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.
TLDR: Discord bad. Blank slate on Lemmy good. Leaving behind Discord bullshit biggggg good. Trans people feeling safe and welcome here like I’m working hard to do HUGE GOOOOOOOOD.
Mods/Admins have stated that “clean slate on lemmy” is out the window apparently? I don’t really feel safe in a place where it feels like people get banned for just disagreeing :(
The clean slate on Lemmy is for those people who don’t act in bad faith, brigade, and spam with others.
Marie has been involved in that since the initial dev instance prior to us going live, and then subsequently in several other brigades since then. Other users here who have been banned from discord have been allowed to create accounts here and post under the clean slate; the difference being that they have not acted as spammers, brigaders, and other wreckers have.
Leaving behind Discord bullshit biggggg good
I feel like that’s been code for just ignoring the legitimate grievances raised. Telling the trans community to just get over it isn’t going to make them feel comfortable returning to the greater chapo community.
Let’s take a look at those two statements that you in particular made. 1)“it’s kind of depressing that lgbt spaces here are empty” 2) “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.”
I came in as a mod AFTER all of this blew up. I’m not saying to get over it. I’m saying that instead of making blanket statements that they’re empty or not a priority, you could ask what could be done to help with the endeavors that I’ve been working my ass off to think of and plan out so trans and non-binary people in particular can feel safe, welcome, and comfortable here. I personally did not like the Discord and I’ve analyzed functions and flaws of the Discord that opened up my people to transphobia and mistreatment and tried to improve upon them here. I’m open to hearing out grievances so I can more properly and efficiently make adjustments as a community leader so that my people feel more welcome here. If there are grievances that I haven’t addressed in this thicc statement, by all means, post them in the transenby_liberation community that is ran by trans/enby people and for trans/enby people.
Admins know what the grievances are. They can reach out to the greater trans community.
I think this is conflating a “truth and reconciliation committee” approach with a “blank slate” approach. With a blank slate approach, feedback and suggestions don’t need to be couched in previous discord discord.
If there are concerns, they can absolutely be addressed and fixes implemented without re-litigating disputes form another platform.