this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/25042034

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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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 40 points 1 day ago (5 children)

While the underlying issue swirling around the UK courts' confusion of gender vs. sex, male vs. female is just as confusing to me and I have no clear answers for that, the Blahaj admin's move is I think the right one.

That instance prides itself as being a safe-space for LGBTQ+ folks, so explicitly allowing behaviour that does not recognize its users' identities, is reasonable grounds for defederation.

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[–] MemmingenFan923@feddit.org 45 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (11 children)

Defederate an instance because of a single problematic user doesn't feel right.

But also defederate an instance because their admins don't comply their own rules doesn't feel wrong.

[–] flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.com 61 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'd argue it wasn't defederated because of one user, it was defederating because of a fundamental disagreement in moderation policies.

The one user could've been saying anything people could find deplorable. It was that the admin chose to be hands-off about it that pulled the trigger.

Which is a good thing, in that servers are allowed to decide how they want to handle moderation, and other server owners are allowed to decide if they accept that, or if they expect the moderation will lead to continued problems of the same vein down the road. The fediverse working as intended.

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[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 59 points 2 days ago (6 children)

I think it seems justified. Ava's moderation approach may seem heavy handed, but she hasn't done anything unjustified.

[–] Carrolade@lemmy.world 55 points 2 days ago

Yeah, this is just the Fediverse operating as intended. Some instances are heavily federated, others are less so. This gives people options.

[–] OpenStars@piefed.social 18 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Moreover, it's her instance, and she can do whatever she wants with it.

Its users are free to leave whenever they wish, but I doubt many will as a result of this bc (a) Ada is awesome, and (b) the comments look strongly in her favor. Also (c) Ava's policies are clearly explained at the outset, and firmly and fairly applied.

Our approval outside of the situation does not matter in the slightest:-).

(~~That said, if it did, I would want to see some additional context, bc wine that phrase can be used as a dog whistle, I believe it may also be legitimate as well. I would strongly hope that the additional context in this case provided the justification that I can't fully see here. Which knowing Ada, seems highly likely.~~ Edit: if this comment really is it, then nvm, I get it. Tbf that really does seem like a discussion that needs to be had among centrists, but I can totally see why Blåhaj doesn't want to federate that content and thereby host it on its own servers. So without prejudicial judgement either for or against the original comment, I definitely support Ada's call here. As I always end up doing when I dig deeply enough to see what's going on in each situation. I am not saying that I would have done it - perhaps a community block or other reduced feature could have been applied, but for her server, it's her right.)

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 47 points 2 days ago (9 children)

For anyone who's curious about the actual messages, I think these are them:

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.

[–] TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 40 points 2 days ago (3 children)

That’s actually not nearly as extreme as I was expecting

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 50 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Just because it's have a cordial tone, but it's pretty tranphobic all around the place. Master class on sealioning.

[–] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 10 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Idk just saying that transwomen and cis women are different doesn't seem transphobic in and of itself, especially since the person seems to be saying that they should have the same rights now

[–] npcknapsack@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's a very polite post on the surface, but do note that they refer to trans women as "it". I think they're being very polite because they know that saying "I think trans women are just deluded men and I don't want to respect those things" doesn't go as well.

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[–] TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 36 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I mean the basic argument, that trans identifying peoples are in their own distinct categories outside of the typical gender binary, actually has some interesting meat to it.

Trans men and women do have different experiences from their cisgender counterparts, different medical needs, different journeys. None of which I am experienced enough in the subject to speak to.

Kinda loses me on their “I don’t use the word cis” part though

[–] driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 17 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Op argument is that they are Real Women and then then Women Who Used To Have Penis, reducing the trans experience and identify to the sex they were born into. The part of not using the word cis is not even the worst, imo, like using the word "thing" to talk about people is pretty disgusting, or comparing "blonde women" with "trans women" like if gender identity was just a superficial aspect of a person instead of the fundamental one it is.

[–] TexMexBazooka@lemm.ee 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

See, I just don’t think what you’ve deduced the argument to was what was actually said.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Think of it from a math perspective. The non-transphobic stance would be that woman is the superset which contains subsets of trans, cis, and others. The comment says they're two separate sets, woman and transwoman. This is why cis doesn't have to be used, because woman is sufficient to describe the set, because trans women aren't part of it.

That was very helpful way of reframing the discussion. Thank you.

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[–] Irelephant@lemm.ee 30 points 2 days ago (3 children)

The UK is known for polite transphobia.

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[–] kbal@fedia.io 31 points 2 days ago

Thank you for posting it. Good to know that Blahaj made the right choice for its users, which really wasn't obvious otherwise.

[–] Dasus@lemmy.world 18 points 2 days ago (25 children)

I'm so annoyed by these pseudointellectuals who can't seem to grasp the relatively simple difference between "sex" and "gender".

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[–] Blaze@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago
[–] limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 36 points 2 days ago

I think it’s healthy for admins to defederate, for whatever reason, from their choice of other instances.

If this is not done enough, then we will end up with few instances dominating the ebb and flow of discussion and content. And making it difficult for voices to be heard.

If done too much, and there are many tiny clusters of communities, there are social forces that will make many of these network closer.

If we did this more, it will break the monopoly of the large instances we see today, and better things can grow

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