434

An Alabama preacher and politician killed himself Friday two days after being outed for having a secret life he shared online as a “transgender curvy girl.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Yeah exactly. Some folks pass the point of sympathy. Folks like Joseph McCarthy, people who run conversion camps, Milo Yannanopolos, Blaire White, etc. But it’s hard to hit that point. I generally draw that line after having accepted yourself or begun living as yourself. And even then, I don’t want these people dead, I want them to change and work to undo the harm they’ve done.

Targeted outing is an important tactic. It’s a way to force the people in power to own up to their hypocrisy and to stop people from hiding their true self behind hate. That’s not what this is, this is outing someone to cause them harm and to scare others. It’s an old harassment technique that’s been done as long as the internet has been around to try to hurt trans people, and it’s not ok.

[-] CleoTheWizard@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Explained it the best. I hate what he did. I hate what a lot of people do. But I’m always sad to lose someone who had a chance to change.

It’s what the internet is worst at, forgiving. This person said awful things and did awful things, but if he hadn’t taken his life and had instead worked through this, I honestly believe that he would be someone alive and worth forgiving.

This doesn’t ever excuse the damage people do. I think that’s what people forget. You can forgive people without excusing their harm. But it’s always important that those who seek forgiveness both receive it AND receive it as they work to undo the harm if possible. Sometimes that won’t be possible.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Exactly. The harm is done regardless. I want us to be the side of “I changed for the better”. We shouldn’t immediately trust people or forgive them of course, that “unconditional forgiveness and trust so long as you repent and are on our side” bullshit is part of how Christians keep winding up with a bunch of pedos. But I do believe in restorative justice. Sometimes people become good after doing many bad things.

I want people to be better, so I think we need to stop punishing them for trying to be better. I’ll take former republicans, I’ll take reformed bigots, I’ll take assholes trying to be better, so long as all of them are actually striving to improve. And sometimes those people need to not be in a room so people can get a break from their not being quite there yet or because of the harm they did in the past, but that’s ok, the goal is to get them there.

this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
434 points (95.8% liked)

News

23649 readers
2699 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS