this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
184 points (98.4% liked)
Asklemmy
43736 readers
1094 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Censorship. All the major subreddits became political echo-chambers. Reddit was founded on free speech and open discourse, especially when it was really uncomfortable. I'd love to see the same for Lemmy. Over the years I've seen authoritarianism creep into the moderation policies of most major subreddits. Today, even posting on the wrong subreddit is grounds for being banned from dozens of major subreddits. Even having a polite disagreement about, for example, anything to do with "trans," is grounds for being banned.
So the one thing on Reddit that you wish to leave behind is mods deleting transphobic comments? Lol
Would you please quote where I wrote that?
Anything to do with "trans"?
I'm sorry I'm not sure how else to describe it. Trans people are those who believe their sex doesn't match how they feel inside.
I am aware of the concept of being transgender I am just wondering what your "polite disagreements" are with it
I'd say that a fairly debated topic related to transgender people, which isn't just transphobes attacking people trying to live their own life, is the presence of transgender athletes in competitions. Some will take it as a personal attack whether you take a side or sit on the fence. I'm not looking to start that conversation here, but yeah. It's definitely possible to hold a polite conversation about this while disagreeing on parts of the question. In a healthy space.
I disagree, that isn't a "polite disagreement" and is, absolutely, "just transphobes attacking people trying to live their own life" as you put it. Every time that "Argument" happens it's openly done in biologically unfounded ways by people who simply don't understand how our bodies actually work- yet those arguments get mass upvoted by people who also don't understand how biology actually works and who believe that trans athletes get some insane, unfair advantage.
If you want to pass laws to restrict trans people from sports, then you want to pass laws to discriminate against trans people. That's not really up for debate IMO, it's a straight up fact; it's what you're doing when you advocate for laws that are not founded in science, that are specifically targeting a tiny minority for the chance that one of that tiny minority might beat cis athletes in an "unfair" way, you're advocating for bigoted laws.
Such arguments are also inevietably filled with people misgendering trans people, deliberately calling trans women "men" and hiding behind the "I'm talking about biology" argument to do so.
Replace the word "trans" with "black" and you'll find that people are making literally identical arguments to those against desegregating professional sports leagues 80 years ago. Literally word for word.
The thing I don't understand around it is that the people who are making the argument "trans people shouldn't be able to participate in sports" are usually also people who are not interested in the sport at all. As in are they upset because someone on the telly told them to, but they really don't care about the sport except in this very niche aspect which impacts a very slight minority of participants. I mean would half the US public be very interested in the deep technicalities of competitive high-school running?
Same with HRT. Why do I even have to know about it? It's a niche medical treatment for a comparatively small amount of people suffering from some very specific conditions. I can barely understand what the difference is between ibuprofen and paracetamol, and I'm sure most people are even less informed. Why is it not the sole interest of people affected by gender dysphoria (IDK if I'm even spelling or saying it right, sorry for my ignorance), and their doctors?
The thing that actually grinds my gears is that this culture war stuff takes over places and trans people have to get defensive over their existence, and a forum on fricking Bionicle gets full of trans memes. Don't get me wrong, if you're a trans person, or a Zulu, or IDK what niche minority, and you've made a Bionicle that uniquely represents you, I'm going to upvote that shit so hard since it's frickin awesome. But having the whole place be full of low effort "trans people are people" memes is about as funny or interesting as having the whole place full of "the sky is blue" memes.
People are getting outraged about what some socially disadvantaged minority is doing with their lives instead of actually contributing to society, because some idiotic grifter TV host told them to. Fucking lemmings.
I think that after HRT the difference is not that big. Trans athletes may even be at the disadvantage since there are some cis woman that have higher than average amount of testosterone.
In the long shot I think it would be for the best to abolish gender based separation altogether and replace it with something more like weight categories.
Okay thanks for the input
All good! Sorry for the paragraph. I'm just bad a writing short messages… 😅
Are you genuinely interested or just looking to start a fight? I know recreational outrage is a thing on Reddit and I had hoped to leave it there.
No I'm genuinely interested to hear your perspective and why it was a point of contention
No worries. Sorry for being defensive. I’ve received death threats before so you can imagine my reticence to speak freely.
Forgive the brevity. The topic is quite personal to me. I had a trans person in my family until recently. They committed suicide. I took it upon myself to research the topic to the best of my abilities. My current stance is that, while I support the right for adults to do with their body as they wish, I do not support the practise of transitioning children; be it medically or socially. In all my research I couldn’t find a single study, anywhere, demonstrating an objective quality of life improvement. These would be measurable metrics like:
It’s not for lack of trying, either. I’ve never seen so much funding go to any single topic in academia. Given this lack of evidence, researchers turned to subjective measures of improvement. The primary being “suicidality.” They ask subjects how they feel about suicide. This is an effective proxy for, “are you happy with the major medical procedure you just asked for?” Unsurprisingly, this is subject to enormous bias.
Instead, I found evidence that not transitioning is a much better, much more effective treatment for children. This study found that only 37% of children still identified as dysphoric five years later. This study found that 88% had desisted (they were no longer dysphoric). This mirrors other historical research into various areas of child psychology. Children frequently change identity and beliefs around identity.
The primary arguments appear to be, a) if we don’t transition children, they will commit suicide. As above, I believe this is false. The second premise is, b) puberty blockers are completely reversible. This isn’t true either. These are the expected side effects of puberty blockers:
Osteoporosis and diabetes are absolutely life altering. Sweden went all-in on "temporary" puberty blockers for gender affirming care until children started experiencing life-long injuries. They are now effectively banned for gender affirming care for children.
Further, there is a growing body of evidence to show high risk of infertility after prolonged use of these drugs.
And these are just the dangerous irreversible side effects. The cosmetic side effects are devastating, and include men with child-sized penises and testicles, and women without breasts. This is one such case. The teenager had taken puberty blockers, resulting in a small penis. With insufficient penile tissue, doctors attempted to remove and use part of his colon to create a fake vagina. He died less than a day later from complications.
Ultimately, I believe I am very open to evidence. I have reached my position precisely by pouring over research. I am open to honest discussion and debate. I don't belittle or minimise anyone's experiences or beliefs. I simply want the best outcomes for children. For this opinion, I have been banned on many subreddits. I have been sent death threats. I have been called every disgusting name in the dictionary, and then more. I hope that Lemmy is a place which allows respectful discussion.
What the hell is this? Trans person here. This is not the thread to start concern trolling about trans issues. If you really want a space to talk freely about your concerns you can start a community or even your own instance.
@[email protected] this is exactly why tone policing is bullshit moderation policy.
Your modteam is allowing this transphobic screed to exist, and has in fact unbanned the user that posted it despite the very very obvious fact that they are a transphobe doing concern-trolling and "just asking questions" style veiled bigotry, while simultaneously banning everyone that has reacted to their behaviour by rightfully calling them the names they deserve to be called.
This policymaking is what results in people in the left calling someone a terf or a fascist getting banned while the fascists and terfs roam free. The site will be taken over by this and the left will slowly be banned and pushed out by it. The fact that the team can't seem to get into their heads that trans people might get a little fucking heated when bigots are allowed to exist and clearly defended by some of the incompetent members the modteam is another part of the problem.
You should get some trans people on your team to keep the rest of the idiots on it making these shit decisions in check. This nerd should absolutely be rebanned and every other person that copped a ban over this shit should be unbanned.
Demanding that lgbt people, racial groups and the lower classes engage with their oppressors in a suitable “tone” without ever getting heated is unrealistic. The outcome of tone policing is that the oppressed get banned from spaces when they don’t behave with the right tone when discussing their oppression while those doing the oppressing (this fucker) come to dominate it more and more. The oppressed come to be alienated by it (leaving the space as a result) while the oppressors come to be empowered by it. Tone policing should NEVER come before principle and protection of the marginalized.
This is pure comedy ✌
Others please note I did not see the above message, but instead it was already removed by a moderator.
You're saying you haven't found any evidence and that proves there isn't improvement but it's impossible for any properly done study to prove any changes to those categories. The simple reason is there is no environment that has existed for long enough to do a comparison. It's impossible to conduct a proper study on the life expectancy of trans people if they transition at 12 years old or 20 years old because the treatments have not been around long enough and people can live a long time. Even a study that tracks suicide rates over 5 years based on treatment type takes much more than 5 years.
The only studies that can be done need to use historic data and we can't change the past plus retroactive comparisons are super dicey and very prone to bias. Remember how dead patients were added post-moterm to that COVID trial published from Egypt which totally skewed the results? That study lead to large numbers of people taking ivermectin and fueled the antivax movement worldwide https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/93658
The absence of research studies can not be used to prove or disprove something and should not form your opinions based on this. As least people aren't trying and doing it poorly then people write catchy articles about it and it creates whole industries (I'm looking at you, nutritional science).
A subreddit I moderate, /r/moderatepolitics, has had to do a delicate balancing act around this. There are site-wide rules banning many statements around trans people, and the red lines are not well defined. Reddit's "Anti-Evil Operations" (site-wide moderation team) frequently swoops in and deletes comments that are offensive to trans people, but well within current political discourse in the US. That has undermined our mission of being a forum for diverse voices to hold productive but difficult discussions. At a certain point, we entirely banned the discussion of trans issues because one side was able to speak freely and the other side was walking on egg shells. I'm solidly pro-trans, but that's no way to have a conversation.
This likely was done to try to keep Reddit from becoming a cesspool like the "free speech" sites like Gab, but it has turned out to be a lazy way that short circuits necessary conversations.
There is only one necessary converation around trans people, in which trans people say, Let us exist without being harassed or persecuted, and everyone else says, OK. Anything else is just allowing bigots a platform.
I wish the world worked that way, but in practice there are just too many ignorant people out there. They can walk out their front door and talk to their neighbors who are more than willing to pass on the latest slander about trans people. Our sub's mission is to provide a space where they can try to pass on something resembling the latest slander and get push back. As-is, too much of the US is so segregated by ideology that people may not ever meet an out trans person. We want to foster those human-to-human connections instead of letting them rely on Tucker Carlson's latest Very Concerned mouth diarrhea.
Edit: I value safe spaces for their function as a reprieve for trans people, and I don't think every platform should provide a space for unrestricted speech. But at the same time, I think it's beneficial to have some spaces that require a bare minimum of good behavior so that society can talk about these topics and move forward into a better future. There's too much ignorance of trans people as-is.
See, the correct definition for this here is "no transphobia"
It's cute that you think you can fight back against reactionary BS by arguing with it, but history does not bear this out. What you end up doing is creating another space where people can post Tucker Carlson's latest Very Concerned mouth diarrhea, only distilled into a more toxic form that even Tucker couldn't get away with, as long as they say it politely. Your way has led us here, to a political situation where people are actively trying to eradicate trans people in law.
Our sub's way has largely not been followed in the US. Everyone's retreated into their corner. Trans people have tried to keep safe, both physically and emotionally. Those hostile to them have cloaked their fear and hatred in the usual: family values and "think of the children". The country is rife with tribalism. Different parts of the country have vastly different ways of thinking. There are fewer and fewer spaces dedicated to talking across ideologies, even closely related ones. We frequently hear that ours is one of the few spaces where people can talk over difficult issues without being shouted down.
I'm under no illusions that reactionaries just need to hear the right words and they'll be enthusiastic supporters. But I have found that when forced out of their zone of comfort, their minds change inch by inch. Even just starting by not allowing the worst slander helps jolt them out of that mindset and filter out people who will never be interested in discussion. Civil rights are gained by winning hearts and minds of our fellow citizens. The LGBTQ rights movement has moved amazingly fast, with under 55 years having passed since the Stonewall Riots. We have moved this fast partially because LGBTQ people are harder to "other" because any family member or friend can turn out to be LGBTQ.
The thing that irritates me about this comment and the ideology your subreddit represents (well, the pertinent thing) is that the popular world "polarization" obfuscates the massive difference there is between radicalism and dogmatism. That is to say, when two people disagree politically, some people like to imagine for various reasons that their level of animosity is a function of how different their political views are plus some ability to compartmentalize. These things are factors, but ones that lead to political illiteracy on their own.
Dogmatism is the common word for having a circumscribed set of "correct beliefs" and being hostile to any deviation from that set. Radicalism is the sheer extremity of one's views. It's entirely possible to be a radical and to be accepting of people, and it's quite easy to be both a centrist and a dogmatist. We know that second one because that describes a huge portion of the Democratic base! They are people with very little commitment to progressivism who nonetheless are deeply hostile to people on both their left as well as their right.
Of course, sometimes the two traits coincide, like in the Republicans, which have a massive portion of their base that is both pretty radical and pretty dogmatic -- though ironically they could be said to be accepting in an extraordinarily cynical way, what with how Evangelicals supported Trump, who is literally the fakest Christian to ever be President ("Two Corinthians").
Anyway, my point for saying this is that hucksters, useful idiots, and some who I'm sure are good people like to characterize American politics as a situation where there has been a sizable shift towards radicalism. There are new radical (QAnon) and "radical" (Bernie socdem) movements today as there are in any age, but overwhelmingly the Democrats have been getting more conservative if you look past their lip-service, while the Republicans have mostly also become more conservative. The world doesn't need more centrists, the Democratic Party has plenty! When Obama said he's "less liberal in a lot of ways" than Richard Nixon, that wasn't his attempt at absurdist humor!
What would actually be useful is functional empathy and -- god forbid -- a political ideology that has some ability to explain why people have political differences beyond some puritanical insinuation about moral failings. That does not mean we need to be nihilistic or appeasing with our actual political ideology as though nothing is true or else the truth is the median of whatever everyone happens to believe right now.
Paraphrasing Lafayette, "If the world is divided between people who say 2 + 2 is 6 and those who say 2 + 2 is 4, that does not make it the most reasonable position that 2 + 2 is 5."
If I was writing it, I'd probably say that the camps in America are "4+4 is 44" and "4+4 is 64", with "4+4 is 54" being the Enlightened Centrist answer (and ironically perhaps the most deeply irrational).
The subreddit was somewhat poorly named. It's not about "enlightened centrism," as the insult from the left goes. The idea is to build a space where people with a fairly wide range of views can discuss those views without personal attacks. There are of course areas where different people will have different definitions of personal attacks, but for the most part we manage to keep a baseline of respect. What we're not doing as moderators is deciding if 4+4 is 44, 64, 8, or a potato. Commenters talk that out and we keep them polite.
Just for a little bit of context, Obama was griping that Fox and other right wing media was doing their usual "X Democrat is basically the avatar of Marxism" shtick. But the comparison with Nixon was not a good one. Nixon was constrained by a heavily Democratic Congress, while Obama was constrained by a lesser Republican House. Since Obama was comparing the outcomes of both administrations, his comparison looked at a Republican administration pushed hard to the left domestically with a Democratic administration push mildly to the right domestically.
ach, did it eat my reply?
Go back to reddit
No matter how politely stated your disagreement is, if it boils down to "I don't think I should have to respect trans people's identity"/"I don't think trans people should have rights" then it's transphobic and I'm 1000% fine with that being bannable
That's the same here unfortunately.
It also sucks when you're not American, like Reddit auto-banned a load of Irish and Brits discussing stopping smoking due to the colloquial term there.
Unfortunately all these American-based websites really force the American views and positions on everyone.
Well that explains it. I'm not American either and I really feel like I'm being forced into their weird social war. I just want to talk about cool gadgets without some culture warrior banning me everywhere because I didn't show the requisite fealty to whatever the current thing is.
Yeah, one thing I hope to leave behind with Reddit is every major subreddit farming outrage w.r.t. American politics.
It just became exhausting and made me unsub from a lot of the big subreddits. So far, Lemmy has been quite positive! It's refreshing.
You're not exactly bringing up cool gadgets at the moment, kid. You're deliberately poking a sensitive issue for attention. Waging that social war you speak of. Pretending like transgender rights are only an American issue is pretty darn comical of you when it's one of the political hot-topics in most occidental countries. As you know, or you, fellow "not American", wouldn't be bothered enough to dump that ^ wall of text up there.
Also seriously? Bringing up the dog whistle that is "HRT for children"? Doesn't happen and you damn well know it if you've read half as much as you're implying. Teenagers are sometimes allowed to take hormone blockers to delay puberty. This is risky, especially for AFAB youth, since taking hormone blockers basically puts them through menopause, hormonally speaking. Which is why in some places they can instead directly take hormones after being evaluated by psychologists, sexologists, you name it. And with their parents' consent. Not on a whim. Not for attention. Not to be 'trendy'.
Take all the time you want misrepresenting studies and articles, you're still not owed anyone's energy "debating" you. I already put way too much into writing this. It's not unfair censorship to shut down antisocial trolls who only want to argue in bad faith about the latest political issue. No matter the talking point, this hijacking of conversations doesn't lead to chill spaces. It's not fun. You're just being an asshole right now. Go be angry somewhere else, or have that "debate" in a relevant thread.