I’ll just post my initial comment in the entirety since what happens is entirely predicted by my first comment.
The topic was trans athletes and, like with any hot button political issues, there are rigidly defined ‘sides’ that come with a list of things that you must profess.
These things are simply declared as not being open to discussion and if you challenge that declaration, ye power trippin’ bastards rear their ugly head. This dogma is unhealthy in any community and the people who enforce it through social pressure, cyber bullying and mod powers are actively harmful.
As to demonstrate my point I continued with the conversation, responding in good faith to the people who attempted a conversation, right up until I was mass banned (which only took a few hours).
The first comment is here if you want to see the entire conversation or think I’m hiding some secret transphobic rants in my comment history: https://lemmy.world/comment/15496985
The Initial Comment
This is an issue that exposes some of the more dogmatic people in the movement.
It is as if there is a list of positions that you’re required to believe and if you disagree with any one of them you’re labeled a heretic (transphobic, in this case).
Sports and the fairness of competition is a complex issue even when you’re just talking about cisgender competitors:
Can a person use performance enhancing drugs to train and then get clean enough to test positive for a competition? It seems unfair, to me, for the other competitors if this is the case.
It isn’t an unfair statement to say that the physical performance of cisgender men is higher than that of cisgender women. This is why we have separate competitions for men and women.
The issue isn’t as simple as a choice between “Transgender people should be free, without question, to compete in any competition” or “Transgender people should not be allowed to compete as their gender”
Framing it in such a black and white manner is harmful behavior, no matter which position you take.
We need to understand how people’s bodies are affected and what advantages of disadvantages are obtained and then base the rule changes on objective data and not appeals to emotion or ideological bullying.
Fabricated Pretexts
The last thing I said on the topic (bold added), as there were already commenters insinuating that I’m secretly a transphobe rather than engaging in discussion, was:
Obviously the people arguing that trans people should never compete are ignorant, I’m not supporting that position. From the point of view of fairness in competition there has to be an objective answer that’s backed by objective tests.
Simply declaring that trans people are beyond reproach and that any attempts to quantify biological advantage are unfairly discriminatory and anyone asking these questions is a bigot isn’t helpful.
I include this because included in the reasons for the bans is: “Transphobia attempting to make excuses for trans exclusion from sports.” This is completely misrepresenting what I said and what I believe in order to create a pretext for a ban.
And the power trippin’ bastards come in with the sweeping community bans (linuxphones@lemmy.ca, really?): https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=2&actionType=ModBanFromCommunity&userId=12926811
Conclusion
This kind of thinking is harmful to any community.
Labeling disagreement as bigotry is nonsense. Refusing to engage on a topic and using filters and bans to hide from people who don’t perfectly align with your ideas is not how you make allies or educate people.
The people that do this are responsible for creating the impression that your communities are hostile and made up of extremists. Attacking allies because they don’t fall in line without question is a blunder.
People with moderator powers should be held to a higher standard of responsibility and fabricating reasons for bans and mislabeling people as bigots is the ultimate abdication of that responsibility. These people are not interested in helping a community thrive, they simply want to be the ones with the power to strike out at people that they want to hurt regardless of the damage that it causes.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk (except you, Linuxphones@lemmy.ca, I pray you never learn how to exit vim)
Warning to all: do not start arguing about trans women in sports in this thread. Stick to judgement on the banning please.
YDI
YDI
When you’re writing paragraphs about how “trans athletes” is an important political debate, then you’ve already lost. Stop feeding the fascists.
So what is the rule that I violated and how does it apply to any of my comments?
I was commenting about trans athletes in a thread about laws being passed affecting trans athletes in a California community.
I didn’t break the rules of that community (and I didn’t get banned from that community).
The reason this is a YPB post is because power tripping mods from other communities on other servers spammed my account with bans claiming I was a transphobe and defending trans exclusion from sports.
Both reasons are nonsense and untrue and using moderation powers to spam an account’s modlog with slanderous nonsense is harassment.
Regardless of your opinions on the topic, I didn’t say anything transphobic and that’s the ban reason. It’s nonsense and an abuse of power.
You chose to openly and willingly spew debunked transphobic talking points as well as thinly veiled transphobia. That was your choice. I’m sure that you knew very well that these types of exclusionary arguments aren’t taken well on platforms and communities which are protective of trans people or even run by trans people. YDI
Oh and about those preemptive bans, I don’t blame them, some of that is an automated part of Lemmy when doing instance bans for remote users, but even the ones where people manually banned you. I don’t blame them either, you’ve made yourself well known in holding and acting on transphobic and trans exclusionary beliefs, why would they want you posting and hanging out in their trans-friendly communities when they already know you’re someone to do that kind of shit.
You’re confusing disagreement and questions with transphobia because you’re not believing me that I’m discussing in good faith.
That’s the core of the problem. You’re unable to entertain the idea that someone may not know what know.
Maybe, to you, these are debunked talking points but there are people who have never been a part of the conversation. Assuming that because you know about a subject that everyone else has to is a very naive way of thinking. So, when you interact with people who don’t know anything about the subject you come off as an abrasive asshole by accusing them of bigotry and trolling or self-righteously declaring that they’re wrong and bigoted for reasons that they should understand (and also dumb for not understanding).
It’s toxic behavior. Assuming that everyone with questions is acting in bad faith lets you feel righteous indignation and outrage. It feels good to think that you’re part of the group punishing the ‘bad people’, you never consider how the situation looks if it is you that is wrong.
YDI, you were throwing around talking points that have been debunked so many times that nobody familiar with the subject would believe you’re acting in good faith.
I’m willing to believe you, since you went to the trouble of making this post. But that’s the only reason why.
So, with that in mind, you gotta understand that waiting for people to play catchup with the science gets old for trans people and their allies that have had this debate a hundred times.
At this point, after more than a decade of this same thing being thrown at trans people again and again and again and again and again, it is not realistic for anyone to spend time dealing with you, or anyone else, that is going to pound the same incorrect pulpit once more.
Now, there’s only so far I’ll go on this community regarding the debate because this isn’t the place. This community can’t function as a dumping ground for every debate that gets stopped somewhere else, or it turns into chaos. I’ve seen it happen, and I’ve seen the locked threads that come about because folks can’t stick to the subject of the mod decision itself.
So, here’s the only thing I’ll say regarding trans athletes. There is no evidence that a trans person be it man or woman has an advantage in athletics beyond the first year of hormone therapy, and there is significant evidence to the contrary, including the world records in sports where trans people have competed. If such am advantage existed, then it would be expected that trans athletes would dominate their sports. This has not been the case at all. To the contrary, when you go looking, it turns out that it can be a disadvantage because of the way the hormones work.
I won’t debate this issue, I won’t argue it. This is not the place to do so. The only reason I went that far is to illustrate why the subject is dead to so many people. It isn’t a hypothetical; trans athletes have actually competed at all levels of sport, and there is no advantage present. Again, *trans athletes have been competing for years, with no record of having an advantage.
So, when you keep pounding a dead horse, it is not power tripping to shut the false rhetoric down. It would be like me going into an astronomy C/ and talking about the lack of proof that the earth circles the sun.
I’m not trying to re-hash the debate here, my position isn’t that trans people should be excluded.
What you’re describing is ignorance and not transphobia.
No matter what subject you choose, there will be a lot of people who simply don’t understand the debate and haven’t researched the topic. To you, it may be an old topic that you’ve endlessly debated but that doesn’t mean that it is like that for everyone. Not everyone has your experience or knowledge and, because of that, simply saying “In my experience this is a dead topic” is one thing but then to go on to say that “And so, if anybody attempts to talk about this topic, they are acting in bad faith and/or are a bigot” is simply intolerant.
Some people are just new to the topic, and how you choose to interact with them matters. Immediately accusing people of bigotry and attacking them because they’re not part your group of people who’re experts on the topic, is itself a form of bigotry ("One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. ").
So, when you keep pounding a dead horse, it is not power tripping to shut the false rhetoric down.
This isn’t ‘beating a dead horse’. I made 3 comments on the topic. Their actions were not made to ‘shut the false rhetoric down’, they’re not moderators in California and I could have continued commenting. If someone is tired of having the debate or tired of explaining topics to new people then they’re free to not engage or even block the person in question.
And, most importantly, the mod reason for the ban was “transphobe” and “Transphobia attempting to make excuses for trans exclusion from sports.”. Which are just fabricated reasons, not based in reality.
I am not a transphobe nor was I “making excuses for trans exclusion from sports”. I specifically addressed the commenters who were insinuating this by clarifying my position: “Obviously the people arguing that trans people should never compete are ignorant, I’m not supporting that position.”
This is people enforcing dogma, they’ve decided that the topic is closed and anyone outside of the people who hold the same position as them are bigots. Questions are not allowed, explaining their position is beneath them, and you’re either on board or you’re excommunicated.
It’s a power trip to 1. Lie about the reasons and 2. Ban the people from completely unrelated communities.
It would be like me going into an astronomy C/ and talking about the lack of proof that the earth circles the sun.
That would be a fair comparison if I was going into trans communities and talking about topics that I’m ignorant, but I was not. Expecting people, in non-topical spaces, to be experts on the topic is nonsense.
This would be like a person who is a moderator of Astronomy seeing a comment saying “The sun rises in the east” in a memes community and then banning the person from the Astronomy community (and also the Baking, Vintage Car and Waffle Iron Owners communities) because everyone, with a degree in Astrophysics, knows that Uranus and Venus have retrograde rotation and have for billions of years and so they’re banned for “Flat-earther ideology”.
e: I’d also note that one of the strong indicators that you’re entering into these topics is when there are downvotes but not rebuttals. It’s hard to argue with someone, it takes a lot less effort to simply press the downvote (or ban, or block) button. Social media conditions people to be intellectually lazy and dogmatic thinking is one of the primary shortcuts of intellectually lazy people
seems relevant to share
They already responded by banning me from blahj.
The tolerance being displayed is truly an inspiration for us all.
“Hey guys, I wasn’t repeating long disproven transphobic talking points, I was just asking questions and ignoring the answers others gave me, mmmkay?”
You got banned for transphobic JAQing off. Poorly. YDI and any preemptive bans. I keep my flat tidy so it won’t become infested with roaches. This is no different.
PTB
I was in this same thread and the same mod also banned me from the same ~30 subs for the same shit.
Obviously my vote here is biased as I am in the same exact boat as OP but I find that banning people from a ton of subs they haven’t even said anything in because you didn’t like something they said in a community you don’t even moderate is fucking insane.
The fact that some powermod went through all their communities to ban you makes this a blatent case of PTB, regardless of the merit of the initial ban.
