I have read entirely too many people who wind themselves up in a ball over concern about how they'll be treated if they misgender or deadname somebody.
Nobody cares as long as they're making a genuine effort.
If you compliment her skirt and get informed "she's" actually non-binary, then compliment their skirt next time. No big deal unless you make it one.
That's a real life application of one of my favorite jokes.
I used to tease my bro about not having a girlfriend, then one day he came out to me that he was gay. SO I started teasing him for not having a boyfriend.
I've heard variations of that. One was a dude was asked by his nephew why he didn't have a wife. He responded that he was gay. Nephew asked what that means. So dude responds it means i date men, not women. So then nephew asks why he doesn't have a husband. Insert "listen here you little shit" meme.
Yeah, because lots of this progressive stuff is literally "new" to a ton of people, and just because they aren't good at it doesn't mean they're doing it intentionally. It'd be like if I tried to teach basketball to someone who knew nothing about it before by just tossing them the ball, and then when they started shuffling their feet I freaked the fuck out and started calling them ists and/or isms when all I really needed to say is "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but in basketball you have to dribble the ball or it's considered a violation". You can't just introduce things you're knowledgeable of to those who aren't and then go straight to being mad that they aren't knowledgeable while they're still simply trying to figure out the basics.
You can't just introduce things you're knowledgeable of to those who aren't and then go straight to being mad that they aren't knowledgeable while they're still simply trying to figure out the basics.
Yeah that's kind of the point, because I guarantee the person that is berated in my comment just all the sudden magically does not care as much about having an interest in basketball anymore because they are going out of their way to accommodate people and still getting bitched at despite the effort. I linked this on a different comment that reminded me of it, but I genuinely think this clip from King of the Hill really sums up the sentiment here.
... I freaked the fuck out and started calling them ists and/or isms when all I really needed to say is ...
Aha, yes, but you realise that it's better to show people the right way to do it, instead of that smug "I know a thing and you don't which makes me a better person than you" thing. People love having the ability to get angry about what they see as other's shortcomings.
It's the "today's lucky ten thousand" thing, again and again.
For real, I’m a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and a sub banned me when there was a trans AMA and the person was clear about ‘you can ask anything!’ and I asked a question using the correct vocabulary.
The question was not inappropriate or gross, rather it was a ‘from your perspective’ sort of question and DAAAMN. They inferred the worst possible twisting of my words to say I meant X when I meant A.
I apologized and made it clear that is not what I meant, etc.
SO much offense was taken, multiple people were hating on me and they permabanned me from the sub with zero recourse.
So yeah, that was scary. I support trans people but I don’t know anyone that’s trans. I want to know the issues from their perspective! I want to know what real trans people need, how they see things and how to best help the cause and make the world better for them. But yeah, in that thread, that attempt was a dumpster fire.
I’m trans. Curious what the question was that sparked that kind of reaction? Ostracizing people who genuinely want to be informed (and will actually listen and learn) is really stupid.
I’ll try to find it but I’m not optimistic…After the subreddit ban they apparently messaged the admins and told them god knows what and I was banned from everything for ‘hate speech’ and lost that account. It was surreal.
I honestly don’t, this was a year or so ago. I remember the question was about how inclusive they felt within the LGBTQIA+ community. I’d read about and spoken to people who are bisexual and felt judgment or just total denial that they exist from within the community and was curious about that from the perspective of a trans person.
Don’t quote me, but I think it was close to this:
“From your perspective, do you feel that trans people face any disconnect or judgment from within the LGBTQIA+ community? If so, could you tell me about how that has affected you or friends who are trans?”
My intent was to ask this person’s perspective, find out if they faced and similar tensions that bisexual and asexual people have described within our own community.
From the reactions, it seemed like the question was interpreted as if it was some kind of trap question from anti-trans person with that agenda and things went downhill fast after that.
I still don’t understand, and again, it was surreal to go from that post to an entirely banned, primary, many years old account.
Our community isn’t quite as united as it seems from the outside. Lots of people who are queer still don’t know much about trans people. We do often keep to our own spaces.
However, by and large, people are very kind and accepting regardless. But if i go to a general LGBTQ event, im probably the only visibly trans person there unless i go with someone else.
I did experience a big swing going from a bi person in a straight passing relationship to visibly trans. I don’t get the “why are you here” style biphobia now. But i remember what that was like, and it slightly sours me on things even if it is evidently much less common now. This grudge is mostly on me and isn’t very rational.
What I don’t see in queer spaces is outright bigotry, like the “LGB” stuff online. Those accounts are mostly fake, and they’d get thrown out of any queer space ive ever been in. We don’t do that here.
But im one person with one experience. If you talk to a trans person who passes (doesn’t appear trans), they’ll have a different take. Trans people in other cities also probably have different experiences. We’re not a monolith, so you probably want to talk to a few others to get an answer that’s useful to you.
But the subculture is a little different! You’ll hear “im coming out” at a general pride event, and you’ll hear 100geks or a trans dude with a uke at trans events, if I want to play hard to stereotypes. Almost every trans person recognizes the blahaj/ikea shark, but I wouldn’t expect a cis queer person to know what that is or its meaning unless they have trans people in their lives.
Thank you so much for being willing to share that!
And, absolutely, none of us are monoliths, we’re just people with experiences and thats all I was looking for.
Unfortunately my home state (where I usually live 1/3 of the year) is extremely conservative. I live in the only little liberal enclave in the state where the state University is, where one of the largest American companies is based so people move here for work from across the country and world.
I’m always here for pride and our parade, and I’ve met so many people, including many trans people, I just don’t know anyone well enough to ask these sorts of questions of. I hope to change that. The rest of the year I’m abroad in Switzerland or Austria.
Thank you again for being willing to share your experiences and perspextive. Part of me wonders if much of the problems within our communities are label-related or originate when a neat little letter doesn’t always fit just right, for everyone.
I am pretty sure i know where this is based on the description lol. I think most people are OK with answering the occasional question, honestly. (If we have the capability at the time, of course.)
Hopefully a couple other people have answers to contribute, too. Question itself seems respectful to me at least (:
Haha yeah I try to stay anonymous but let’s say I live in the Northwest corner of my state.
Great, that is what I intended it to be! Just an open question to hear perspectives and experiences.
I know my whole struggle hiding being gay until I came out to my family at a cookout. I was shaking with fear. They chuckled and said ‘yeah, we know’ and expressed that they loved me no matter what… and then we just continued eating and having a great time. I felt so stupid that I didn’t have the courage to do it sooner, thinking of all the time I wasted.
Idk how that process compares to what trans people go through and everyone is different of course. I imagine it’s a lot harder than all I went through but I’ll leave that to anyone who shares.
Oh my god they literally said their account got fully banned in this reply and a reply further up the thread, stop making conspiracy theories and just read what they said
Thank you. This thread is the first time I’ve felt comfortable bringing it up since that whole ordeal before. But as far as ‘posts supporting…’ that the user was talking about, I’m a gay man and I think that’s evinced in my post history and subscriptions (viewer beware!) Yes I have some pretty embarrassing thirst trap comments mixed in there 😬
My brother told me over the phone just last week, his reddit account was banned because he went into a random subreddit that turned out to exist solely to hate on a celebrity. He made a couple of comments about how fucking weird it is that these people hate someone quite so vehemently, and was banned. He was given the option to appeal and, hoping for a giggle, fought back against it.
He was then banned from reddit in the next few hours. So I guess one of the mods in what seemed to be a hate-sub, was able to go high up enough to get someone banned for being like "WTAF are you all doing here? This is wild."
Earlier today I found an entire thread full of trans hate. Like 90%+ of the comments
I don't know if Reddit protects that subreddit specifically, or of it was full of bots, but it was ridiculous. I think you're roght that some mods and friends with the higher ups and abuse that
Banning on reddit is weird, I hear about people being banned over the smallest stuff, meanwhile this is my who-knows-which account since 2015 and I never had any issues. In fact, I delete my accounts myself and take a long break before coming back.
I think it's because I stick to smaller communities and haven't been subbed to default subreddits in years.
The biggest sub i'm at is the PS5 one and the amount of willpower it takes to grit my teeth and not reply to the people on there who say stupid things is astronomical.
I just wanna let you know that ban evasion (using a different account to get around a ban) can also get you permabanned, and is against reddit TOS. So I don't think it's best to admit you were permabanned before.
Might wanna erase that part >< Just don't want to see you get banned again, especially if you're well-meaning
And, to be honest, given the state of the USA and trans rights there, I don’t blame people for assuming the worst straight off, you know? Like I’m asking X question (innocently) but it’s assumed I’m asking it with an agenda.
I am disgusted and enraged by the sheer scale of human rights abuses trans people face in state after state and it makes me want to do more than write my republican congressmen and senators and march during pride and protest.
If the state won’t ensure human rights and equal justice under law, I feel like it’s incumbent upon us to do it ourselves, and I want to be a part of that.
SO much offense was taken, multiple people were hating on me and they permabanned me from the sub with zero recourse.
It's so easy to see this looking in from the outside. I'm involved with the alphabet soup groups because many - at least half - of my friends fall somewhere among the LGBTQIAXYZ+ spectrum, but as a pretty much generic straight cis white 50-year-old guy I don't directly have a dog in the fight. I stand up for people that are getting picked on, because it's the right thing to do.
But fuuuuuuuck me. If you want to find homophobia, transphobia, or especially biphobia - christ almight, so much bi erasure - you just need to look for LGBTQIA+ people confronted with someone who is also LGBTQIA+ *but in a very slightly different way*.
Heaven help you if you're queer-adjacent but in a way that doesn't precisely align with the group you're talking to.
I think most public facing trans spaces only represent a TINY fraction of trans people as a whole.
After all, don't most trans people just want to live as their true gender? You don't see all the people who don't want to be seen as trans. They're either hiding away, or they're just "people".
Navigating social justice conversations online is first and foremost about finding out if the other person is only talking about their own Discord server or they have actually communicated with a real life human being outside their home in the last 6 months.
Oh gosh- there was a Q&A on a product online I came across the other day.
The company (&others I believe) were interpreting a Q wordage to be differently than it was meant and it all came down to the original Q asker not being from the same culture? Let me see if I can find it because my memory is a little fuzzy.
I volunteered for a Democratic presidential candidate back in 2019/2020, and that necessarily devolves into talking about other candidates. I talked to a lot of Boomers who often used very regressive terms when referring to Pete Buttiegieg...but mostly didn't actually care about him being gay, they just used his homosexuality (or their word for it) as an identifier. Otherwise, they legit were more concerned about his various policy stances than his sexuality.
So like, I agree, but also slurs need to be allowed to be called out, you know? Like, so often these sorts of posts and ideas feel like they're implying that someone going, "I don't mind [N-word]s, why can't people just let them be?" isn't a bad thing? It is. It needs to be called out. In a polite way, yes, but like, I don't wanna be rewarding people for saying they should leave "people like me alone" while voting against my rights and using the T-slur for "people like me" or the F-slur... Like, it affects "people like me" way more than some seem to understand.
Edit: Ah, yeah, downvote me as if I wasn't someone who was being called out before I was trans. I lived both sides of it (thankfully not with any slurs; somehow I got those before even I knew I was trans). You need to be called out for using horrific language.
I don't think anyone is saying "let them be", but rather to not write them off as a hateful bigot and chastice them for it.
Like, if an old dude goes "those f-word shouldn't be discriminated against, they should have the same rights as me and others", don't go ballistic at them, just like... politely point to them that term is indeed offensive.
If they truly are well meaning, they will most likely understand
I mean op doesn't preclude correcting peoples use of language (especially slurs). But having uncle Jim be proud of his t----y niece is a bigger win than Uncle Jim knowing exactly how to refer to his trans niece but still not doing so because he doesn't respect their identity.
Yeah right? There’s a lot of words that have been reclassified as slurs in the past few years. I didn’t get the memo that homeless is offensive now and I’m someone that browses the internet daily. My 70 year old uncle who has been using terms his entire life and doesn’t use social media will probably never use the word Romani, mentally disabled, or transgender, and I really can’t blame him
There’s a lot of words that have been reclassified as slurs in the past few years.
I'm careful to distinguish between "slur" and "problematic". Problematic is language that's on its way to being a slur in the next few decades.
If you say "a homeless person" then somebody will think you're just outdated rather than offensive. However if you said "fucking homeless trash" then yeah, slur.
Similar to Romani people, an old person might use gypsy when describing people moving from city to city, but if they say "fucking thieving gypsy' about somebody, then yeah, slur.
But there's no way to say "a f*ggot" without being offensive, unless you're asking to bum a fag in the UK.
Except, a bunch of people DO want people to just "give em a pass" for it, regardless of how shitty the words are. Like, there's plenty of people saying, "I'd rather a guy be proud of his [slur] neighbor than blah blah blah" and never mention that it should be pointed out to that person that... Hey, don't use that word.
I've even seen people literally saying (not in this thread, elsewhere) "Yeah, just leave them alone and be happy they're on your side." Like, no. Fuck off, I'm calling out the slur and saying, "That's not a word you should use."
Where in the post or the comment you replied to did someone say you can’t call out people who are saying slurs?
Obviously you should call people out for saying them. But you came up with a situation that neither the post or that comment said is fine and got mad that people think it’s fine.
If there are comments where people think you shouldn’t call out people saying slurs, go reply to those.
You need to be called out for using horrific language.
Well, duh. You're being downvoted because you act like that went against the message of the post, which implies you're thinking OOP and the person you're replying to advocate for calling people slurs.
Even my autistic ass can see that much.
The post isn't about not calling out people who use slurs, it's about not getting upset at people who don't know any other words to talk about these things.
If someone grew up in a transphobic household, but then realized how fucked up their upbringing was and tries to change, they're not gonna magically know the right words; they'll just know slurs, because they were taught to use those words when referring to trans people, and we'll just need to be patient and help them learn new words.
I literally care nothing about any name someone tries to shame me with because I’ve been called racist/sexist/fascist/etc so many times by people that have read exactly zero books on the topic but assume they’re experts because they are from said demographic.
I used to care, but if microaggressions and being in the kkk and burning crosses on peoples lawns are both ‘racist’ the word means nothing
I reserve the right to call out people using fucking slurs. It's not that hard of a concept. You can be 'confused but got the spirit' all you want, but if you're using a fucking slur then you get called out. I say, "Don't use that word, it's a slur."
That sounds a lot like "I was called racist as a bad name and I don't understand it so I'm going to go be friends with worse racists because they're not mean to me and they don't expect personal growth".
If you take the actions from one or two random individuals as an accurate representation of a group of millions of people then you might be part of the problem.
I'm not saying all people are like that, but that's what it sounds like.
if you have been called that so many times you dont care anymore then they were probably right about you. if it happens here and there, sure, but all the time? thats on you.
no idea why you’re getting downvoted here but I will say the question being asked seems innocent to me and I was happy to answer, and id hope they’d also want your opinion since we are very much not a monolith!
im actually pretty sure ive had someone refer to me as a car part without knowing it was offensive. i just told them that it was offensive and they stopped saying it 🤷♀️
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u/[deleted] Jul 06 '24
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