This post is “FYI only” for blahaj lemmy members. It is not a debate, and is not intended for non blahaj lemmy users to weigh in and offer opinions.

I recently received reports of a feddit.uk user espousing transphobia. Specifically, this was a feddit.uk user refusing to use the word cis, repeating the “adult human female” dog whistle, and claiming that trans women are not women. I approached a member of the feddit.uk admin team and raised my concerns and sought clarification of their stance on posts like this, where the transphobia is mostly dogwhistles, and “civil disagreement” on the validity of trans folk.

I was told by the feddit.uk admin that their preferred response is this kind of transphobia is to “sort it out through discussion and voting”. However, the comments in question are currently more upvoted than downvoted, and little “sorting out” has occurred. The posts remain in place.

At this point, the admin stopped responding to my messages despite being active elsewhere on lemmy. When it became clear they were ignoring my messages and had no intention of removing the posts in question, I made the decision to defederate the instance.

I know some folk agree with the feddit.uk admins approach of pushback through discussion and voting, but this instance is not designed to be that kind of space. Blahaj lemmy is meant to be a place where we can avoid the rampant transphobia universally visible on nearly every other social media platform, and where we can exist without needing to debate our right to do so.

  • Draconic NEO@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    15·
    4 hours ago

    If instances aren’t willing to moderate themselves when it comes to transphobia they should get the boot. I hope more instances defederate feddit.uk over this. Might make them change course and rethink if they should maybe moderate better.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    17·
    5 hours ago

    Transphobia has no place on anything I use. I may not be one of the folks on your instance, but I still appreciate the good work.

    • WillStealYourUsername@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      14·
      7 hours ago

      Unfortunately some kinds of transphobia gets upvoted now and then because cis people don’t always understand what we’re going through and what is hurtful or oppressive. Some people just have this stance that others should take things even if they have no understanding of what it’s like to actually be the victim of systemic/societal discrimination.

  • trannus_aran@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    161·
    9 hours ago

    Thank you for keeping this community safe, I know this is never an easy decision and the job of moderating is often thankless 🫂 I really appreciate it

  • ploot@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    301·
    12 hours ago

    I appreciate this move. The nice thing about the Fediverse is that admins can take a step like this to protect the integrity of this instance, and users can still engage with that stuff if they create an account on another instance. I’ll continue to argue with bigots elsewhere but I’m grateful for how the admins curate Blahaj Lemmy.

    It’s a shame how the UK seems to be heading backwards on human rights, and shameful how the UK government has decided to throw in with the bigots and embolden them.

  • driving_crooner
    25·
    15 hours ago

    I’m coming from a small brazillian instance and we’re also getting attacks on the brazillian trans community, on our case is the medical association, dictating that doctors couldn’t treat trans kids.

    I asked my admin to support you and to de federate them until they change their policy, hope other instances join too.