point, I get a lot more pride and hope out of finding out an artist or musician is trans. Everytime Pigstep plays in minecraft I just stand there and enjoy it.
I’m a non-binary person who used to be pretty transmedicalist, if not outright transphobic and especially enbyphobic. Part of what brought me around was a de-escalation in the anger around explaining trans issues. When I first became aware of issues around using pronouns and non-binary people in 2012-ish, there was a lot of fury and very little real explaining. Just people berating others over not asking everyone for their pronouns or not understanding things about trans people. I was too scared to ask questions because everyone seemed so ready to jump down others throats and it really soured me, to the point of hanging around hate sites. It wasn’t the only thing that pushed me in that direction but it certainly didn’t push me away from being hateful.
A good part of what helped me come around understand was de-escalation of the anger and a genuine effort to explain things slowly and without judgement. After a while, sites started putting out longer articles about the nuances of trans and non-binary identities, and after I finally broke away from the hate sites, reading those helped me finally get it. I understand some of the anger. I get mad too. But I know from experience that yelling doesn’t help convert anyone.
Thank you. Many times the most transphobic people are themselves trans and scared, rather than sharing reactionaey murdoch nees talking points. I’m glad that you discovered yourself accurately after that rocky path!
I hate point 3 whenever it’s used by someone. I’ve seen it used to defend people who had slaves too. It’s like, you know that there were anti-slavery people even back then, right? Heck, there were anti-slavery people back in Roman times.
So if they could see the wrongness of slavery as wrong then, then no one else has that excuse.
It’s just that people don’t want to admit that a large amount, if not an outright majority, of people in history were bad, evil people. Most people were not good. Or, at the very least, they had little empathy for others outside their immediate family.
True. In Germany, there are still criminal procedures held against and sentences passed on former guards of concentration camps, even though they are close to a hundred years of age. Because even though it was “normal” and even legal back then, it was never okay and always crimes against humanity.
Mhmm, not to mention that the argument also erases the perspectives of everyone who was the target of terrible attitudes & institutions, and their allies. Certainly there were FAR more enslaved in the US than slave owners & all those working in the slave trade combined, yet somehow the views of a tiny minority who directly benefitted are the ones we’re supposed to regard as the default?
That and, even the most ardently pro-slavery people of any era knew fine well that they would not have been cool with it had they or their loved ones been enslaved.
I don’t know what this rant is in response to, but it’s ironic that it was posted right after my wife was upset about a bunch of transphobic comments made to her friend’s (semi-famous) mother being posted on another platform. It amazes me how upset people get at others who want to just live their lives to their fullest.
Even back in the 80s we didn’t excuse bigotry, no matter the age or the history of the person. We maybe didn’t feel as safe calling it out publicly back in the day, but it was certainly discussed. A bigot is a bigot, end of story. There was no excuse for it in 1983- when the ones “from a different time” were young!- and there’s still no excuse for it forty years later.
I saw an after school special called “What If I’m Gay?” from the 80s that was surprisingly progressive and didn’t lean on stereotypes or tropes. My elementary PE teacher was an LGBT+ activist, and we had at least one openly LGBT+ speaker at a school assembly who spoke about acceptance, and I grew up in a small conservative town.
Even Nirvana wrote in the liner notes for one of their albums that sexists and homophobes shouldn’t buy their records or come to their shows.
I didn’t know a lot of openly trans people back then, but that’s because many people didn’t feel safe coming out. Regardless, I can’t imagine having responded with the brand of ignorance and hate we were actively pushing back against.
With that being said, LGBTphobia was certainly commonplace back then, but as you said, there was no excuse. People knew better, but they participated in it anyway.
I’ll never understand how people can say the L and G are different from the B and T.
Like the B is L and G and so aren’t some of the T.
There’s just no logic in excluding them
Especially when you actually read a queer history book
Some people believe in dividing sexual orientations (LGB) from the gender identity letters (T+). During my time on Twitter, I saw it was often from a place of hate, though. I would understand something like: “Although we face similar challenges, we also have different needs that justify an LGB sub-movement”. But that was almost never their attitude.
The vast majority of trans folk are LGB, and the small minority that aren’t are treated as if they are by bigots who deny them their gender.
LGB challenges are trans challenges
point number one is perfectly reasonable but has been weaponized by your enemies.
I understand what’s going on when people dog pile on me for asking a naive question because it’s so often the starting point for bad faith actors, but many people just see the community as hostile and unwilling to alleviate ignorance.
be kind, don’t do their work for them.
Do as you like, but don’t imply that it is necessary to be kind to those who question LGBT+ people’s right to equity. It is you who are working for them when you imply we will lose allyship by not being nice enough.
many people just see the community as hostile and unwilling to alleviate ignorance
…which is itself a bigoted belief. No one who approaches in good faith legitimately believes this. You’ve been deceived.
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Hostility may be driving the transphobic to the polls and driving away the indifferent. You’re never going to convince the transphobic to vote for politicians who support trans rights. But you can convince people who regularly don’t vote to help you at the polls. But a lot of the people who don’t regularly vote that I know in real life, don’t vote because they hate the hostility and perceived pointlessness of politics. If you’re hostile then you’re not going to get their support. Convincing them that they can really help all the good people who are trans will bring them to the polls. getting them onboard would help a lot in elections.
stepping in because this whole chain past the parent comment seems to be arguing completely past each other and i think i’m seeing where those wires are crossed here.
as i understand it, the parent comment here is specifically talking about legislating transphobia, but most of the comments arguing against it seem to be talking about handling social transphobia. these are not the same thing and should probably be handled differently and distinguished. for example: in the former case, wanting the case for trans rights to be “respectable” and “presentable” seems more understandable because you need a broad coalition to pass legislative issues most of the time. in the latter case “respectability” and “presentability” are asking for people to compromise who they are interpersonally to bargain with people who mostly want them dead, which i think we can generally agree is unreasonable.
Hostility may be driving the transphobic to the polls
So 1 to 3% of the US population somehow has been hostile to a full quarter (25%) of the population?
Please explain to me how this is physically possible for the people in the extreme minority to have produced enough hostility to a much larger (like nearly 10 times as large) population? Because fully a quarter of the US voting population seems to be getting out to vote about trans issues, but I’m pretty sure they’re driven by fucking religious fascism not trans people being hostile.
I just don’t see how its conceivably even possible. Unless every single trans person sits downtown with a bullhorn ranting angrily while also ranting angrily in every forum they exist on.
No, it’s usually fucking shitheels coming to trans spaces to shit all over them. But the hostility from the trans people is the problem!
Give me a break.
If you are driven to the polls because you dislike someone for existing a way that upsets or confuses you, even though they do not hurt you or anyone else, you’re the one who is fucking valueless and needs to be stripped from fucking society. If someone being hostile is all it takes to turn you into an extremely shitty person, then the reality is you were already a shitty person looking for an excuse for it to begin with.
I get that you’re angry and certainly have a right to be angry. You have let your anger blind you to reason though. You comment reads like you didn’t actually read mine at all. Or if you did, then your anger wouldn’t allow you to at least understand what the main point was.
But tldr: the bigots are lost. The people who aren’t strongly aligned can be convinced to vote, but hostility towards people who aren’t being hostile towards trans rights is driving them away even if it isn’t directed at them. It’s not your job to win them over, but it would be effective at the polls.
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Just to step in with a personal anecdote in regards to point 3, and specifically “nobody who wasn’t transphobic to begin with needs to be convinced to not be it”:
About a year ago my wife’s cousin (17M) was visiting us for a party. I was showing him and his dad my gun collection, and the cousin noticed several stickers on my safe which reference support for the LGBT+ community. When we happened to be alone out on the balcony later, he asked me about them, and what I thought about LGBT+ people and issues, and it was a great opportunity to educate someone not in that community. It is also something that he wasn’t going to get from his parents or friends, because his parents don’t know anything about LGBT+ issues, and his friends are all 16/17 year old males, and that means they all watch manosphere-light assholes like JonTron.
I’ve written about this issue elsewhere at more length, but the Left has largely ceded the young-unaligned-male demo to the Right when it comes to outreach and education, and I do think a lot of the problem is this attitude that “anyone who’s not bad is already an ally”, or put in the inverse, “if you’re not already an ally, you’re bad”. But in the case of young people specifically, we do need some willingness to have these discussions, because a Google search gives you facts about the LGBT+ community, sure, but it doesn’t give you humanization.
The rest of point 3 I agree with, but I do think it’s unfortunately common- even if understandable- to see people lash out at what are very possibly good-faith questions about LGBT+ issues because of how used we all are to questions just being the lead-in to some bigot asshole’s screed.
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1- Voting against trans rights isn’t the only type of transphobic behavior and getting people to vote in favor of trans rights won’t fully get rid of transphobia.
We need laws to protect people who are trans from trans phobic behaviors and laws. Voting is how you accomplish that.
2- It seems like you’re the one that’s not understanding, if you focused less on tone policing and more on reading you’d see that their response makes perfect sense to yours, the tone doesn’t change or erase that.
I’m not policing. I’m suggesting a strategy to actually accomplish goals. Being aggressive towards people isn’t going to help even if the aggression is justified.
3- Nobody who wasn’t transphobic to begin with needs to be convinced to not be it, queer people don’t need to perform niceness in order for them to deserve rights and presentability politics is the devil’s advocate of bigotry.
This is how I know you didn’t actually read what I wrote, because. I explicitly said that the bigots can’t be turned and that people have every right to be angry over transphobia.
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I agree racism is bad, but why can’t black people be civil and polite when asking for equality?
The thing is that these people aren’t being honest when they say things like that. They’re lying, but they’re often lying to themselves as much as to others. They always have some objection or another to opposing bigotry. Because the reason they’re giving is just a post hoc justification for opposing progress.
Think back to the George Floyd protests. People said the exact same thing, that they oppose racism, but they can’t abide riots (even though the overwhelming majority of the protests were not violent). Then later, an NFL player kneeled during the anthems, literally the tamest, most inoffensive protest I can imagine. And people lost their minds.
It doesn’t matter how disruptive or civil the protest is, it will never be inoffensive enough, they will always oppose it. And if you somehow do find a form of “protest” so inoffensive that they accept it? Then they’ll ignore you.
Are you saying the Martin Luther King and his strategy was bad for the civil rights movement???
Seriously though. These kinds of trap questions are pointless and counterproductive.
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First post on lemmy, just wanted to say this was a great comment. It was eye opening to think about how it’s probably not even physically possible, in addition to being a bad faith argument. I’d never heard it put that way, good point.
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The world is what it is. I’m suggesting a way to work within the world we have to secure trans rights. If you only care to have the support of people you define to be “good”, then you’ve already lost. We’re going to need the support of people we don’t fully agree with to secure trans rights.
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No, you’re just telling us to vote and to provide free emotional support to people who are being violent towards us.
Absolutely not and if that’s your takeaway from what I wrote then I don’t think you actually bothered to use one brain cell when reading what I wrote.
To say that the first one works is questionable at best, and this thread is full of queer people, including myself, telling y’all that we’ve already done the second one, i personally spent the majority of my life doing so, and it doesn’t work, all the people who genuinely benefit from that kind of education are the ones who aren’t hateful
That’s literally exactly what I’ve been saying. Help those that don’t regularly vote to care about trans rights enough to vote. We aren’t going to win them over by berating them for not being 100% aligned with us.
If you think that trans rights are gonna be handed in by the system who enables transphobia to exist to begin with, then you already lost.
It’s possible. same sex marriage is an example.
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It’s fine to request to be kind to those sincerely asking questions they want to know about, but once it’s known and clear that the person is a troll that’s “just asking questions”, there’s no need to be nice anymore.
If your question is one that trolls ask all’ the time then maybe it’s already been answered somewhere you won’t have to freshly upset people to get to. Like… Idunno, DuckDuckGo or something?
If you know you’re going to offend people then maybe work on your own ignorance a little instead of just showing up and throwing very answered questions at me ('cause who’s it gonna be but some random queer critter(s)?) like it’s my job to sit and tutor you. In fact, you could find someone who would do that but no, you’re gonna come to some trans hangout or stream or a zone chat in a game I’m playing and I’m gonna see “hay lul if ur a women then y u still lik girl?!?” and tell you to go fuck yourself.
…Okay I got a little carried away and maybe your “naive questions” aren’t that bad but at the very least I doubt you’re gonna get dogpiled much (just don’t talk to hexb*ars or the like: they dogpile every single thing they see) for questions that make sense to ask.
tl;dr: If you’re bothering to ask heavily-answered questions, ask a search engine or Wikipedia or something first. We don’t have the time nor energy to individually tutor everyone who only cares to ask and impose rather than listen and absorb.
