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.

  • gradual@lemmings.world
    1·
    3 days ago

    Blahaj can’t fade into irrelevancy fast enough.

    Soon “defederation” for places like that will mean they’re choosing to separate themselves from the rest of the fediverse.

    That said, they shouldn’t be forced to see content they don’t want to see.

    If the users want to subject themselves to this kind of moderation, that’s their choice and they should have a place that respects it.

  • /home/pineapplelover@lemm.ee
    135·
    28 days 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.

    • Zagorath@aussie.zoneEnglish
      83·
      27 days ago

      but over the post of one guy is crazy

      Not the post of one guy. The response of the admins to that post. Refusing to remove the transphobia (because of, if we take them at their word, a misinterpretation of an unjust court ruling). Refusing to communicate with the blahaj admins.

      • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
        14·
        25 days ago

        The controversy is that Blahaj admins don’t get to decide the content of other instances.

        And defederating from evey instance that has a transphobic comment on it means they would need to defederate from every instance including their own.

        This Ada doing what she feels like again, without the guise of there being any community input allowed this time because she has learned she doesn’t like the answers when she asks for opinions on moderation decisions.

  • Samskara@sh.itjust.works
    144·
    28 days ago

    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

    • gradual@lemmings.world
      13·
      3 days ago

      If you’re not vehemently loyal to the trans agenda, you might as well be a nazi in their eyes.

      It’s why rational people take their complaints less seriously every day.

    • Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      92·
      27 days ago

      This is exactly how they propagandize fence-sitters and convert them into extremists.

      They start with a factual and level-headed stance that’s hard to argue against, here being that “Trans women are biologically different, but shouldn’t be treated any differently,” but then, by the end, they’re sprinkling dog whistles and covertly separating them, because once you can view them as something external, it’s easier to ignore or even support what happens to them later.

      This is exactly the same as saying transwomen are not women, because they are not. They are transwomen.

      Blatant transphobia wrapped in a level-headed blanket to covertly shift perspectives. I mean, even if you look over the first reply, having their actual intentions in mind, it becomes apparent that they were very careful not to imply that trans people are in any way the same as cis people, making sure to use more general terms like “deserve respect” in order to not contradict the idea that they’re a totally separate entity. If the admins of feddit[.]uk are okay with this, defedding them was the right move.

      • Samskara@sh.itjust.works
        61·
        26 days ago

        Someone saying transwomen exist and deserve equal rights to women is not exactly an extremely transphobic position to hold.

        That’s a progressive view overall still. Take all the allies you can get. Competitions in ideological purity and playing political commissar only serve to divide.

        We live in a time now where equal rights for transwomen and women are under attack.

        Rights and identities are not the same thing or equally important.

        What many people consider a „real woman“ or „real man“ varies and often excludes cisgender people.

        That said, I totally understand that Blahaj defederated and has a more strict stance.

      • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
        45·
        27 days ago

        People are entitled to have their own opinions on a topic and should be free to discuss topics with out harassment from mods on other instances.

        This line of reasoning is gestapo.

        you are gonna talk as I told you or you won’t talk at all

        🤡

    • Skiluros@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1611·
      28 days 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.

      • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        83·
        27 days ago

        If you’re concerned about implications, you need to be careful of your own, because you’re implying that I think the feddit.uk admins are transphobic, when I think no such thing. They actively pushed back against transphobia in their comments, and not in a half hearted manner. They are quite clearly not transphobic.

        However, leaving transphobia visible, even whilst pushing back against it is against their own instance rules, and allows transphobes to know they can safely post more transphobia in the future, as long as they keep it civil. And that last part is the bit that initiated defederation.

        • SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world
          41·
          25 days ago

          Your actions show you think the feddit.uk admins are transphobic.

          You weren’t allowed to control comments you wanted to and you used the power at your control to “punish” the people who wronged you.

          This is the actions of an angry child who doesn’t get their way.

        • Skiluros@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          42·
          27 days ago

          I stand by what I said.

          The original post did not contain any of this information and did imply that feddit.uk admins were slow to react and did not see this as priority. The discussion around pushback to the comment was actually brought up by a feddit.uk admin who described your statement as mischaracterization.

          • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone
            73·
            27 days ago

            did imply that feddit.uk admins were slow to react and did not see this as priority.

            That’s an accurate summary of my claims. No part of that suggests transphobia however.

            who described your statement as mischaracterization.

            Likely because said admin knew they were talking about it as a team and believed they were addressing my questions. They just neglected to tell me that part, and just stopped responding to me.

  • Unruffled [they/them]@lemmy.dbzer0.comMEnglish
    28·
    30 days ago

    Just a sense check here, are you asserting that Ada is a PTB for defederating from feddit.uk after their admins failed to take action?

    Blajah Zone is specifically run as a safe space for trans folks, so it’s an emphatic YDI to feddit.uk from me.

    Given that the UK Supreme Court recently ruled that the legal definition of a woman in the UK is based on biological sex, and the supposedly Labour PM Starmer is running with it (wtf Starmer???), it’s not surprising to me that TERFs and their supporters are coming out of the woodwork on feddit.uk.

    Fuck TERFs and fuck Starmer for jumping on Trump’s anti-DEI bandwagon just to pander to transphobic voters.

  • db0@lemmy.dbzer0.comM
    203·
    29 days ago

    Good decision by Ada. I’m also quite pleased with how many instance mates stood up in here to defend blahaj’s decision.

    PS: It occurs to me we might need a name for our peeps. I.e. like one talks about “lemmings” or “redditors”, we could use something for members of the divisions by zero. Edit

  • flicker@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    193·
    30 days ago

    I feel like this community serves a great purpose. And I’m a massive fan of drinking my tea and reading all the drama it attracts. But I am just beyond tired of the same handful of commenters popping up to always agree with whoever is opposed to blahaj.

    I give this one a YDI. Anybody posting anything transphobic who gets caught by Ada is gonna be banned. Any instance with a mod or admin who makes transphobic posts or comments will get defederated. No one is entitled to having their content served on Ada’s servers, and the people who join blahaj know that, and seem to appreciate it.

    Which is sort of why I always wind up agreeing with her. Her server has clear, concise beliefs, and clear, concise administration, and she has the clear-throated consent of her governed or they would leave.

    The only server whose vibe I appreciate more is divide by zero. Shout-out to what I feel is the most neurospicy, nonconformist bunch of pirates I ever met.

    • mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      163·
      29 days ago

      Yeah, Ada’s modding may be seen as heavy-handed by some, but that’s largely because it’s a reaction to the fact basically nowhere is safe for people who are trans. Maintaining a truly trans-inclusive space requires active heavy-handed moderation, because going easy or remaining passive just leads to transphobes sneaking in.

  • Rymrgand's Daughter @lemmy.world
    142·
    28 days ago

    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

    • Pup Biru@aussie.zoneEnglish
      141·
      28 days 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

  • Noel_Skum@sh.itjust.works
    154·
    29 days ago

    How are people still struggling with the basic concept that the person who runs Blahaj can do what they want with Blahaj?

    All I get from this type of moaning is: “I joined a decentralised platform and now disagree with decentralisation in action.”

    If this kind of action is what it takes for Blahajists to protect their necks then this is how it’s gonna be…