As a transwoman, I understand that feeling of acceptedness within the Chapo community and I can imagine the feeling of betrayal that they must be feeling. I joined about a year ago at one of the lowest and most pivotal points of my life and the community has helped me to grow as a person and to really turn my life around for the better. I'm personally trying my best to provide the same safe and protecting community for trans and non-binary people here that I saw in the subreddit that allowed me to blossom so heavily. However, a blank slate means you let go of the things that happened in the past and we all move forward on this new platform, where I have taken steps to ensure that trans people are more protected so situations like this do not arise. Spamming the Lemmy does not constitute a move forward.

Marie stated in one comment that, "I was, unfortunately, misgendered by someone on the discord (and had been multiple times by that point) and so I expressed my feelings that not enough was being done to protect trans comrades." If they looked at the trans and non-binary dedicated community, they would see several points where I have provided updates on the site-wide pronoun tags (entirely separate from community flair, I might add) that are coming down the pipeline of updates, which I strongly pushed for and had the pleasure of discussing and brainstorming with the developers to make a reality. I personally didn't think the Discord had the capability to fully prevent misgendering because it would require someone to click on another person's profile and self-investigate? So how could that be improved moving away from the Discord? On the Lemmy, pronouns will be immediately next to your name site-wide leaving no excuse for misgendering going forward.

Someone else stated that "it’s kind of depressing that lgbt spaces here are empty" and "it raises the issue of what the priority is in affirmatively making sure there is a space here in chapo for our queer comrades to have a home, vs being a home for cis comrades to affirm their own perceived tolerance." It's hard to pull people to Lemmy when there is no guarantee I can prevent things like misgendering otherwise I personally would be trying to pull all of my trans and non-binary comrades here. It's actually one of my biggest concerns and I have addressed this concern in our space. I'm hesitant to really do anything in the trans and non-binary community until I can guarantee that no one will face dysphoria on that front.

I have discussed at-length with other moderators that I (and I can't stress this enough) DO NOT want cis people on my moderator board, as our people do not need cis people dictating the manner in which we can converse with each other about our trials and tribulations. Marie stated they want "reform" and for the "mod team to not be shit"? Here I fucking am. They want mods to be "held accountable for their actions"? I will absolutely swing for the fences for our people. "Will this ever happen?" they asked. Yes.

UPDATE:

I have tried everything possible to make amends. Yesterday on the statement I made allowing for any good faith grievances to be discussed, I received countless comments telling me to “talk to the Shorks”. Getting specific names of people in the Shork server was no easy feat, but I did it. I ended up reaching out to Shorkena, one of the moderators on the Shork server that Marie was kind enough to put me in contact with, and tried to pull together a group chat to have a good faith conversation about how to move forward. I tried everything to reach some sort of agreement. They’ve been spamming demanding that their voices and grievances be heard since we opened the Lemmy and I have gaven them multiple spaces space to freely do that and openly discuss grievances and how to move forward in good faith and they shuttered.

I gave them every opportunity I could possibly think to give and they squandered it and even went as far as mocking me within their own server and digging up drunken shitpost Tweets to openly mock me about instead of discussing their actual grievances with me, which you can see in the Imgur directory below.

I remained hopeful throughout all of this that I could pull something off and end all of this, but I have concluded there is no good faith attempt here anymore.

For all of those interested, here is every interaction I’ve had with any of them involved: https://imgur.com/a/rfN6joQ

REMOVED IMGUR ALBUM SO THOSE INVOLVED WILL NOT BE DOXXED.

  • Gay_Wrath [fae/faer]
    10·
    4 years ago

    I think this community is moving in the right direction and you're doing a lot of stuff that is good and generally seem to be acting in good faith. Because of that good faith, and since you're a new mod i would like to provide gentle feedback that your conversation with Marie was a lot more productive compared to the other people, and i don't think it's a coincidence if you compare how you opened that convo compared to the others. Messaging someone out of the blue for the first time to ask if they are doing shitty stuff or that they have exactly 1, chosen by you, hour to talk is not going to set up the conversation to be productive. Like if the mayor picks one or two black lives matters protesters out of a crowd and is like "hey is it you fuckers that are starting the fires?" and "you have exactly 1 hour to make your demands and then your window closes forever" it's just straight up not going to be a healthy conversation. I would also be defensive in their position:

    1. I have what i think is a genuine grievance with this place (and some of their grievances are genuine - you admitted Marie should not have been banned)
    2. I get messaged out of the blue asking if i'm responsible for some shitty stuff (and you admit later it appears to just be one spammy guy and not even related to this)
    3. Then i get an ultimatum that i must drop everything and become the spokesperson for an entire group of people's grievances, and must discuss it all immediately with you during, once again, our very fucking first conversation and i only have an hour to do so with no advance notice.

    I'm sorry but those actions are not good faith steps to reconciliation or hearing their "side" out. Now, i am not trying to turn this into A Thing since i think you handled the convo with Marie well, like i mentioned earlier. I just think in the future you should learn from what did and didn't work with starting a productive conversation. And obviously i am making no excuses for the mean stuff people said to you either.