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

  • spaduf
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    10 months ago

    Potentially relevant information from the other individual this person was arguing with:

    Hey, Abigail here. I just want people to know the reason this guy got banned is likely because of a deleted comment not included in that thread. OP called me autistic for not liking politics. THAT kind of behavior is not acceptable on lemmy.blahaj.zone, so I reported the comment and let Ada handle it. Ada tried in good faith to reason with OP but it was clear they just wanted to fight. So yeah, they got banned. Ada’s a fantastic lady who’s been great at keeping the trolls at bay.

    https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2319669

    Tough to confirm from the modlogs as blahaj.zone appears to be having some intermittent outages.

    • DroneRights [it/its]@lemm.eeOP
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      10 months ago

      I’m not OP, I’m not a guy, and I didn’t call anyone autistic.

      Maybe Abigail thinks I’m a guy ,but why would they? I’m very openly nonbinary. This feels like transphobia and it’s not true

      • DroneRights [it/its]@lemm.eeOP
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        10 months ago

        If Abigail is calling me a guy and OP for some reason, then I think I know what happened. I said that politics is participation in groups, and if Abigail really doesn’t like politics, then Abigail doesn’t like being in a group. I said that not wanting to participate in any group ever would be pretty strange, but I would understand it better if Abigail had ASPD.

        If Abigail is actually misgendering me here, then the issue is simply that Abigail doesn’t know the difference between antisocial personality disorder and autism.

        • T (they/she)@beehaw.org
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          10 months ago

          Sorry but at first I agree with the point you were trying to make, at the same time you need to be careful when having discussions as this because it might seem you’re just straight up attacking people.

          • DroneRights [it/its]@lemm.eeOP
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            10 months ago

            Yeah, I never figured out how to turn that off. I guess the patriarchy conditions people to think that a nonbinary person having opinions and emotions is a form of aggression. It does the same thing to women. But nonbinary rights are still 50 years behind women’s rights so people aren’t aware of the bias