During the brief time DroneRights was active on the site, DroneRights was treated, by default, in bad faith and as a wrecker, even by moderators. Very first post made by DroneRights, (where it references its experiences as someone with NPD) First comment responding tells it to “fuck off” and that narcissist is not a slur. DroneRights defended how it feels narcissist is a slur, and then the next comment was “I have literally never heard or seen it used that way. Edit: new account, good troll” A statement that Thus begins the saga of DroneRights, and the half of the userbase that treats it like a troll that couldn’t possibly be real because what it talks about is nothing the users here have ever heard about. And just to be clear, ableist slurs are commonplace on this site. Incredibly common everyday words, phrases, and most intelligence or sanity-based insults come from medical words for disabilities. I would imagine a lot of users would be upset if ND users started insisting, we never used words like “stupid”, because they are so commonplace. But if someone with NPD tells you that using Narcissism as an insult is hurtful and dehumanizes those who have NPD, then don’t speak over them.
Now, DroneRights is an interesting user. I, like most of you, did not know much about anything DroneRights talked about in its posts. From how I see it, DroneRights has been ridiculed for its beliefs, its disabilities, and its gender since it started being open about its gender online. It tried talking about its experiences with neurodiversity and its gender on several instances before posting on hexbear at all, making a new account after being doxxed on its old one. Every instance treated DroneRights in bad faith, invalidated and belittled it, and it comes to hexbear where “we love our trans neurodivergent comrades!!” and it instantly gets treated like someone so unfamiliar and so unbelievable that DroneRights couldn’t possibly be real or valid.
This is the shit we have a thousand dunk tank threads about. Libs saying hexbear users are bots, or not really trans, or paid shills, anything they can say instead of doing some self-crit or considering the experiences of other people. Except now we are doing it, while claiming to be a welcoming, shining beacon of inclusivity. Now, even if you wrongly think DroneRights could not possibly be genuine in the posts it made, I would briefly like if the readers of this post looked at DroneRights post history for a moment, and interpret its posts giving the benefit of the doubt that should be given to someone with NPD, autism, a lack of communication skills, who does not fully understand left wing politics like you might. Take how it interprets its gender seriously, without assuming it is a troll. And look at how users on this site respond to what it says.
https://hexbear.net/u/DroneRights?page=1&sort=Old&view=Overview
Okay, assuming you looked for a little over 5 minutes, you have probably seen some hurtful exclusionary shit said to DroneRights out of bad faith assumptions. The mod log is similarly bad, if you believe that ND users shouldn’t be seen instantly as trolls or worthy of being banned for a couple bad takes, or for communication problems. These takes are entirely understandable for DroneRights to have, given how it views itself as a non-person. Especially noteworthy, is how DroneRights post got removed and bad faith comments were made towards it (initially, got restored later) in the dedicated comm for neurodiversity, with rules dedicated to not making bad faith assumptions about other peoples experiences. In The rest of the site without those rules, it faced constant ridicule and mistreatment. Saying DroneRights had “bad, wrecker vibes” without attempting to understand DroneRights is ableist, and so is labeling DroneRights as a wrecker when its actions could easily be interpreted as a good faith ND user who isn’t quite as aware of Marxist theory unlike other users. Even if for some reason some bad faith troll decided to learn and lie about the experiences DroneRights has had with its gender and how its NPD has changed how it views itself, the normal standards of engagement on this site should not be one where ND users, and users in general should be invalidated like that. Now, the problem of ableism and bad faith assumptions about posts is a very complicated one. Let me first address our site culture of struggle sessions, hostility, and bad faith assumptions. Threads frequently devolve into arguments and dogpiling, often on established users who make comments or posts with no intention of rudeness. The solution to this problem of hostility by hexbear? Don’t talk about it. If drama is brought up, even if its very important or relevant to the site, it is removed. There used to be containment comms in UserUnion and c/Strugglesession. They got removed about three months ago. I never heard about any new place to talk about the site, the code of conduct still tells users to post at userunion, so unless a user looks a little harder and tries to find whatever comm “meta” posts are allowed in, criticism looks purposefully ignored. A cool soviet propaganda poster once said, “Kill it at the Root.” Most struggle sessions either wouldn’t have happened, or been a lot less toxic, if there were sitewide rules saying that “if a user posts something that seems unintentionally harmful or reactionary, ask them what they meant by that comment. Don’t immediately go on the attack. Behave in good faith, and don’t assume the worst from posters by default “
Now, this potential solution obviously increases moderator workload and would make genuine ill-intentioned trolls harder to get rid of, but compared to previous moderation policies, if implemented properly, it would give many users the safe, welcoming space they desire from the site. Now, Hexbear itself has had a rocky start, with issues of inclusivity and toxicity since the beginning. The solution for the past few years? Ban anyone you can label as a liberal! I don’t really have an issue with the initial ban of those labeled transphobic. Were some well-intentioned ND users banned in the process? Probably. But the site is much better without blatant transphobia. The issue is that the policy of banning on the pretenses of “seems like a liberal” or “has a take I don’t agree with” is really only fitting on clear, black and white issues like trans rights. Now, admittedly, a lot of left wing issues are black and white, but not all of them are, and having a bad take on an issue or believing in common misconceptions doesn’t mean a user is malicious or harmful, and the policy of banning “sus” accounts over not having all the facts or not communicating properly is actively communicating that the policy is: that it is ok to ban ND users regularly and make it so those who don’t get banned are constantly worried about it, as long as it gets rid of liberals. When you say “Embrace TC69 thought” what you are advocating for is sacrificing good faith users and the ND community so that liberals are banned quicker. Of course, I’m not the first person to criticize the site on this. Two or so years ago, the site had a lively and welcoming Neurodiverse mod team dedicated to making their comm a great place for ND users to talk, but with the site’s constant hostility, struggle sessions, ND users often got unjustly banned outside of the comm, and those who did not felt like they could be banned at any moment without understanding what they did wrong. When ND users and the mod team representing them asked for users to be unbanned or for site policy to change to be more inclusive to ND users, they were frequently not being listened to. After around a year of moderating and advocating for ND users, (often with no results), an incident where a well-known user made an “I’m leaving post” targeted at an ND user who criticized them. The user was immediately banned, the ND mod team had to fight hard to convince the mod team that they didn’t deserve to be immediately banned for a tiny incident that was not intended to be hurtful, and after convincing the mods to unban the user, they were promptly re-banned by another site mod with no explanation given, and the consequences of that event and the feelings of mistreatment by the mod team prior in combination with that, led to most of the ND team leaving the site completely. The comm has seemingly had little to no leadership since in the past 2 years, and this important history of the site is largely forgotten about.
ND users need a voice, and ableism needs to be discussed and acknowledged to be a problem in this community. Discussion on ableism or ND inclusivity on the Neurodiverse comm should not be removed, especially if the conversation is civil.
[@Egon@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/Egon
Has expressed a desire for tone indicators like /s to be normalized and encouraged on the site, which I would agree with. Having /s and other tone indicators would help users with interpreting comments in they way they are intended, and /s being from reddit is not a good enough reason to not use it.
As for what I want to see from the site to be more inclusive to ND users, rules such as ““if a user posts something that seems unintentionally harmful or reactionary, ask them what they meant by that comment. Don’t immediately go on the attack. Behave in good faith, and don’t assume the worst from posters by default “and “do not talk over ND comrades about things you have not experienced” are rules I would want to be enforced site wide.
The most important thing is to acknowledge these issues in our community and address them. Inclusivity of ND comrades should be just as important as other issues the site makes a priority. If one of the main concerns with our site is losing the safe space that hexbear has.
I agree about some of the responses it received, but I don't think it was banned for anything that seemed unintentional. It kept dogwhistling transphobia, which is a separate issue from its identity and neurodiversity
Also, isn't it another Black Mold Futures account, or was it some other type that insisted on posting obtuse, sometimes nigh incomprehensible things, and getting themselves banned?
It wasn’t a BMF account, that crank has a very specific type of cadence that always makes it really obvious they’re at it again lol
Oh, I had thought it may have been the same accountholder as FuckYourselfEndless because of similarities and because DroneRights showed up on Hexbear a couple days after FYE was banned
HornyOnMain pointed out to me in another thread, though, that DroneRights@lem.ee-or-similar was created a day before FYE was banned from Hexbear
These takes are entirely understandable for DroneRights to have, given how it views itself as a non-person.
I feel like if anything this esoteric identy was weaponised against those members of our community that were constantly fighting to defend. Also, while I'm all for treating non-persons with kindness and care
the fact is animals can't weaponize their non-personhood the way that this account did.I just go back to what I thought before, just because it sees itself as a non-person it doesn't give it the right to be transphobic. Neurodiversity isn't an excuse to engage in erasure. We can't carve out some exception that our ND comrades can erase trans people because they're ND.
And I still don't see why there's such defense of an account that engaged in blatant transphobia. Straight up, if you use pronouns like the account did (AND INSIST UPON THEM TO OTHERS), then the turn to
cw transphobic material
Ackshuwally they/them isn't an identity and doesn't exist
Doesn't make sense. Even if you are neurodiverse, how the fuck isn't this some massive cognitive dissonance/hypocrisy. Again, ND isn't an excuse to engage in this kind of behavior, all the more that the account frequently noted its own pronouns.
I mean is it too much to ask that a ND person respect the existence of our trans comrades?
so much, thank you. I’m saying this as someone who is autistic/ ND btws.Also, like, bees are bees and humans are humans. Regurgitating nectar into honey isn't a gender a human can have because people cannot do it.
I never saw these comments from Drones rights but now seeing the thread makes it more clear. I was unaware of the transphobia. Deserved ban then.
Separately, I was convinced by it that "narcissist" is a term we should not use flippantly or in non-medical/speaking in understanding about ND. I am still convinced of that and was disappointed in Hexbears reactions minimizing it. Especially considering it seems like a terribly odd and unimportant hill to die on.
Edit: I guess more hexbears had already had previous bad interactions before the interactions I had which can justify some unwillingness to interact or accept it as good faith. Timeline here isn't clear to me, but I still find I am in favor of accepting such requests regardless of the poster. But then ban the transphobe.
Timeline here isn't clear to me
https://hexbear.net/post/439253 This was it's first post, before DR shared anything about gender on that account.
I intend to make a compilation post of this discussion with sources for the claims made in the thread for ease of reading tomorrow, but I am going to bed now
Yeah that's when I interacted with them, so I guess it predated the transphobia then (could've been simultaneous) but it's not really super important I think, except to just understand who was against DronesRights for transphobia (good, but possibly wasn't known yet) or against for reason of NPD, which I think still deserves discussion. I'm not into the blame game though, I just want to make sure that it's clear that some comrades had this discussion before ever hearing the transphobia/bigotry/whatever else it was deservedly banned for.
Personally, and I'm willing to self-crit about this if I see any reason to believe I was wrong, but I am surprised any user on this site took DroneRights seriously at all. What I saw was a very obvious 4chan edgelord type making the one joke in a very elaborate way. This user unironically and explicitly supported the idea of an attack helicopter gender.
Yeah it described a friend as airplanekin and explicitly called out the mods for action against the one joke. This is a big diverse community and its possible that some poor much maligned soul does actually identify as an attack helicopter but I have a real hard time believing such.
It was also argumentative in such a way that seemed less like it was seeking enlightenment and more like it was trying to waste as much of sincere peoples time as possible. I could be wrong, I certainly have been before but I dunno. It just felt like someone taking advantage of the compassion oft misunderstood people feel towards something they don't understand and I didn't like it. Like seeing the nicest person you know getting manipulated.
Sincere or not, I don't think I saw it ever say a single thing that wasn't mainly attention-seeking
Yeah, I think the idea is "look, these silly lefties have no coherent beliefs, look how long they entertained me when I was comparing communists to the borg and trans people to non-person-identifying-otherkin!"
My good faith interpretation was that they were just very far detached from reality and completely lost the plot somewhere along the way. I still wouldn't say for sure that they weren't being sincere, but their post about hiveminds and mindmelding did irk me when I first read it.
I would imagine a lot of users would be upset if ND users started insisting, we never used words like “stupid”
I'm ND and I would be upset at that. "Stupid" is so detached from ableism it doesn't even register. If someone called me the r word I'd have a problem with it, but if someone called me stupid it wouldn't even register as being a reference to my neurodivergence, because it's not.
I don't agree. It's just normalized to the degree that most people don't actively think about the connection anymore, the same way that they don't think about how calling something that's boring "lame" originally came from a term describing a physical impairment.
Just because something is normalized doesn't mean it isn't harmful. Equating different brains with badness upholds ableism the same way that male-as-default in some languages upholds patriarchy.
for context i can't walk very well and haven't been able to for 10+year.
outside of "jesus mended the lame" kind of ye olde timey word fossil usage that i've only seen in churches or from people lampooning 19th century revivalist types, I find lame to be fully disconnected from mobility disabilities and the social issues we face having them.
y'all can have a lame pass unironically and if somebody is able bodied and trying to stop me stop calling lame things lame they can take their well-functioning limbs and spine and fuck off.
So, the word bad likely comes from a queerphobic insult. should we also remove that from our lexicon despite the vast, vast majority of people not knowing or caring about this history? I do think that our social conception of intelligence should change, but I don't know if policing the absolute edges of negative language that is grounded in bigotry is the way to do that.
and "villain" is classist and "sinister" is tied up in a bunch of medieval anti-left handed abuse that continued into probably the 1970s at least. i know some elders who had nuns slapping them with rulers in the 1950s and catholics being catholic i'd not be surprised to hear it still happens.
i think if we have to be etymology nerds. historians, or look at a bible to find social harm in words then somebody is probably overcorrecting.
Had a comment deleted by a mod the other day for saying we should be able to call chuds dumbasses and had people arguing with me we shouldn't call chuds dumb or stupid because the problem with them isn't that they're unintelligent which was........ a hell of a take.
We're deffinitly heading towards "calling things dumb or stupid is ableist" which is disappointing
:yea:
It's definitely been a fight in some over-correcting leftist communities for a while now, but I was hoping Hexbear would be better than that.
I'm afraid if it becomes a big deal I'll end up getting banned arguing against it. But I wouldn't be surprised if they don't want to listen to the actual people they claim are affected by such language when we tell them we aren't and that we use it about as regularly as anyone else.
idk, first time i interacted with dronerights, it was calling trans people nazis. definitely an eyebrow raiser and was given an excessive amount of leeway given the bulk of infractions. as always, anyone can just make a new account here if they self crit and dont make it obvious its them again
this is also how I feel about it. banning DroneRights was good moderation.
Until an account is at least a year old, I'm not required to assume good faith, especially after the past few months of churn we've had.
Coming in with their very first post and arguing that narcissist is a slur is something that causes controversy and made the whole thing a spectacle. Whether it is their true belief, or an elaborate troll, I am not going to spend the energy to try and divine their intent.
The fact that the account was banned inside of two weeks, does not help the case that this was a sincere belief.
yeah, sorry, I’m not going to assume that someone is here in good faith when their first interaction with everyone is trying to start an argument. 9/10 that account is going to be a troll.
I cut it a lot of slack in my first interactions because I've worked with people with NPD and can totally appreciate not just using it as an insult, particularly if it's something people are working on.
It was completely correct get banned for saying all of the above, for all of the understanding that it was asking from others, it didn't seem engaged in doing the same for them.
for all of the understanding that it was asking from others, it didn't seem engaged in doing the same for them.
This is core regardless of whether it was a troll, yeah.
I think we need that fixed line, individual circumstances should be taken on a case by case basis but with a firm no bigotry stance.
Completely agree, there's a limit to understanding, and it has to be when behaviors begin to negatively affect others. If someone can't pick up on that and correct the behavior it requires a ban.
I wasn't following particularly closely either, and given the context 100% deserved.
Thank you for reposting this. I wish OP had only made a single post here. Making multiple posts made it very difficult for me to track as an ND person.
I think i might make a follow up post re-stating problems in a few days about issues i see with the site without using DroneRights as an example, but if you want me compile links for you in the meantime, I can do that for ease of access until then. (although not right this second as I need to do work first)
do you mean the locked cross-post or any other threads as well?
Yeah that one and honestly whatever other threads don’t already have follow ups.
Tbh dronerights was banned for posting some things that had nothing to do with it being ND:
enbyphobic
" "They" is a non gendering pronoun. If you use they/them, you'll never misgender anyone, but you'll also never gender anyone correctly either. Some people are okay with not being gendered and some people aren't. You should respect their wishes once you've heard them, but I don't believe you have any obligation to check them in advance"
As I have said in other comments, I don't think I would be a great judge of what is or is not Enby/Transphobic. If Users want to make judgements on DroneRights response to that claim, it talked about that in a post here https://hexbear.net/post/533767 that was deleted before anyone could respond to DroneRights or ask for clarification about what it meant, and I would ask that users please not respond with the assumption that DroneRights is guaranteed to be a troll, when it is possible that it is not faking being xenogender or ND.
racist
To anyone who has more than a passing familiarity with China, this is laughable because "Han" is less of an ethnicity than it is an umbrella term for a melting pot of ethnic groups. At the time white supremacy was invented, whiteness was a melting pot of ethnic groups. White supremacy itself was instrumental in getting all the European races in the Americas to gang up on brown and black. And the "white" people in the Balkans still haven't got the memo that they're actually the same race
https://hexbear.net/comment/3913462 On the cross posted version of this post where this comment was also mirrored from the ND comm, there was confusion on if this comment was even racist, or if the comment was intended to be racist. @EnsignRedshirt@hexbear.net's comment in that comment thread claimed, "I don't know if that's racist, per se, but it's reductive and needlessly provocative. Why tolerate it?" My response is that changing policies to encourage or require asking for clarification from "sus" comments before removing them or instantly labeling someone as reactionary without knowing what they intended is a worthwhile effort, if one of the goals of the site is to be a welcoming space for ND users and a welcoming space in general.
If users and moderators believe that no policy change is necessary because giving users the chance to explain themselves or asking for clarification makes it harder to moderate, or isn't compatible with our site culture of aggressively dunking on people instantly, then address the response that not changing or addressing these policies is saying to ND users "It's okay to not keep your community in mind, because embracing "TC69 thought" and getting rid of and ridiculing lib's as fast and efficiently as possible is worth it."
reactionary
"The world has enough humanity in it. That's how climate change started"
This comment obviously looks horrible out of context. But if DroneRights deserves to be labeled as an EcoFash, then ask it what it meant before calling DroneRights an EcoFash. DroneRights post history does not imply that is what it is intentionally advocating for, unless assumed in bad faith to just be a fake impersonation of a xenogender ND user. https://hexbear.net/comment/3830263 As I interpret the comment, DroneRights is angry at Neurotypicals and the concept of "humanity" because it feels it is treated as less than a person because of their NPD. https://hexbear.net/comment/3836070
Was DroneRights banned for these specific removed comments, their entire post history, toxicity, or just "wrecker vibes"? If DroneRights was treated in good faith by default, and asked to clarify what they said on any "wrecker vibes" comments, would they still have been banned, and does intention matter in these cases and others like them? Its worth discussing.
Maybe I'm just misguided myself, and DroneRights was a just malicious, bad faith, transphobic wrecker the entire time and there's no way I could be right, and I'm making a complete fool of myself.
But can we, for the sake of ND users, consider the possibility that DroneRights is infact who it says it is, and ask ourselves if our site policies and culture of assuming bad faith without asking for clarification is hurtful, and if it should be improved if it is so.
The post is not just "was DroneRights a malicious troll or not". or "We should unban DroneRights". It is discussing how our site policies and culture of bad faith assumptions deserves criticism and can be harmful. Is DroneRights a 1 to 1 flawless example of how our culture policies can exclude people? No, but DroneRights is an example, and criticism of our site policies and how users act on this site is not made invalid by the argument that DroneRights was an "obvious" troll or that users believe DroneRights specifically deserved how they were treated.
sidenote: this comment is not aimed at you specifically, and just incase my comment might imply that i want to clarify it is not my intention.
But can we, for the sake of ND users, consider the possibility that DroneRights is infact who it says it is
as an autistic trans woman I do not want anyone taking a transphobic and enbyphobic troll at face-value on my behalf. thanks but no thanks.
regardless it was banned for being transphobic. the response post you linked to is talking about something entirely offtopic from what got DroneRights banned.
My response is that changing policies to encourage or require asking for clarification from "sus" comments before removing them or instantly labeling someone as reactionary without knowing what they intended is a worthwhile effort, if one of the goals of the site is to be a welcoming space for ND users and a welcoming space in general.
I just want to say that I agree entirely that asking for clarification and trying to establish intent should be the first step if someone says something inappropriate. My point was that regardless of intended meaning, inappropriate comments don't need to be tolerated, period. That doesn't mean "ban everyone who ever says anything remotely problematic" it means that even if someone is clearly acting in good faith, bad behavior still can't be ignored.
Value and cherish my trans, ND, etc comrades but when identity is being used as a shield for being mean it hasn't gone very well for me in the past personally, dealing with folks like that, they've almost always done far more to actually harm communities they proclaim to care about.
My litmus test is if one is being argumentative and vociferously outpsoken without backing up anything they do with real action or conviction then they're a wrecker, a child, or some silly third thing to not be paid attention to. It's kind of mean, but god damn I've only got so much time in the fucking day jc, we're already on the bleeding edge of societal views.
It's kind of mean, but god damn I've only got so much time in the fucking day jc, we're already on the bleeding edge of societal views
Honestly I don’t even think it’s mean, you just have boundaries and standards for how people need to treat you if they want you to stick around.
I am going to try not to be snarky and believe you are acting in good faith. OP has a very new account (less than a month), so probably hasn’t seen the absolute dogshit monsoon of bad faith transphobes.
I also saw you mentioned you were cis. By insisting that DroneRights wasn’t transphobic and instead just misunderstood, you need to understand that you’re actively talking over ND trans people who identified what was going on there.
I tried to give DroneRights a chance and even kinda saw what it meant by criticizing the use of narcissism. Shit-ass way to open with a new group of people, but okay, whatever, that can happen. It kept going though and aside from being pretty shitty to other people, it also kept dropping transphobic dog whistles.
With that said, I’m not willing to entertain any argument that centers the feelings of a transphobe over those of trans and ND people.
I really think you should stop trying to defend that account OP. It makes it hard to take you sincerely when I feel like you’re more concerned with defending a troll you’ve mistaken for a martyr than collaborating with everyone on ways to make the site better for ND people.
Looking back at the DroneRights lem.ee account, my perspective has changed a bit.. I still don't think DroneRights was faking having NPD or being Xenogender, but looking at some posts on its older pre-hexbear fediverse accounts, I can pretty clearly see some views and attitudes about enby issues and other beliefs that would not be considered acceptable over here, not all of which could be attributed to NPD or lack of social awareness.
I apologize for not taking more enby users concerns with DroneRights seriously, with the issue of ableism in general, I am usually very defensive and not always fair. It's not "DroneRights wasn't transphobic, just misunderstood", unfairly treated people can be transphobic, and I was biased here.
After seeing some responses from users in this thread to DroneRights deleted post which it made (i believe) in defense of the comment that got it banned, I can see how not every criticism was made in bad faith against DroneRights, and I would like to thank the users who told me what they thought of the post. I can see now why users would argue that DroneRights should be banned, and without very drastic changes to this site, its purpose as a site, and how it operates, things are probably gonna have to stay that way.
How DroneRights was treated on many occasions was in bad faith and ablest, particularly in reference to how they discussed its experiences with NPD. DroneRights having bad stances on enby issues does not make that kind of treatment okay. I can understand why users here would treat DroneRights that way, and most of it was not explicitly against any site rules, but there should still be a discussion about how to make this site more inclusive to ND users on hexbear, and I still believe what I have outlined in the latter half of my post is worth considering and discussing, as well as ableism in general, because it is a problem here, and there are responses to this post that would be against several community rules had every response been on the c/neurodiverse comm crosspost.
For now, I am going to compile all my posts, and posts not by me but related to DroneRights ban into one easier to read post or comment, then i'm probably gonna log off for a couple weeks. The ND community deserves a more informed and prepared advocate for them, so I'm gonna do some more reading on ND and gender issues so i can be one.
"OP has a very new account (less than a month)"
My post goes into detail about 2+ year old hexbear drama about how the old ND mod team got alienated, burnt out, and largely gave up on the site. I didn't feel like using my old account when I came back to this site after a break. My posts have been genuine.
My post goes into detail about 2+ year old hexbear drama about how the old ND mod team got alienated, burnt out, and largely gave up on the site. I didn't feel like using my old account when I came back to this site after a break. My posts have been genuine
Wait, so you have a grudge against this site from 2+ year old drama and then used a transphobic bit account as your example for why Hexbear is supposedly unsafe for ND people?? That’s really not cool OP.
Like holy shit I feel like you really intentionally buried the lead on that. It’s hard not to feel like you’re being intentionally manipulative with all of this now. Why wouldn’t you be honest about your personal involvement here?
For now, I am going to compile all my posts, and posts not by me but related to DroneRights ban into one easier to read post or comment, then i'm probably gonna log off for a couple weeks. The ND community deserves a more informed and prepared advocate for them, so I'm gonna do some more reading on ND and gender issues so i can be one.
I don’t want you speaking for me. Go have a fucking messiah complex somewhere else asshole.
So for starters DR was literally dancing around “identifies as an attack helicopter” jokes and anyone who does that deserves a ban imo full stop
Secondly wrecker behavior doesn’t have to be intentional. Searing hot take here but it should be ok to ban accounts for being annoying or stirring up a bunch of drama regardless of their intentions.
OP, it's not a very good look that you constantly ignore the reason why DroneRights was banned: it was banned for being enbyphobic. Why should it be allowed to disrespect and invalidate our enby users while at the same time demanding people use it/its pronouns and refer to itself as a non-person? Respect and validation goes both ways, and if it won't respect our enby users, it has no place in our community.
I also don't like how you constantly use the wrong pronouns for DroneRights. If you're trying to make the case that DroneRights is sincere and not a troll, well, DroneRights has a specific gender identity and a specific set of pronouns that it wants everyone to use. Use those pronouns. Don't pontificate to us about how we didn't take DroneRights seriously while misgendering DroneRights at the same time.
I think this is a conversation worth having, even if I myself am not smart enough to contribute much to it. But it's a conversation we should have carefully. Federation has made it more difficult to tell good faith from bad faith. We need to think of a better way to be accommodating while also not leaving ourselves open to losers who simply want to farm drama from us.
I was thinking about this in the other thread. As a QAA listener, I was made aware of the "Race Change to Another"/ trans-race thing. The ep was bad vibes, and my gut says that our black, brown, Asian, and other minority comrades probably wouldn't want someone around who was white but trying to become black, etc. This is in part because I feel if we're inclusive towards this group we're going to hurt other comrades.
However I don't know, it's a very edge case and straight up I'm not the person who should have opinions on that aspect of the moderation policy. However I think it's a good example of the kind of thing you're talking about.
No, race-shifting is absolutely fucked and should be ruthlessly stamped out if it ever appears here. It's not just some weird online trend, but has huge real-life consequences. There's scores of Elizabeth Warren in academia, and while Warren was exposed as an ethnic opportunist fraud she is, many pretendians are still in academia distorting Indigenous culture through imagined understanding of it, taking space away from actual Indigenous scholars, and overall undermining Indigenous sovereignty. This is just another manifestation of settler-colonialism, where settlers, as a final fuck you to the Indigenous population they've genocided, can play Indian and say that they're more Indigenous than actual Indigenous people.
And I don't think I need to explain how a bunch of crackers pretending to be Black is just racist anti-Black minstrel shit.
You're articulating this way better than I can. My work as an academic is all on gender, so race is something I'm deferential on and willing to admit my knowledge is not cutting edge. I've read my Fanon and some Davis, etc, but I'm hardly on the bleeding edge.
the big thing with transracial stuff is ive yet to see any evidence that 'transitioning' is good for the person. gender transition is medically necessary and has been proven time and again to bring benefits to trans people that need it. to me, the jury is out until similar things are proven for transracial stuff. it should be noted that it could be related to body dysmorphia, which if a person acts on dysmorphia, that brings them no benefit and is self harm, clinically speaking. for body dysmorphia, the only treatment approved by many studies are anti-depression and anti-anxiety medications, not surgical alterations to the body.
remember: body dysmorphia and gender dysphoria are separate things.
That's a really good distinction. I'll just say personally I think there's so much baggage with cultural appropriation, racism, and straight up blackface that it's hard to imagine an "affirmative" version of this that doesn't start to end in measuring skulls
cw weird racial fetishization
(especially since the YouTube content, accd to QAA, tends towards giving yourself an "Korean skull or such.")
Whats interesting to me is they also talked about elf-related content on YouTube (i.e. giving you elf dexterity, ethereal looks, etc). While I find this a bit woo woo for my tastes, this version of the whole thing is basically harmless imo (maybe even affirming for the people who engage in it, if they just get better vibes). But as soon as you're trying to change your race to an IRL race, there's just so much historicity behind it that it's very hard to justify, for instance, a white person claiming they identify as Pacific Islander or something.
Btw, I recognize that as a Marxist, a lot of the "ick" comes from historical conditions and current material conditions as well (e.g. pretending you're not white to do humanities race scholarship takes jobs and stuff from actual people who have been marginalized). In a future socialist society, perhaps this wouldn't be so odious (though perhaps still a bit funky), but right now this stuff really is gross, especially due to present and historical racial injustice.
This is of course my .02 as a fan of Fred Jameson and his "history is what hurts" line.
I think you're basically right as well, we have no proof this is helping out people who participate in it.
Again though, I'm totally willing to be told I'm wrong by comrades because this is just my vibe listening to QAA and remembering these sorts of public incidents
i think that elf stuff is likely an expression of body dysmorphia. body modding can be a way to make your body your own, but in some circumstances it can lead to extreme situations that the person themself will openly say they regret. surgery isnt fun and should def not be taken lightly. though i might be thinking of people surgically altering their ears, you might be referring to something else. i remember reading about one girl who was obsessed with making herself elf looking and she got significant nerve damage on her ears and it makes it hard for her to sleep now.
but yes we need way more studies on these new expressions, its important.
yeah i cant help but point out this is likely dysmorphia from general objectification towards women, but amplified and morphed. dysmorphia from societal objectification is a very well studied occurrence at this point.
I'll admit to thinking it was a troll but it was super easy to engage in good faith. If it was a very elaborate troll I feel as though the fun would have been lost if we treated it with respect and good faith.
Apparently transphobia so obviously get em outta here in that case
Are you saying the fun of dunking on users is more important than the being respectful to the feelings and experiences of ND users?
It was wrong to dogpile on that user. It came to this site looking for an inclusive space and was immediately shunned and labeled as someone whose experiences were fabricated and came to the site to troll. We should be better than this.
I'm not sure how my post could be interpreted in that way but no. I attempted to engage in good faith with that user and i mean if we all did that any trolling would be negated. Kill them with kindness as they say
If it was a very elaborate troll I feel as though the fun would have been lost if we treated it with respect and good faith.
how can this be interpreted as anything other than not wanting to be considerate to ND users because engaging in bad faith arguments for fun is more important?
what is a "very elaborate troll" to you? DroneRights certainly was treated under the assumption it was a troll, and it made some very elaborate effort posts.
Is dunking on users after making immediate bad faith assumptions more important than trying to understand and be inclusive and respectful to ND users?
You're misinterpreting. He's saying that if DroneRights was, in fact, performing some kind of elaborate troll, it (DroneRights) would stop finding it (the trolling) enjoyable to carry on, if everyone simply engaged in good faith with it.
I see.
edit: I think this point may have also been made in the now removed previous post, and I agree with the arguement you make here. Apologies for getting defensive and misinterpreting you there.
I think you may have me confused with someone else; I don't think I've ever argued with you, and particularly not on this topic. I just wanted to jump in and try to correct a misunderstanding.
Sure I'll say it.
It was right to dogpile on that transhphobe.
I don't care if he was looking for an inclusive and accepting space to be transphobic and "unitonically" doing the attack helicopter bit.
Gonna go ahead and say a policy that it's ok for ND people to get a pass for transphobia is going to do more harm to the Trans user base than the user base of people who try to claim they legitimately identify as a piece of military hardware.
