A moderator of a community on Blahaj misgendered Me and I can't report it.

Two hours ago I made a post to !libertyhub@lemmy.blahaj.zone about US politics. I had previously had a good relationship with the head moderator of this community. They've encouraged My political posts, and he's removed comments by people that misgendered Me, and reminded people of My pronouns, like in this thread two days ago:

https://imgur.com/RuNKgM1.png

https://imgur.com/GLT7HR0.png

However, an hour ago in this new thread, the same moderator who was telling people to respect My capitalised pronouns uses lowercase pronouns to address Me:

https://imgur.com/fmGtHvf.png

And he has left up earlier comments which also seemed to misgender Me, and which I specifically pointed out:

https://imgur.com/KZnosuC.png

Even as some users in the thread gender Me correctly:

https://imgur.com/EBuGfom.png

I'm making this thread in the main community because since the mod has banned Me, I can no longer report the comment or leave a reply correcting the pronoun. I would like to gain the attention of @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone

Misgendering trans people and banning Them at the same time so They can't do anything about it is not the kind of thing I expect to see on Blahaj. This mod is clearly 100% aware of My pronouns, and made a choice here. I suppose they could be using the general "you", but it just doesn't look like that, what with banning Me, telling Me My post isn't welcome, and telling Me to go to a different community. I used to have a good rapport with this mod, they said several times that they valued My posts. I posted something he disagrees with, and now all of a sudden respecting trans people's pronouns isn't a priority anymore. He's misgendering Me and they're leaving up comments that also misgender Me. It feels targeted.

EDIT: I cannot seem to embed images. Every time I hit edit and fix the image links and press save, they change to some kind of aussie.zone image proxy link. For now I have left them as links without embedding them.

83 comments

Well, this is some terminally online bullshit if I've ever seen some.

Listen. I understand that we all want to be inclusive and I completely support this. I use this instance for a reason. But at some point, we have to draw some sort of line in the sand in cases like this. If you look at OP's history, you'll see that this is not a moderation problem, this is an attention seeker problem.

I've said it before in a comment that the moderation removed two days ago. Actually, it was removed for misgendering OP, I believe (didn't capitalize the pronouns), BY THE PERSON OP IS CALLING OUT HERE, too! So accusations of transphobia against that person are ridiculous, but anyway, I'm going to repeat it here: This isn't the first time I see this user post something, and I can't help but notice a pattern of aggressively dictating the way people should act. Not only this, but OP's already tried to pull something similar on Beehaw.

This has been on my mind ever since I first read the initial post a while back and I'm finally going to spill it. OPis literally the only person I've ever seen use "capitalized pronouns". And I mean, on it's own, that's not a problem. Lots of people have their own special pronouns, whatever. No, what I question here, is the motive. Because here is the thing: OP identifies as a god. This isn't coming from me, this is quoting from Grail's Medium profile. "Nonbinary Goddess" and there isn't even more details in this post. And I mean, yeah, that carries a ton of baggage, no wonder people had a problem with these pronouns.

Can we stop pretending that people are being transphobic because they question the fact that someone is self-identifying as a god, please? Let's all be honest with ourselves here: Being inclusive is not the same as enabling entitlement. And making accusations of transphobia for something like this is quite frankly disgusting.

Some of you need to log off, because transphobia is real thing. You can't just throw around this term like that. A few days ago, I was at a memorial surrounded by fellow trans people, grieving actual victims of transphobia, people who died for simply being who they are. Some of us are dying, some of us are being kicked off from their family, some of are being actually discriminated against, some of us are being harassed. This is what transphobia looks it. I'm sorry for being dramatic here, but come on!

If it can be explained by: "I'm was more focused on making my point and forgot to capitalize the pronouns", then I'm sorry, I refuse to call that "transphobia".

114
- THANK YOU
  
  This is ridiculous, absurd, it makes a mockery of queer people, of gender, transgender, non-binary and every single queer identity and struggle that we have gone through. To cater to this absurdity is to put everyone else in the community at risk.
  
  There are real people in this world suffering through real issues. One (or this case, now two) people demanding validation for "goddessgender" is a complete non-issue, something that should not even be indulged in the first place.
  
  56
- Couldn't have said it better myself.
  
  Growing up in a deep red area I could talk at length about the discrimination (transphobia, homophobia, racism, etc) I've seen first hand and the scars (both physical and emotional) that myself and people I know have from that experience.
  
  I won't here because ain't nobody want to hear that shit.
  
  OP really needs to step away from social media for awhile and cool off. Social media isn't what your life should orbit around, at most it should be a little seasoning on the banquet that is life.
  
  54
Jesus fucking christ.

92
- Every day I'm glad that I met real queer people growing up and built solid connections when learning about myself, because if this is what I had to deal online I'd just lose my mind more than I'm already losing right now from having to read these posts.
  
  61
  
  NGL I feel the exact same way
  
  Shit I didn't even know "Bi" was an option until I was an adult and I'm freaking Bi lol
  
  I didn't meet many queer folk growing up (grew up in a hella red area) but there were a few and us discovering who we were together are memories I'll cherish for the rest of my life.
  
  22
  
  38 upvotes. By Zeus and Hera! What on earth possessed 37 people to upvote this transphobic nonsense. "Man, I hate gen z with their silly nonbinary genders, being friends with LGB drop the T TERFS was much better for my cognitive development." I see your home instance and I'm in shock. Why haven't you been banned? Wouldn't you fit in better on Truth Social or Diagon Lemmy?
  
  4
- Surely you mean Jesus Fucking Christ, because OP knows several magical people who have used their magical powers to confirm Jesus also uses He/Him with capital letters.
  
  29
Is this bait?

75
- I think this is the third or fourth time I’ve stumbled into this instance and every post has been… eye-opening for me. I believe it’s all perfectly genuine though.
  
  10
- No, it's a trans person existing and wanting not to be misgendered. If you find that enraging, leave this instance.
  
  2
  
  What's the difference in gender between "you" and "You"?
  
  This isn't an issue of misgendering. Capitalized pronouns have an established meaning. Insisting on others using them for you is similar to insisting on being addressed as "Your Holiness". You can do so, but be prepared to be laughed at.
  
  29
After reading the community’s pinned “Rules Breakdown” post, I can easily see how Your post violated their rules. 🤷‍♀️ And as another poster in this thread points out, it appears You’re just on a time-out, not a perma-ban.

Also, I will capitalize “you” for You as an act of politeness, but I very strongly disagree with characterizing this as “misgendering”, even after reading Your “Introduction to capitalised pronouns” post. Yes, grammar is socially defined and arbitrary. For example, the only reason African-American Vernacular English is labelled “improper” is because so many (white) people with power say so — there’s nothing inherently worse or better about it. However, it’s still necessary to reach consensus on the meaning of words, else no one could be understood.

Capitalization of Your pronoun is clearly very important to You, and it would be thus be unkind of me to refuse to accommodate You when it’s pointed out, but English is not a language where every pronoun is gendered. The capitalized version is an honorific form of the same pronoun, not a different pronoun altogether. And generally speaking, the use of honorifics (“sir” and “ma’am” being the most common ones) is becoming far less common these days. Perhaps it’s because honorifics are most frequently used to establish dominance and subservience roles, whether that be in customer service roles (“yes, sir”) or governing roles (“yes, Your Honour” or “yes, Your Majesty”). To borrow Your own example, even many Christians now refer to their god as “he” rather than “He” in written language. And of course, those of us who totally reject the notion of gods certainly don’t. Your insistence on capitalization as respect for Your divinity makes me genuinely uncomfortable as someone who doesn’t believe in divinity at all and certainly shouldn’t feel subservient to You.

68
- I don't want My pronouns to be respected because of My gender identity, I want them to be respected because they're My pronouns and they make Me feel like Myself.
  
  As an example, I don't really believe in binary gender. I think being men and women is a phase that everyone will grow out of one day. But I still refer to people as "he" and "she" even though I don't believe in the traditional semantic meaning. And in fact I think belief in traditional masculinity is very dangerous to women and other minorities. But I don't need to buy in to traditional masculinity to gender any trans person correctly. Nobody should have to buy into a belief system to gender anyone correctly. My pronouns are exactly as symbolic of oppression as any binary person's pronouns, which is to say that yes there is a history, but there is also hope for a better future, and we have a responsibility to bring that future into being rather than being stuck in the past.
  
  3
  
  I want to make it very clear, I completely respect Your pronouns and am working on resolving this issue.
  
  6
I don't believe in gods

41
I gotcha Fam for those embedded pics

In order:

I'd assume that the mod in question (being a mod) sees a ton of posts and comments from a ton of users and simply didn't check Your profile before making the comment there.

Or hell it could have been their autocorrect dropping the capital (which mine does pretty often)

But from what I can see it's also a single comment. Don't assume malice when ignorance can easily explain it.

And that mod is really quick to ban people, hell they banned me last week less than a minute after I made a comment on one of their posts simply for saying that dems and the GQP weren't the same (their post was implying that they were the same). The reason they banned me was for being a "liberal".

Personally I'd recommend a solution to help weed out transphobia vs ignorance: put Your‡ pronouns at the end of your username so that it's easy for people to know and talk to you how you'd like. This is fairly easy to do on Lemmy as flairs at the end of usernames don't really exist around these parts.

‡ I literally had to go back and manually change this to a capital Y after my autocorrect changed it.

Edit: Missed some caps.

40
- And that mod is really quick to ban people, hell they banned me last week less than a minute after I made a comment on one of their posts simply for saying that dems and the GQP weren’t the same (their post was implying that they were the same). The reason they banned me was for being a “liberal”.
  
  That's fucked up mod behavior.
  
  17
  
  The best part is that being a "liberal" isn't against their rules, and my comment wasn't even rude.
  
  Definitely tempered my expectations about that community.
  
  Story Time if you're curious
  
  Basically it went like this:
  
  "Huh, neat a lefty community. I wonder if this one is going to be a chill one I can hang out in."
  
  Immediately sees a "both sides" posts
  
  "Well that's missing some much needed context"
  
  Makes comment and carries on
  
  Gets ding in inbox after loading up another community
  
  BANNED for being a "liberal"
  
  "Well that answers that question"
  
  The mod's behaviour is on full display in the post as well.
  
  The comment that got me banned
  
  And the post
  
  Edit: Formatting
  
  21
- "I'm in this picture and I hate it" moment
  
  8
  
  Kinda funny is going back and rereading my comment here I noticed I missed quite a few and even OP didn't catch them. I mention this because OP called out one of my comments where I was saying that they "need to touch grass" by simply correcting a single bungled pronoun.‡
  
  That really highlights how easy it is to miss and how much OP is way overreacting here.
  
  ‡ Most my comments are fired off during down time at work so proof reading is sometimes not a luxury I can afford.
  
  14
- Weird, I can't see the embeds in your comment either. Maybe aussie.zone just doesn't support them. It doesn't support a very long display name either, maybe I should change instances.
  
  I've been posting to Liberty Hub every day for around a week, and this mod has been responding to a lot of My posts. They seemed to have a firm grasp of who I was every other time they commented on one of My posts. And the post they commented on here, it was a link to My blog, so if they read it, they should know who I am, right?
  
  Here are some of their other comments on My posts:
  
  https://imgur.com/8cWH9WY.png - https://aussie.zone/post/11567153/10314640
  
  https://imgur.com/s2gYmSM.png - https://aussie.zone/post/11497681/10240630
  
  He's never not known who I was before, he's always used My preferred pronouns. If this is a coincidence, it's a bizarre one, and it's one I can't fix without making this post, because the day he suddenly misgenders Me is the day he bans Me.
  
  2
  
  I wouldn't call it a bizarre coincidence at all. Typos happen literally all the time to everyone.
  
  A single error doesn't make a trend, a pattern of errors does.
  
  And again that mod shoots from the hip on bans. I'd say seize the opportunity to take some time off and cool off.
  
  Getting banned from a community can really make someone salty at the moment it happens and taking the opportunity to chill is the best course of action for one's mental health.
  
  18
It's very simple, language is for the benefit of communication. Ain't nobody got time to fuck with hyper-specific pronouns. They/them is a well understood way to reference people; capitalizing that shit is confusing. Learn to get along with people, OP. Sometimes other people compromise for your, sometimes you compromise for others.

34
Capitalized pronouns.

This, folks, is how you delegitimize an entire movement in one easy step.

OP is mental.

29
You're right. I did misgender You in that report, and I apologize. I have no excuse because I'm well aware You use capitalized pronouns. I even tried to be careful not to do so, but I still failed. I'll fix it.

As for the comment I left up, the post is removed for violating the community rules, so I didn't remove further comments after I removed the post itself, but You're right -- I'll remove it.

The post was removed for a completely different reason. The post was encouraging people to lie in order to win elections -- erasing the experiences of groups such as Palestinians, immigrants, the economically disadvantaged, BIPOC, and LGBTQIA+ people. There's no way I was going to leave that up. Erasure is never okay.

It's very infrequent that I have to remove a post, but this one very clearly violated the community guidelines.

I have no problem with You as a person, and I've always appreciated Your meaningful and thoughtful contributions to the community, even when I don't fully agree. I'm sure You feel a bit hurt that I also applied a temporary ban for the post, but I did that because even though I personally like You and have tried to be nothing but an ally and friend, it would be completely inappropriate for me as a mod to show favoritism in such a case. I therefore applied the same temp ban I would to any other user who made such a post. It was genuinely nothing personal, and I'll be honest -- it wasn't even easy for me to do the right thing. I almost sent You a DM to explain the situation, but I wasn't sure it would be welcome. Now I wish I had.

27
- I do believe in erasing the experiences of minorities. If I were living in Germany in 1939, I'd erase the experiences of the Jew living in My basement while talking to the Gestapo. I erase My own experiences all the time. I misgender Myself to stay in the closet to avoid violence. Never been out as goddessgender at work or school.
  
  If what you are advocating is total exposure of all information having to do with minorities, you're talking about actions that will get people killed. That's why Republicans are trying to pass laws to require ID for Pornhub, you know. They want to know all about the lived experiences of gay and trans people by analysing our porn habits, so they can do violence against us. What you're speaking in favour of is genocide.
  
  I am glad it was just a mistake, but it was a mistake that you prevented Me from fixing the easy way. I couldn't report the comment, couldn't reply. So I made this post, and had to put up with being grilled on My pronoun usage and told My identity is evil by various people. I didn't defend any oppressive systems, I outlined a strategy to just shut up for a few months until it's safe to act again without causing a genocide. I didn't break rule 2. But you did break rules 5 and 8. Shouting down leftism. No open discussion. I did everything I could to play by the rules and disagree with you politely. Maybe instead of making an exception for Me, it's time to actually enforce your community's rules by not being so ban-happy with everyone. What happened today was bound to happen eventually and it's going to keep happening as long as nobody's allowed to have an open discussion about the election on your community. Everyone who disagrees being banned is not an open discussion.
  
  2
  
  Lying about harboring a Jew in Nazi Germany is understandable. I personally have lied about having undocumented people in my household.
  
  Lying about a presiden committing genocide domestically and abroad is a totally different thing. This is more comparable to claiming that Hitler wasn't exterminating people in death camps. This type of lie results in erasure and should never be applied, especially not to garner votes in an election.
  
  Lying and saying a president is trans-friendly when he literally just signed anti-trans legislation is also not okay. We need to be aware of what our government is doing.
  
  But on an individual level? Absolutely. I'm actually in such a position at my own job, not as a teacher, but in which I do not disclose or even obfuscate certain facts about my clients. I would never out a queer person who did not want to be outed. I personally grew up in an extremely small conservative community where I feared for my life.
  
  But again, that's not what the post itself was about -- it was about lying to win the election for Biden. That's how it violated rule 2. If it were about lying to protect marginalized groups, it would have absolutely been left up.
  
  I outlined a strategy to just shut up for a few months until it’s safe to act again without causing a genocide
  
  But here's where the erasure comes in: There is a genocide happening right now, like right this very moment, that wouldn't be possible without our president's support.
  
  I hope I've addressed all Your points. In any case, I re-emphasize that I cannot allow a post that suggests we lie to cover/erase genocide, border fascism, transphobia, and any other form of oppression by the state, for the same reason that I wouldn't allow a Maoist to deny the people who died due to state-induced famine.
  
  21
I’ve never heard of using capitalized pronouns, would You mind sharing a bit more about why You use them?

No pressure at all, You obviously don’t have to explain or justify Yourself or Your identity to me or anyone, but I’ve done a bit of googling and the only references I can find are to deities and i genuinely would love to know more

24
- Four years ago, I realised I was goddessgender, and My goddess-mother suggested I try out capitalised pronouns. They felt right, so I kept using them. The inspiration for Me to try out the pronouns came from My divinegender identity, but I don't think of the two as equal. I think the statement "Gods are referred to with They/Them" is about as true as the statement "women are referred to with she/her". I have met women who use he/him, men who use she/her, and enbies who use everything. But if your friend is coming out as transfeminine, it's a good idea to suggest she/her, right? I think it's the same with Me. My pronouns and My gender identity are not the same thing, they just happen to align, as most people's pronouns and gender do. I hope that people can respect My pronouns without having to believe everything I believe about My gender. I think the reason we use someone's preferred pronouns can just be "They like it", and it doesn't have to entail any kind of acceptance of a belief system. Likewise, I would immediately respect the preferred pronouns of any two-spirit or Bissu I met, despite not being a member of either religious system.
  
  I wrote a couple of articles on the subject more broadly: https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/introduction-to-capitalised-pronouns-f5140e722b48, https://medium.com/@viridiangrail/on-spiritual-genders-b4152c4503cb
  
  On My Discord server, The Outside, capitalised pronouns are the default for everyone and everything. We use the change to our language to provoke a change in thinking. It fills the air up with magic, which is very useful because it's an occultist server. And it has the handy benefit of getting everyone used to capitalised pronouns without starting a fight. The rate of transphobia in the server is much lower than other queer spaces I've been.
  
  10
  
  This is the worst troll attempt I've seen this year.
  
  Either that, or it's the silliest thing to come out of a bong this decade.
  
  45
  
  You have made comments 4 months ago using lower case pronouns, care to explain?
  
  18
  
  Please, go touch grass. You are not 'goddessgender', but rather a sad troll or a terminally online person with a god complex.
  
  7
  
  That's awesome! Thanks for explaining.
  
  4
  
  Thanks for taking the time to explain :)
  
  3
The mod log shows the ban was for violating rule two of the community (both for the post and user). Seems like there were others who had comments removed and were banned for 6d as well around the same time. Perhaps the mod didn't realize who You were and was banning on autopilot to clean things up in the community?

Also, FWIW, in my client (Alexandrite). and from what I can see in Your screenshots, pronouns aren't showing up next to Your username where the comment is. I'm absolutely not defending anyone transphobic, but not everyone is going to click through to the profile to see is pronouns are in the profile. I wanted to let You know about that incase that's some setting on aussie.zone or something that could be fixed and make things better.

19
- The word "capitalised" brings My display name over the character limit, so the best I can do is "They/You". I can't even change it to "They/Them/You"
  
  3
  
  Do different instances have different character limits?
  
  I did some tests on a couple of my alts and "Grail (They/Them/Caps)" fit on all of them.
  
  Maybe try that?
  
  5
Transphobia is a real, serious issue, and capital letters have nothing to do with gender.

19
capitalised pronouns are on a fundamental level as valid as any other gendered pronouns. fucking up can happen but not accepting OPs pronouns because they are unusual is shit

~~i'm still blocking OP tho because no gods no masters~~

honestly deities are also fundamentally ok. just dont be a cunt, but thats true for everyone.

i personally find the words god and deity a bit loaded with superiority, but thats on me

17
- I can't even begin to imagine the daily mental gymnastics required to reconcile thinking of yourself as a god and also claiming to be an anarchist lmao
  
  No gods no masters all the way.
  
  34
- Just curious, is your hatred of people born a certain way based on racism or sexism? Do you hate people like OP as an ethnic group or as a gender?
  
  2
- Cool, thank you for the pronoun support and also I'm reporting you for saying My gender identity shouldn't exist. Your comment is simultaneously very inclusive and not at all accepting.
  
  1
  
  https://lemmy.world/comment/11279958
  
  I don't really believe in binary gender. I think being men and women is a phase that everyone will grow out of one day.
  
  So Just To Clarify, Someone Thinking Your Gender Identity Doesn't Exist Isn't Okay, But It's Fine For You To Do So To Others?
  
  I'm Also Curious, Are Capitalizations Necessary In Spoken Word To Gender You Correctly As Well? Or Is This An Online Only Thing?
  
  22
That thread was removed by a community mod and I can't find any examples of deliberate misgendering in remaining posts.

I will action deliberate misgendering, but in this case, the posts have already been removed.

14
- Sorry. I woke up to a lot of pings. Here is where I misgendered OP. I've fixed it now, but I accidentally used a lowercase Y on "You." I'm aware OP uses capitalized pronouns. It wasn't intentional, but I still feel terrible about it, and I'll accept any consequences for doing so.
  
  I just removed the other comment with misgendering, and you'll see it now in the modlog. I did not initially remove it because the post itself had been removed at that point, but in hindsight this was not the right call.
  
  For the record, I've always been quite outspoken against any form of genocide, including that against queer people, and I say that as a member of the queer community.
  
  I'll accept whatever call you want to make. I feel terrible that OP feels hurt. I've always tried to be supportive of Them, and to be honest I quite enjoy having Them in the community.
  
  8
  
  I'll accept whatever call you want to make.
  
  I have no plans on taking action against your account or anyone else's account for accidental misgendering, especially so when it has been removed or corrected. Nor would I myself remove a post in a discussion that has already been removed entirely.
  
  I will remove posts and comments with misgendering that remain visible to users, even if it was accidental, but moderation action against the posters account itself would require that the action be deliberate or sustained.
  
  4
- @LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.blahaj.zone's post doesn't show up in the modlog as removed for being transphobic. It wasn't technically removed. I can see it on his profile from lemmy.ca and from Blahaj zone. You can remove it for misgendering if you click on his profile. And you should, so there's a record of the fact that he's a transphobe who only believes in trans inclusion for his merry band of suicide cultists.
  
  1
  
  Can you link me to the post on blahaj.zone please?
  
  5
- The moderation actions weren't federated to aussie.zone, you can read the comments in the thread from this instance. https://aussie.zone/post/11840603
  
  0
Fucking hell, @LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.blahaj.zone being blatantly transphobic the minute he disagrees with someone. WhO cOuLd HaVe PrEdIcTed THaT?

Oh yeah, I did. @ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone I am begging you to ban this transphobe. When I made the original post calling for removal of this community, you said they were trans folk with a difference of opinion who needed a safe space to express their views. Well, now it's a safe space to express transphobia. They have rules against transphobia and so you do. At the very least, change the leadership of this community to someone who doesn't misgender trans people for supporting Biden. The context of what this community is doing is not what you thought it was when you decided to allow it. These are not innocent trans people who just have a disagreement on how to protect trans people, they are genocide supporters who use transphobic violence against those who disagree.

You said you weren't going to get involved as long as they didn't break the instance guidelines. Well now they are. It's time to act. They did the thing you said there would be consequences for doing.

7
- These are not innocent trans people who just have a disagreement on how to protect trans people, they are genocide supporters who use transphobic violence against those who disagree
  
  This is blatantly false. We openly oppose all forms of genocide and transphobia. There's not a single post or comment defending genocide or transphobia of any kind. If there were, then they've been removed and the users banned.
  
  14
  
  And yet you misgender OP for saying to take action to prevent a genocide. Everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie.
  
  4
  
  Kindly please stop making things worse for yourself, I just woke up to this absolute disaster.
  
  2
- You need to chill down on your absurd vendetta against this user. You have already been proven wrong when calling them out for being transphobic, and now you're siding with someone that claims to be a god to get them banned and their board removed.
  
  This isn't transphobia, because goddessgender is ridiculous and OP needs to log off. Ada hopefully won't cater to these absurd demands from someone who has an unhealthy fixation on LinkOpensChest.
  
  12
- I'm sorry I'm not able to moderate the community all the time, however that doesn't mean that it deserves to be banned. I'm genuinely trying and doing what I can.
  
  2
  
  It deserves to be banned if Linkopenschest is in charge of it. Go make your own non-transphobic community, or kick this guy out of the one that already exists.
  
  3
That's pretty blatant transphobia on the part of the moderator.

5
- Check out the modlog, he calls you a genocide supporter in it just for agreeing with OP's post. He's transphobic scum.
  
  3
As a moderator of LibertyHub I apologize, I was busy within that time and was not available to notice this incident. I can assure you that as a Trans person I do not accept Transphobia and will deal with the situation accordingly.

3

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