this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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Ye Power Trippin' Bastards

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This is a community in the spirit of "Am I The Asshole" where people can post their own bans from lemmy or reddit or whatever and get some feedback from others whether the ban was justified or not.

Sometimes one just wants to be able to challenge the arguments some mod made and this could be the place for that.


Posting Guidelines

All posts should follow this basic structure:

  1. Which mods/admins were being Power Tripping Bastards?
  2. What sanction did they impose (e.g. community ban, instance ban, removed comment)?
  3. Provide a screenshot of the relevant modlog entry (don’t de-obfuscate mod names).
  4. Provide a screenshot and explanation of the cause of the sanction (e.g. the post/comment that was removed, or got you banned).
  5. Explain why you think its unfair and how you would like the situation to be remedied.

Rules


Expect to receive feedback about your posts, they might even be negative.

Make sure you follow this instance's code of conduct. In other words we won't allow bellyaching about being sanctioned for hate speech or bigotry.

YTPB matrix channel: For real-time discussions about bastards or to appeal mod actions in YPTB itself.


Some acronyms you might see.


Relevant comms

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There's a post about it.

That post explicitly says it's not a place for debate or participation from users of other instances.

I'd like to respect that but I think events like this need debate and discussion because it helps to develop and evolve the culture of lemmy and the fediverse in general.

The post says:

This post is "FYI only" for blahaj lemmy members. It is not a debate, and is not intended for non blahaj lemmy users to weigh in and offer opinions.

I recently received reports of a feddit.uk user espousing transphobia. Specifically, this was a feddit.uk user refusing to use the word cis, repeating the "adult human female" dog whistle, and claiming that trans women are not women. I approached a member of the feddit.uk admin team and raised my concerns and sought clarification of their stance on posts like this, where the transphobia is mostly dogwhistles, and "civil disagreement" on the validity of trans folk.

I was told by the feddit.uk admin that their preferred response is this kind of transphobia is to "sort it out through discussion and voting". However, the comments in question are currently more upvoted than downvoted, and little "sorting out" has occurred. The posts remain in place.

At this point, the admin stopped responding to my messages despite being active elsewhere on lemmy. When it became clear they were ignoring my messages and had no intention of removing the posts in question, I made the decision to defederate the instance.

I know some folk agree with the feddit.uk admins approach of pushback through discussion and voting, but this instance is not designed to be that kind of space. Blahaj lemmy is meant to be a place where we can avoid the rampant transphobia universally visible on nearly every other social media platform, and where we can exist without needing to debate our right to do so.

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Clearly not a power trip, just protecting their user space like they promised they will.

[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 8 points 21 hours ago

That's crazy. I mean it's their instance and I don't think it was out of the realm for blahaj to do but over the post of one guy is crazy.

[–] CapriciousDay@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 day ago

It's totally reasonable for them to enforce their level of anti-bigotry protections to protect their safe space instance. It's not power tripping. Besides feddit.uk is full of full time labour centrist true believers and/or probable astroturfers and is is largely low value subreddit copy paste for their most substantial communities.

[–] Samskara@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Ada‘s post contains no details or reasoning. Linking to the offending content would make this appear more deliberate.

The offending content was apparently this.

A woman is an adult female. A transwoman is an adult female who used to be male. It’s not difficult to grasp that they are different things. You can admit that and still believe that transwomen should be treated with dignity like anyone else.

Personally I don’t give a shit what bathroom people use or what they want to be referred to. I’ll go along with whatever… But a woman and a transwoman are different things, and it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise. Always have been different things and always will be, no matter what the law states, now or in the future.

Kier’s words are still not transphobia. There is no fear, dislike, prejudice, discrimination, harassment, or violence in his statement. The scream of ‘transphobia’ is thrown around too much for anyone who disagrees with a narrow definition. Any disagreement is labelled as hate, and it’s silly.

Should a transwoman have the same rights and respect and opportunity as a woman (as per the legal definition)? Absolutely. Are they the same? No, they are not. Is that a hateful bigoted viewpoint worthy of scorn? I don’t believe so.

I don’t use the term cis. I use the term woman and you knew exactly what I meant. A blonde woman is a description of a woman’s hair colour and is a semantic-based response that is nothing to do with this point. You know this; it’s a foolish riposte that’s nothing at all to do with the clear and simple fact that a woman who used to be a man is not the same thing as a (cis) woman.

I can call it a woman who used to have a penis or a woman who used to be a man if you want me to be pedantic about it. Nothing to do with hair colour, or skin colour, or anything else except previously being a biological male and now identifying as a woman.

‘adult human female’ is not a dog whistle. It’s a legal and common-sense definition that you clearly understand but are trying to make out to be hate for some reason. I am not denying the legitimacy of transwomen; nor is Keir.

Transwomen and (cis) women are different things. And Transmen and (cis) men are different things. They have different names, which you yourself use for a reason. That reason being they are not the same thing. This is exactly the same as saying transwomen are not women, because they are not. They are transwomen.

It’s pretty simple.

Copied from here

[–] Deathmonger@lemmings.world 2 points 15 hours ago

That entire screed is a dogwhistle

[–] Skiluros@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

Blahaj.zone can do whatever they want, but to try and imply that the admins of feddit.uk (and users) are transphobic over this text is madness.

Respect to feddit.uk admins for not bowing to down to bullying.

[–] Shayeta@feddit.org 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Wtf, this isn't hate. This is someone stating their perspective with no harmful intent. If anything that comment is a great starter to a serious discussion on the topic.

If Ada doesn't want such content on their instance they have the right to defederade and I fully support their right to it, no matter the reason (it is their instance after all).

I can understand why someone would disagree with that comment, but calling it transphobia or hate speech?

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (11 children)

The part that becomes transphobic is the insistence that the definitions are "transwoman" and "woman". A trans woman (note the space) is a type of woman, no one denies that. It'd be like using the term "blondewoman" and insisting that they are different from every other kind of "woman", and not included in womanhood.

Ada also pretty clearly stated why she didn't link to the offending content: 
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/14101300 in that she didn't want to start a brigade, which I honestly think is pretty upstanding behaviour on her part. As well, I don't see where the actual content has been linked, so I think the commenter above you might be full of shit, unless they can give a source.

I'm not going to participate further in this circus after this comment though. ~~The second I saw Ada's post the other day, I knew there'd be a PTB post with people either ignorantly, or knowingly pushing transphobic viewpoints.~~ (Edit: I actually amend my statement. This comment thread was right at the top for me, but upon further reading people here have been really chill. Genuinely, thanks all for understanding that Blahaj is first and foremost a place for trans people to feel safe above any other concerns) It's the ignorance that gets to me honestly, as if we don't live in a world today where the majority of people aren't susceptible to the overt fascism of Mussolini and Hitler anymore. Fascists, and other bad actors, realised they had to become smarter and more subtle with the way they spread hatred. They sow plausible-sounding doubt about transgender healthcare, like saying trans "children" are put on hormones when that's only ever offered at 16 or older, or that these same "children" are given surgeries at 16 when no healthcare systems allow under 18 year olds to get surgery, and in fact many block trans adults from those life-saving procedures. It's designed to be "death by a thousand cuts" because straight up attacking trans folks right to exist will cause most people to push back against that.

Let me just ask you (the general you, not the person I'm replying to) what exactly the need for defining trans women as not biologically female actually is? Is it to stop us from using the women's bathroom? Well, if your goal is to reduce the amount of people sexually assaulted, that will surely fail, and I shouldn't have to explain why. Is it so that cis women can get the medical care they need, that differs from trans women? That's not a problem that exists, nor would most trans women deny that cis women have their own medical needs, when we obviously have our own too. Is it to stop trans women from going to DV shelters? Do you really think a woman that's being terrorised to the level of leaving her home is going to purposefully harm other women?

What is the actual need for defining trans women separately then? Why are certain people so obsessed by this need? The best answer I've got is the fact that the US executive government has decided to define them separately, and under the cover of that, they not only have stopped issuing passports with trans folks chosen gender marker, but have stopped issuing them in their gender assigned at birth as well. Let me repeat for you, trans folks Are Not Able To Get A Passport At All Anymore In The United States thanks to this manufactured debate around biological sex. I shudder to think about what comes next after an act like that.

[–] Shayeta@feddit.org 2 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

The part that becomes transphobic is the insistence that the definitions are “transwoman” and “woman”. A trans woman (note the space) is a type of woman, no one denies that. It’d be like using the term “blondewoman” and insisting that they are different from every other kind of “woman”, and not included in womanhood.

I see, I wasn't aware of this perspective.

Ada also pretty clearly stated why she didn’t link to the offending content: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/14101300 in that she didn’t want to start a brigade, which I honestly think is pretty upstanding behaviour on her part.

Not trans specific, and not really related, but I disagree with this view. Brigades are bad, they are the internet version of a street brawl and produce nothing of value. What I dislike is that "stopping brigades" usually also prevents actual discourse.

Let me just ask you (the general you, not the person I’m replying to) what exactly the need for defining trans women as not biologically female actually is?

What is the actual need for defining trans women separately then? Why are certain people so obsessed by this need?

I can only speak for myself: Since forever when someone uses the word "woman" in a conversation it is implicitly understood that they are referring to a cis woman. What rubs me the wrong way is that it feels like someone is forcefully trying to change that implicit meaning to mean "cis woman or trans woman" which would then necessitate referring to a cis woman as a "cis woman" instead of simply a "woman", which in turn feels like I'm being forced to change the way I speak. I personally don't think this is the case, but it is what it feels like. To me trans women are women as in, included in womanhood, and when I say the word "woman" in a casual conversation I'm implicitly referring to a cis woman.

[–] princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 23 hours ago

To me trans women are women as in, included in womanhood, and when I say the word "woman" in a casual conversation I'm implicitly referring to a cis woman.

These two statements are an oxymoron though, you can't really have it both ways. So if it "feels like" you're being forced, that's merely because social conventions push us to be clear with our language choices. It really isn't any different from situations where you might have to say a "straight woman" or a "white woman" because it's expedient to distinguish that group separately.

Also though, I wonder what situations you're even referring to? If you start talking about women that can get pregnant (and just say "women"), as a matter of course I'm not going to scold you for not defining it as "non-menopausal women that haven't had a hysterectomy", nor would most people. So, have you been scolded for something similar where you meant cis women? If not, this feels like it's just a strawman, a situation that doesn't really come up, but is easy to try and win arguments over.

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[–] RymrgandsDaughter@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

makes sense to me, that is what blahaj is for 😒 besides people that agree with that user don't want to interact with blahaj. And those that do could do it elsewhere

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 10 points 1 day ago

literally the fediverse working exactly as intended… blahaj clearly states its purpose and lives by it. on any other instance it might be ptb, but on blahaj thats just good instance administration

[–] qaz@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago

Seems fair, I don't think this is PTB

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