The community is not made up of transphobes or accelerationists so there is no problem. I don’t post or comment there because I don’t see the point in taking the time to write or make something for an echo chamber that will just remove my comment or post. But just because I don’t agree with every take in that community doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value.

I love the shark’s keyboard.

I have social dysphoria and not body dysphoria. I’m not on HRT so I don’t have any experience with that aspect of transitioning. Here is the closest thing I’ve got. I pay $80 a month to play D&D at my local game store. I play a female character and I enjoy it when people get my characters pronouns correct, use her name, and are socializing with me in a way where they see me as a woman. This gives me piece of mind and I think it’s worth the cost I’m paying. That’s not a perfect comparison, but considering the difference in having piece of mind is to me I think you’re not overpaying.

As far as body image issues, I’m not too fussed about my appearance. As far as I’m concerned I’m beautiful. On the other hand, I constantly fret about whether I’m smart enough or if I will accomplish anything in my life. And I have an ego problem. I think this might be similar concerns that we both have, but we’re focused on different aspects of ourselves. I still would love to have boobs and it would be super cool if people clocked me as woman. I think the knowledge that people would see me as a woman is more satisfying to me than what I would actually look like. It would be an improvement, but I’m already rocking this man meat sack bod of mine. But I consistently worry about not measuring up to people in terms of intellect and accomplishments. I feel inadequate when I see people out performing me or when I see evidence that someone is smarter than me. It gets in the way of being friends with people and forming relationships.

I focus on believing in myself and make it clear to myself I’m good enough for me. But it’s an anxiety. I kind of learn to ignore it and focus on trying to do what I want. I remind myself it is ok if other people accomplish more than me or are smarter than me. And that modern concepts of intelligence are bogus anyway. It’s an ongoing process for me. My point is these anxieties about ourselves are something we have to manage and that our self-love has to be unconditional.

As far as other people treating us with dignity, I think people are going to be trying to crack that one long after we’re dead. We can’t wait for other people to treat us properly to be happy. I’ve found the more I divorce my opinion of myself from other peoples’ opinions the happier I’ve been. Also, recently it has helped to realize that even when someone isn’t treating me right, everyone is coming from a place of being a human person first and foremost.

I hope some of that was relevant and helpful. Let me know either way.

Is there a way in the Alexandrite UI to make the posts go over all the way to the left? Or is the appeal that it doesn’t? =/

NATO is a defensive alliance. There is nothing truthful in repeating Kremlin propaganda and things that are true aren’t propaganda.

Everyone who regurgitates Kremlin propaganda deserves to be called out on it.

https://booru.soy/_images/f817c186283840fcbe718f147c88d2d0/11952 - SoyBooru.png

Remember, no Russian.

Huzzah! Welcome to the team, Sweden. We can all be self defense buddies together! =D

Do people not enjoy ripping the paper off of plastic water bottles? This looks like the same kind of fun to me.

This sucks. It’s awful that women have to put up with this. She has to pretend the backhanded compliment of a fascist is constructive criticism.

I think defederation threads in general provide utility in the form of transparency and the possibility of feedback. I did not get the sense that there was no interest in input. Hopefully we could try the suggestion from Ategon so that other instances do not see similar posts in the future.

I don’t enjoy drama either. The drama infects everything and makes it difficult to have any conversation about the topic at all. There was a good faith discussion on the topic to be had and everyone in the thread made a solid effort to discuss it. It seems like most people got what they wanted as we did not defederate. To be clear, I am happy with this result as well.

I could be wrong, but I thought the intention of the 48 hours was to make it clear that the process would be concise and not dragged out. I think framing the post that way did not have the desired effect, for the reasons that you have listed. Mainly it created a countdown drama. The original post from programming.dev had its own share of drama as well which got carried over into the meta thread to a certain degree and again made the discussion harder than it should have been.

I think there is tension between wanting to create a safe place for trans people, as this is the stated goal of the instance, and wanting to be connected to the larger social media community, as that is part of the fun of a social media platform. As far as I can tell, Beehaw solves this problem by preemptively defederating with most of the Fediverse. This at least avoids all of the drama which is good, but then they are a more isolated instance. Hexbear seems to revel in being problematic for the sake of virtue signaling. I like that Blåhaj has not gone in either of those directions. In fact I think Blåhaj is striking the correct balance for moderation.

The federated nature of lemmy means we need to moderate against transphobia on an instance by instance basis. I think if the mods and admins here continue to be receptive to discussion then in the long run this community will continue to have positive interactions with the majority of lemmy instances. I think the nature of this continual process is not what most people expected from the Fediverse. I recall most people assuming things would settle down after an initial period of defederation. The fact is we are a part of a marginalized minority group which means there is more effort required to make this space happen than a space of similar size that benefits from heteronormative and cis privilege. Communication takes time and energy which our team of mods and admins have to provide for free. The process takes work, but I think the end result is worth it.

What I am hoping is that we will be able to learn from these early experiences and make the process as smooth as humanly possible. I don’t believe it will be completely without bumps. Hopefully future defederation threads will minimize drama and maximize efficient and fruitful discourse. edit: typos

Political neuroscience is an interesting field. I remember hearing about similar studies years ago on podcasts. A quick google revealed the field has had numerous studies done in the last year alone.

I don’t feel that this section inherently contradicts what I am trying to say and perhaps is intended to be supporting evidence. The fact that the differences between conservatives and liberals can be measured means that the disagreements stem from a real place. However, the article mentions that this does not mean agreement is impossible. It means that the two groups need to be approached differently with the same information.

Andrea Kuszewski, a researcher who has written about political neuroscience, would rather put a positive spin on what it could mean for politics. She says this kind of knowledge could help open up communication, or at least ease hostility between the country’s two major political parties.

“Each side is going to have to recognize that not everyone thinks like them, processes information like them, or values the same types of things,” she wrote last week. “With the state our country is in right now, I don’t think we have any choice but to cowboy up and do whatever needs to be done in order to reach some common ground.”

Do you mind elaborating on the intention of sharing the quoted section of the linked article? I don’t want to assume and I want to engage with what you mean.

I am going to repost my comment here because it was removed with the top comment and I believe it is relevant to the discussion. I would also like to add to it as well.

Here is my addition after I had a good night’s sleep:

I would prefer to federate with the larger lemmy community. However we are submitting ourselves to the standards and moderation practices of the larger lemmy community as part of that federation. In exchange, we should expect something in return, which should be a concrete goal.

Getting other admins to agree that the things that are harmful to the trans community, such as transphobic video games that fund anti-trans causes, should be the low bar we ask of other lemmy communities. This is not a purity test, as others have suggested. This is a consensus that we should reach with lemmy communities about our shared reality.

This consensus on our shared reality is desirable, because if the general lemmy community can agree on what is harmful to members of our community, then the larger lemmy community becomes a safer for place for members of our community. We are not asking the general lemmy community to stop playing the game or even to engage in a boycott, although we would of course appreciate that. We are specifically asking the general lemmy community to agree on what is harmful to trans people. This consensus on seemingly trivial issues establishes shared moderation practices that help us to achieve our goal of a safe place for trans and LGBTQ+ individuals on the internet. edit: typo

Here is my original comment:

This issue can seem insignificant and it can be tempting to want to brush it under the rug. I have personally have this urge to not to want to upset allies or potential allies. But Rowling as a famous, rich person does a lot of harm to trans people by contributing money to anti-trans causes. This game is the most recent piece of content that funds her ability to donate to those anti-trans causes. If this admin can understand that then we should be fine to stay federated.

Unfortunately the nature of discourse in the post obfuscated this issue. Simply explaining the error in the admin’s argument backed up with sources should have been sufficient. The personal attacks do not add to the discussion and make it harder to arrive at any understanding. I think the conflict and ‘finding a win’ is sort of the goal with the tactics displayed in the thread, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the issue seriously.

The error in the admin’s argument is that the content of the game is not important when the profits of the game go to causes that undermine the well being of trans people.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/hogwarts-legacy-release-brings-transphobia-harry-potter-franchise-rcna69628

Again, I understand the nature of discourse made the topic seem childish. However, this is the fight we are fighting. There is no other hill for us to die on. We can only choose how we defend it, not who else is on the hill with us.

I’ll take the down vote if the articles I linked to at least get read.

This issue can seem insignificant and it can be tempting to want to brush it under the rug. I have personally have this urge to not to want to upset allies or potential allies. But Rowling as a famous, rich person does a lot of harm to trans people by contributing money to anti-trans causes. This game is the most recent piece of content that funds her ability to donate to those anti-trans causes. If this admin can understand that then we should be fine to stay federated.

Unfortunately the nature of discourse in the post obfuscated this issue. Simply explaining the error in the admin’s argument backed up with sources should have been sufficient. The personal attacks do not add to the discussion and make it harder to arrive at any understanding. I think the conflict and ‘finding a win’ is sort of the goal with the tactics displayed in the thread, but that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about the issue seriously.

The error in the admin’s argument is that the content of the game is not important when the profits of the game go to causes that undermine the well being of trans people.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/hogwarts-legacy-release-brings-transphobia-harry-potter-franchise-rcna69628

Again, I understand the nature of discourse made the topic seem childish. However, this is the fight we are fighting. There is no other hill for us to die on. We can only choose how we defend it, not who else is on the hill with us.

This article does a good job at explaining that Hogwarts Legacy is transphobic because some of the profits will be donated to anti-trans causes.

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/hogwarts-legacy-release-brings-transphobia-harry-potter-franchise-rcna69628

Rowling herself has implied that her royalty checks are indirect indicators of the popularity of her views on trans rights. She will be profiting off Hogwart’s Legacy, and at least part of that profit will likely go directly into the hands of those responsible for pushing the fight to roll back trans rights, causes Rowling has implied she donates to.

This article explains the antisemitic blood libel conspiracy theory that is a core part of the game’s plot.

https://www.gamepur.com/guides/hogwarts-legacys-goblin-uprising-anti-semitic-plot-controversy-explained

Players can choose to align themselves with Ranrok, but the game explicitly paints this as an evil decision, aligning those players with the Dark wizard faction. On top of that, Ranrok and his Dark wizard allies in the Rookwood Gang have a plan to harness the power of this forbidden magic by abducting the player character (who is a teenager) and extracting and using their blood. This latter detail hews uncomfortably close to “blood libel” conspiracy theories which have been leveled at Jewish communities across the world for centuries, in which Jewish people were accused of abducting and murdering Christian children in order to use their blood in sacrilegious rituals.

I spent some time watching videos on the game’s plot. I couldn’t find a specific line in a cut scene where the villain explicitly says he wants to harvest the protagonist’s blood. But he does explicitly set some guys after the protagonist to try to kidnap them. They need the protagonist because they are the only one who can interface with the MacGuffins, ie plot devices. This MacGuffin interfacing seems to be hereditary in nature. Also, the villain’s powers, specifically the graphics, definitely seemed blood themed to me.

The game is transphobic and antisemitic. Arguing the game is not those things is transphobic and antisemitic. Whether or not the admin in question knew that is irrelevant.

No one is mandated to educate people about any minority group that they are a part of.

That being said, I wholeheartedly believe that it is in our interest as an LGBTQ+ community to educate people when an opportunity arises. So much hate and bigotry is derived from ignorance. The more we can do to educate people about transphobia the safer we and the people we care about will be irl.

Ada is going out of her way to talk to the admin in question which she does not need to do, but I am glad that she is. She would be perfectly justified in defederating the instance without further discussion. Making a safe space for trans people means defederating from instances that espouse transphobia. By defederating, users on blåhaj zone will not see what this admin’s posts or comments, regardless of where the posts or comments are made.

This is what the post in question looks like if your lemmy account is on blåhaj.

https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7199610

Most of the comments are not visible because we are defederated from Hexbear.

I’m really not a fan of how Hexbear users handled this. I am also not a fan of blåhaj being the admin’s trans best friend. Despite that, I think this comment from the admin is relevant so I’m linking it here.

https://programming.dev/comment/6173847

I get the sense that this admin is engaging in transphobia and antisemitism because of their ignorance involving the game. I hope that in talking to the admin, Ada will be able to explain the error in the admin’s position. Hopefully the admin will correct their position going forward and we can continue to federate with their instance. But I think that in the absence of that hypothetical success it makes sense to defederate.

It took me a bit to think about it, but it’s good that we take a proactive position on combating transphobia. Tolerating intolerance for the convenience it might bring, in not having to make multiple accounts or having more perceived allies, really doesn’t do us any favors in the long run. If we don’t stand up for ourselves we are only giving cover for transphobes to maneuver covertly in our online space. Rowling is a terf. Hogwarts Legacy funds her terf causes. We don’t need blåhaj to be connected to instances that fail to understand that. The point is to have an instance that is a safe space for trans people and more broadly LGBTQ+ people.

I’m adding this at the end, because this shouldn’t matter, but I think some people think it does. I am trans. I am ethnically jewish.

Thanks for the reminder. I’ve switched to Firefox on my mac and iphone for personal use. I just need to move some web development stuff around so I can switch to Firefox on that too. I may even uninstall google chrome, but for now I’ve just taken it off the task bar.

Happy Birthday Blåhaj Lemmy! Thank you Ada and Supakaity and more broadly the mod team! Happy new year!

This has completely replaced reddit for me. It’s so nice to have a queer centered place to socialize. I’ve tried discords but I’m too socially awkward to jump into those kind of chats. This is the perfect speed for me. It’s such a kind and welcoming space. I’ve never felt awkward about posting when I feel like I have something to say.

My parents might have handed me some change to operate the box of newspapers outside the grocery store when I was three or four so I could try opening it. But I’m not even sure if I got to do that.