Full Post
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.
Just normal terf Island things. 
cw:transphobia The context
The feddit admins have responded in this post:
https://piefed.social/post/691666
Admin Responses
flamingo-scant@feddit.uk 17 hours ago
To be clear, there were no posts, this is about two comments by one of our users, both of which I personally pushed back on. We’re still discussing what to do, but consensus takes time.
ᴇᴍᴘᴇʀᴏʀ 帝@feddit.uk 19 hours ago
Address the comments or address the defederation?
I was the Admin who was contacted by Ada and that is a mischaracterisation of what I said. Our rules still stand that we won’t allow transphobia.
Unfortunately, as the ruling on the interpretation of the law has recently changed, we are going to have to figure out how we approach this and that is going to require a consensus amongst the Admins, and an agreement on our wording going forward.
This is going to take a bit for us to work out (although not too long, we’re getting there, I have been active on Lemmy but I don’t call the shots, and we need input from all Admins) and if, in the meantime, LBZ feel we aren’t moving fast enough and they need to defederate from us then that is obviously their right.
flamingo-scant@feddit.uk 14 hours ago
The issue is this rule in c/unitedkingdom and c/uk_politics: Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
We’ve never had anything like the current wave of transphobia, not even those pogroms back in July, so we’ve never had to work out the exact line between ‘disappointing’ and ‘horrible’. Working out that line needs discussion with all the admins, which unfortunately takes time. Regardless of what the government says or does, transphobia is not and will never be allowed here.
This is a good move. I’ve reported a lot of tankie-like remarks on feddit that never get their comments removed and it’s concerning. Better to cut off any suspected tankie incubator than suffer the consequences
So absolutely on-brand for lemm.ee:
- hallucinating tankies everywhere
- “not intended for non blahaj users” garfield.jpg
- leftists are apparently the same as, and worse than, bigots
Impeccable
Under that, from a dbz0 user:
I’d rather my comm ban people that complain about ‘tankies’. It’s a useless term which can mean 100 things to different people, only serving really to divide the left.
Is it just me, or has dbz taken a noticeable turn for the cooler in these last few month?
dbz has always had an almost even split of weirdos and decent people. But they get a lot of influence from the lemm.ee and .world types, so a lot of threads on there go a bad direction. Also their political (and adjacent) communities are overrun by liberals. Their climate and ecology ones don’t allow any criticism of Democrats, for example.
Hey that’s me
I made an account there maybe two years ago, they can generally be alright but a far cry from the glorious posters of hexbear. I only really use it these days to see what’s happening on .world and the general lib-sphere that we aren’t fedded with.
Dbz the user is an insufferable debatelord who barely hides their contempt for you while posturing as jaqing off. Who was rightfully banned here around a year ago due to said tendencies (that I may or may not have got them to mask off on).
Dbz the forum is pretty chill. Little to Reddit for my liking, but not terrible.
Are we talking cooler like people say James Dean was cool, or cool like a fridge?
Blahaj: Goes out of its way to defend chasers and transphobes at the cost of a significant portion of lemmy’s trans users
Also Blahaj: Why are we having so many issues with transphobes!
I’m a trans person new on Lemmy but I’ve felt way more at home here than on Blahaj for reasons i can’t put my finger on
I mean this with all sincerity and no disingenuity but can you explain how Blahaj defends chasers and transphobes? The vibes were weird over there
for reasons i can’t put my finger on
Communists tend to have principles. We die on some really dumb hills sometimes, but liberals will concede on everything all the time.
I find the sexualisation of trans people on blahaj uncomfortable, and when I still was on there I saw a lot of unmoderated sexism and ableism.
The 196 community in general has weird vibes, I’ve heard that the 196 subreddit has many vaush fans and vaush himself is just a really weird dude who normalises fetishising trans people and drawn child sexual assault material. The lemmy 196 community is a spinoff of the subreddit and the largest community on blahaj (last time I checked). I’ve had discussions with people there who linked to vaush videos as ‘source’ for why it’s ok to behave like a jerk be ableist. I think vaush is a horrible guy and his community is toxic, and some of the main posters and mods on blahaj are part of that toxic community which explains why a lot of the problematic stuff doesn’t get removed.
Can someone please explain what “fetishing trans people” is?
Like dil said, but if you’re still not sure, it basically means they have a kink for trans people, and as such, can tend to treat trans people as more of a sexual object for their personal gratification rather than as actual people.
I think they meant “fetishizing”
It’s like what Karaba the witch did to men, turning them into magical objects that must obey her. 196 is like transphobic Karaba.
There’s been some bad blood since when they were federated and the (old) 196 mods were particularly shitty, example: https://hexbear.net/post/363529/3762934
Since then there’s been new 196 mods because the old 196 tried to force-migrate the whole comm to .world.
I still remember HornyOnMain getting condescendingly berated and called “phobic” by a chaser for not wanting to fuck him. Just insane how the mods over there barely did anything about those incidences.
Post: https://hexbear.net/post/373222
Interaction itself: https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/fb45a987-1510-44fe-a7e0-e68283c2db2b.png
The majority of the moderation team of /c/196 was cis, which gives you a general idea of how fucked the vibes are at that lemmy instance.
WTF no wonder jesus
One trans mod has since stepped down, so it’s even worse now.
Blahaj: Goes out of its way to defend chasers and transphobes at the cost of a significant portion of lemmy’s trans users
What did they do?
Admins wrote a small summary here explaining the reasons why we defeded from blajah.zone: https://hexbear.net/post/369410
That just makes it even better/funnier how the 196 comm mod team just moved to world because Ada was too mean to us by asking us to moderate.
Damn! I completely missed that. And apparently Moss is gone now for good, which leaves our Moss as the superior bryophyte.
I love happy endings.
Moss mentioned‼️
I’m glad the impostor is gone because I don’t want anyone ever thinking I’m connected to that dickhead
Well, technically you’re the impostor, because the other one made their account 4 days earlier than you.
I am better and therefore the true Moss. The pretender Moss has fallen
They arent gone, they chicken out with leaving and now there are 3, 196 comms with 2 in blahaj
Not entirely but left for lw. Idk what users numbers are on any of the 3 cause had to block them. Idk why they love rule so much
Thanks!
Blahaj: Goes out of its way to defend chasers and transphobes
uh oh, do i need to retract my “based” statement? i dunno enough about blahaj maybe
One of this guy’s posts is really flummoxing me:
transphobia
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.
So instead of doing the whole, hurr durr, trans women are women but not female, this guy does the opposite and claims that we are female but women.
I mean, he literally writes it out:
A woman is an adult female. A transwoman is an adult female
WTF?!? In over a decade of keeping an eye on transphobic rhetoric, I’ve never seen anyone pull out that kind of move. Transphobes somehow always manage to break my brain in completely new ways.
They’re using transwoman instead of trans woman.
This is used to define us as an ideological choice over a biological reality. To them a transwoman is a man identifying as a woman instead of a woman with the medical condition of being trans.
The entire goal of doing this is to push trans people out of medicine.
This was usually just a “mistake” made by well intentioned people up until this ruling but I’m inclined to moderate this behaviour from this point onwards in my online communities and force people onto “trans woman”. If they refuse, banned.
It dehumanises trans women. It turns them into things instead of women with a medical condition.
I used to think that people who called out the missing space, even when the writer was obviously not bigoted, were going a bit overboard. But thanks to this anomaly of a transphobe, I can clearly see why this is necessary now.
To them a transwoman is a man identifying as a woman instead of a woman with the medical condition of being trans.
In his next comment he used the phrase: “previously being a biological male and now identifying as a woman”, which actually makes me more angry than straight-up calling us men.
Because what thit implies is that, even if there was some magical thing that could turn us completely cis, he would still claim that we aren’t real women because we’ve not always been this way. Just completely othering us.
So it’s kinda nice to at least once see a transphobe acknowledge that we are biologically female, but on the other hand, JUST FUCK THIS GUY, SERIOUSLY!
It’s a similar behaviour that you see from self described “gold star lesbians”, except it’s gold star cis. There’s a purity to it, the implication is that one is tainted and can never be pure.
It launders the transphobia. They can use some terms that make them look supportive while simultaneously being transphobic through the purity bs.
EDIT: Oh and I felt the same about the “transwoman” thing until the behaviour I’ve seen since the uk ruling.
“Behold, lowly trans peasant! I’m a gold star woman. That means my blue blood has never contained more than 70 ng/dL of testosterone.”
They would call all the other women mudbloods I suppose.
I fucking love your comments on transphobes so much. The way they always hit is just wonderful.
I hate them oh so very much.
A woman is an adult female. A transwoman is an adult female
Stunning and I agree completely
transphobia
But a woman and a transwoman are different things, and it’s disingenuous to pretend otherwise
This is straight up the same rhetoric white “feminists” had about black women during the early 20th century, transforming adjectives into exclusionary essentialist dogma
His reply to the admin explaining to him how “trans” is an adjective starts off with this:
more transphobia
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.
So you’re spot-on with the phrase “transforming adjectives into exclusionary essentialist dogma”.
He calls us biologically female and he’s also willing to call us women, but only if he can add the dislaimer about our past. His dogmatic worldviews just don’t allow him to acknowledge us as just women, no matter what.
I can call it
into the pit, immediately
“I’m an enlightened transphobe”I want to see the woke religious bigot.
God wants trans people to transition! In fact, he DEMANDS it! If you’re trans and you don’t transition, you will burn in HELL for all Eternity!
This reminds me of Iran for some reason.
We accept that you as a trans woman are indeed, a woman. Here’s your hijab. And you damn well better be straight!
Critical support?
If you’re gay and you sleep with a woman, then you will burn in the PIT! Repent sinner! For such a vile act, only Christ can save you! You have gone against God’s plan for you! It is a mortal sin for a gay man to sleep with a woman!
wait til the transphobes learn how to wield sex (as in changing your sex) against trans women
Me to future transphobes: “Get the fuck inside there! NOW!”
Well, you see,
British transphobes continue to be awful. Fucking hell.
Transphobia is deeply ingrained in the British mindset. Even some of our “communist” parties are transphobic and claim that “gender identity is bourgeois”. Trans people are arguably treated worse by the British left than American religious fascists. That’s how bad it is.
I’ve watched some UK TV programs so I consider myself on expert on British culture and I can’t figure out why they are so shitty about this issue in particular, even compared to Burgerland.
I have not done a lot of investigation, any comrade with better knowledge is welcome to correct me.
It’s my understanding the problem is the different waves of feminism. Second wave feminism took hold in the UK and informed a lot of the rhetoric and social understanding of gender, they tended to be more focused on biologic sex markers and tend toward anti-trans positions. UK women’s groups and feminist organizations still tend toward this second wave. Whereas in the US It was third or fourth wave feminists that really took hold on campuses and was the base of a lot of the political groups.
Shaun has a video on transphobia in the UK that might be enlightening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91_5OOmK1TQ
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
the UK never had a bourgeois revolution or grappled with their toppling as world hegemon and their politics is still firmly stuck in 100 year old colonial mindset
I’m gonna guess colonialist mindset cause what else would it be
more than some
It is shocking how much worse they are than
Guess I’m leaving Feddit.uk then…I’ll see if I can message the mods first.
Edit; I’m leaving cause of the transphobia issue. I might live on TERF Island, but I’m not a TERF.
i don’t really get how all this federating and different instances and stuff works but i do love how they’re all connected and all have beef with each other. it’s fun.
they’re
We’re part of this too, comrade
We’re the best though.
federated beef is never our fault, other people are wrong.
struggle sessions are a different outdoor cat.
They said in their instance rules they dont allow transphobia but they are ok with dogwhistles?
Even more fun watching the non blahaj thread from blaze where the UK admins are just blaming Ada for not wanting to be around transphobes as the admins have to work out if they can bad them or not after the court decision
@CARCOSA@hexbear.net
Apperently we are also federated with feddit.uk. Do you think taking the same immedite actions as Ada would be good? Or do you prefer waiting for the feddit mod team to make a dicision?Why stay federated with them when they seriously need to discuss this? What is there to work out, banning a blatant transphobe takes literally 2 seconds. Fuck these spineless cowards and their shit instance.
Removed by mod
Defedding from an instance whose reaction to “our supreme court just decided to deny trans people protection from discrimination” is “maybe we shoud allow discriminating trans people” is entirely proportional you dingus.
Also to add to this: Hexbear has existed for a long time without federation enabled did just fine.
Barley anyone here interacted with content from feddit.uk anyway, atleast not from a hexbear account and there is really no reason to stay federated
Welcome
refugees. 
Feddit is the problem here so anyone who comes here would come likely come from there. Idk if we have access to feddit from here but moving from blahaj to here to access it would likely only be a temporary solution if nothing changes.
Fish.
least transphobic br*ts
-
Blahaj is just going to slowly become hexbear style isolationists to avoid transphobia and still complain about us
Are we still federated with feddit? If we are some of the stuff other people are posting in this thread combined with Ada’s post leaves me to believe we should probably consider following suit in solidarity if nothing else.
huh didnt know we were, I will bring it up in mod chat
Seems pretty decided so far.
We are. You can try and PM one of the admins about it, if you want. CARCOSA is probably your best bet.
Lol they can’t help themselves
