We are committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all, regardless of gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, personal appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, age, religion, nationality, or other similar characteristic.

We will exclude you from interaction if you insult, demean or harass anyone. That is not welcome behavior. In particular, we don’t tolerate behavior that excludes people in socially marginalized groups.

This 'struggle session' has cut open a sore of cisnormativity which allows plausible deniability of transphobic action and thought. It's senseless and insensitive to push back against what should be a non-issue. Cis and trans alike, set your pronouns so as to normalize an aspect of trans inclusion that goes some way to dispel cishet patriarchal norms assumed default by almost every space, especially online.

There is no excuse (that hasn't been considered and discussed and where applicable, taken on board) to push back against this as we as a community have. We can (and should) do better.

  • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
    21·
    4 years ago

    Love to label all my fellow posters who do not set a pronoun TERFS in a pinned announcement.

    What cool mods we have.

    As always, storyofrachel was the good mod and was kicked from the discord and admin list for it.

    • the_river_cass [she/her]
      2·
      4 years ago

      where did this idea even come from? I literally have no clue and it's been baffling me since yesterday. the only people who got called TERFs were the very few TERFs that actually popped their heads up and said TERF stuff. I haven't seen a word from anyone arguing that everyone who refuses to set pronouns is a TERF (or even transphobic)

      • Abraxiel
        1·
        4 years ago

        I honestly think that it started and spiraled from the original post telling people to set their pronouns and flag nsfl being worded kind of accusatorily, as if everyone should have already known by now that they needed to be flaired and that by not having done so they were bad people. Maybe some of that tone came from previous conversations, I don't know, but since that was one of the first site-wide pinned posts, it was probably a lot of users' first exposure to the idea that it was even an issue.

        • the_river_cass [she/her]
          3·
          4 years ago

          wasn't it worded like "you're a lib if you don't set pronouns"? that's so typical of posts on this site that I'm literally floored it started this shitstorm. it points to a deep fragility that I hope people introspect on.

          • Abraxiel
            4·
            4 years ago

            I would identify this paragraph as the point of friction:

            For the libs shouting “but muh anonymity”, you should have zero issue using the “any pronoun” tag as you will be addressed with any pronouns regardless of whether or not you have it set. The point of having them sitewide is for everyone to use them to normalize explicitly stating one’s pronouns as a means of not forcing trans people to request to be addressed with basic respect. The amount of pushback on a meaningful step toward trans inclusivity in this community is pretty fucking disheartening, not gonna lie.

            There's a loose implication that users who hadn't set their pronouns were contributing to or participating in trans people not being treated with basic respect. This probably wouldn't read as aggressively were it not followed by the next sentence referencing a fucking disheartening level of pushback toward trans inclusivity, which likely didn't square with how many users thought the site was doing.

            I want to be clear that I'm not evaluating whether or not the post was appropriate; I am interested in dissecting what happened and why.

            • the_river_cass [she/her]
              1·
              4 years ago

              his probably wouldn’t read as aggressively were it not followed by the next sentence referencing a fucking disheartening level of pushback toward trans inclusivity, which likely didn’t square with how many users thought the site was doing.

              it's a reference to a thread that went south the day before on !userunion@hexbear.net that was in fact disheartening, filled with a lot of ignorance, and taxed the nerves of a lot of people. if you believe the site is doing well and suddenly trans people are saying no its not and your first reaction is to get defensive and treat everything as a personal attack, do you really think that's a reasonable reaction?

              • Abraxiel
                1·
                4 years ago

                I think it might be read as a personal attack and cause people to act defensively if they haven't seen the pushback and feel, helped by the general tone of the post, that the anger is directed at them for not having set their pronouns.

                • the_river_cass [she/her]
                  1·
                  4 years ago

                  no, I got that, I'd like people to consider if that's reasonable or if we should take political minorities seriously when they raise issues about the community. isn't that what we mean when we say solidarity?

        • the_river_cass [she/her]
          2·
          4 years ago

          that's literally not what that says though? I was talking about my surprise at the level of transphobia on the site, not saying that people who didn't set pronouns are transphobic?

    • itsPina [he/him, she/her]
      6·
      4 years ago

      they aint callin flairless people TERFs they are calling TERFs TERFs

      like we specifically have pronoun options FOR people who dont wanna set their pronouns

      if what you want AINT there just tell us about it, its that easy.

      • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
        15·
        4 years ago

        What fucking terfs follow to chapo.chat? This community is about the most trans positive space you can find on the internet and the only thing that has made it not that is this weird militant struggle session over imposing pronoun flairs on users that were in no way discriminating to begin with.

        • itsPina [he/him, she/her]
          3·
          4 years ago

          /u/bread_in_baltimore while a good comrade most of the time is VERY terfy rn

          we have banned a ton of people dawg, just cuz you dont seem doesnt mean we dont

            • the_river_cass [she/her]
              4·
              4 years ago

              "radical social values" is just reactionary. also, mocking pronouns is... yeah...

          • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
            6·
            4 years ago

            I have been trying not to spend more than 10 minutes in any of these huge struggle session threads, so you're probably right they dredge up especially terfy users and trolls.

            My experience from using this site for the past three months though in hundreds of threads is that it is a firmly trans supportive community and this pronoun requirement is an unnecessary announcement that only really weirds out new users that didn't sign up to be yelled at over nothing.

            • itsPina [he/him, she/her]
              2·
              4 years ago

              Its not really required, otherwise it could literally just be forced on the back end, but it is recommended. If someone doesnt want to flair up for identity reasons literally ZERO people on the mod team have issues with that but if someone just wants to say "muh anonymity" they can get bent cuz we literally have flairs specifically for that

              The idea was if EVERYONE flairs up itd make those who dont feel pressured to do so as well (not in a bad way)

                • itsPina [he/him, she/her]
                  2·
                  4 years ago

                  idk why people wanna be misgendered anyways dude. I flaired up as soon as I could. even as a relatively cis person (well enby that still uses he/him) i find misgender situations kinda awkward.

                  not like its hard, and there are options for those who dont wanna share. its literally five clicks

                • Redcloak [none/use name]
                  8·
                  4 years ago

                  More than a few trans people have told you that they feel like you are trying to force them to out themselves. At least one of those people have repeated their concerns in this very thread. Rather than be sensitive to these concerns, you are erasing their opinions and experiences.

                    • Redcloak [none/use name]
                      8·
                      4 years ago

                      Literally everyone agrees with this.

                      Erasure in action, with not even a hint of remorse or self-reflection. Gleeful in its erasure, in fact, positively giddy about it.

                      • itsPina [he/him, she/her]
                        1·
                        4 years ago

                        wtf does this even mean dude

                        show some evidence of ANYONE trying to force pronouns (at least anyone who represents the site)

                        actually YOU CANT cuz youre BANNED SON

      • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
        8·
        4 years ago

        Me? I haven't typed that phrase once on this site, you're likely thinking of someone else.

        It's not moral policing, it's needless effort directed toward people who stand beside you instead of at actual people that you should be focused on combating.

        This weird grandstanding by a moderator abusing the power to pin posts for a week now has been frustrating. Its only function is to provoke people, that's why she keeps phrasing shit so aggressively towards user accounts with a default blank option.

          • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
            12·
            4 years ago

            "Moral policing" and "performative sensitivity" are in no way the same.

            This bullshit over yelling at users to set flair as if that's in any way solving something is dumb and performative, in turn with pinning that to the top, which is to be expected from someone who chose the name "transcomrade" as if they are any moreso than others here. Who are you preaching to, we're all here for that reason too.

              • Redcloak [none/use name]
                11·
                4 years ago

                That's not an issue of them not being the exact same phrasing. Those two terms mean completely different things. Take the L.

                    • the_river_cass [she/her]
                      3·
                      4 years ago

                      the first means "this is inconsequential and this user is forcing it on me anyway" the second means "this is inconsequential and this user is being dishonest about their intentions". is that difference really salient?

                      • Redcloak [none/use name]
                        9·
                        4 years ago

                        Moral police do not consider the actions they are policing to be "inconsequential". That is why they bother policing them, because they consider them to be the exact opposite of inconsequential.

                        I understand that you're extremely nettled about something but can you not try to nakedly gaslight us about words in the English language?

                        • the_river_cass [she/her]
                          2·
                          4 years ago

                          you're misreading what I'm saying. the user calling it moral policing believes it to be too inconsequential to deserve the force that's being applied. you wouldn't call opposition to murder "moral policing", right?

                      • 90u9y8gb9t86vytv97g [they/them]
                        8·
                        4 years ago

                        You are doing the debate club thing, you literally started this with exact quotes about repeated phrasing of some term you took offense to that you invented.

      • Redcloak [none/use name]
        8·
        4 years ago

        Multiple different times you’ve referred to respecting neopronouns as “moral policing”

        I just did a quick search and this appears to be a lie.