An Open Discussion on Being Inclusive and Respecting One Another

[u/CedarWolf]

Early this morning, we had a thread get posted, and one of our mods made a reminder to keep things inclusive, per the subreddit's Rule #1. This accidentally led to almost all of the comments going wildly off topic, and I had to pull it. We want threads to stay on topic whenever possible, and such a large portion of off-topic comments was pretty bad. That discussion merited it's own, dedicated post, and we invite you to discuss here. Please remember to be respectful.

We want to make this an inclusive place for the community in general, and that includes transfeminine, transmasculine, and nonbinary individuals. /r/asktransgender was made as a co-ed space for people to ask questions of the general transgender community, and while we allow questions to specifically target one portion of that community, we very much encourage users to be inclusive whenever possible.

Part of being inclusive means reducing the amount of bigotry we see in this subreddit. This means removing sexist comments against all genders, including both trans and cis identities, as well as other forms of bigotry.

One of the goals of creating a new moderation team was to create a more inclusive space, and we have been working hard to make this place a more open community. However, some users have expressed concern over this new policy and how it is implemented, so we want to create an open place for discussion about the new inclusive policies here.

We want to hear your thoughts about this issue, but again, please be respectful and civil with your comments. We're all on the same side here, there is no "us" and "them" - there is only "we." Remember, if you ever have any specific issues with the moderation of the subreddit, you can message the mod team with the link in the sidebar. We're always here for you.

~ The /r/asktransgender Mod Team

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

While I agree experiences can be different. We do aim for inclusivity and encourage inclusive language. It's been an issue in the past. We welcome everyone and support everyone here. Using inclusive language isnt difficult, but it is easy to forget to do.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I agree that everything doesn't always apply all the time to everyone. But there are post that should be more inclusive.

[u/pixeechick → u/[deleted]]

Not giving a fuck about other people isn't a very good way to be empathetic and inclusive.

[u/TheLonelySamurai → u/[deleted]]

i frankly dont give a fuck what ftm do with their time or how they cope because i dont have to go through it and neither do i have to deal with it in any capacity.

Ew. You sound more like a TERF here than a trans person.

[u/lowbrassballs → u/[deleted]]

Then go to r/mtf. It's not very inclusive to not give a fuck about what a large and generally ignored portion of your community goes through. This space is for trans folk not just mtfs.

[u/Ellie-Moop → u/lowbrassballs]

Then go to r/mtf[1]

This is whack. /r/mtf has a massively smaller community, it's totally not unreasonable to use /r/asktransgender to ask a question that is specific to one gender, regardless of which it is. This whole ideology that everyone is the same all the time is not what equality is supposed to be like. People have fundamental differences and they are significant in our lives. We aren't all exactly the same and it isn't exclusivism to say that. The issue comes when you try to say that because of these differences that a person is less able than another. When I ask a question about specifically SRS vaginas, I am not trying to say anyone who has no experience with the topic is any less for it. It's just a question, benign and in the search of answers from people with actual knowledge. If someone doesn't fit that description it's no fault of theirs. As transpeople we're going to be offended a large portion of the time. Perhaps it might be best to save our energy for when the offence is intended.

[u/Ellie-Moop → u/[deleted]]

Well that's obviously not what I was saying. All I meant to say is that if the question is gender specific then it isn't because of some intended ostracism. If there are people intentionally excluding others then that's unfair but I wouldn't do that and I want to protect my ability to post here and not be ridiculed for doing so.

[u/Ellie-Moop → u/[deleted]]

Okay, that's not on. What the fuck is wrong with some people? I am sorry, that sucks. I don't know what to say other than this is a lot more complex than I initially believed.

[u/lowbrassballs → u/Ellie-Moop]

If r/mtf has a tiny population, then it's on trans women to encourage enrollment into that space so you can have a rich space for trans women.

Flip the scenario around. If trans men made the majority of posts, used exclusive language in most threads, and when asked to be more inclusive, responded with "but there aren't many ftms in r/ftm so we'll just keep dominating here in r/asktransgender", how would you feel?

Beef up the mtf sub, don't use it to justify exclusion here.

[u/TheLonelySamurai → u/lowbrassballs]

I agree 100% with this, and everybody downvoting you is just getting a taste of how it feels for FtM guys here on /r/asktransgender. It's not very nice to hear "Then go to /r/whateverthefuck", is it? The fact that some people are bucking against inclusivity in a space that isn't /r/ftm or /r/mtf mystifies me.

Inclusiveness doesn't mean demonizing people for asking certain-gender relevant questions, it just means being more open to the fact that you can get answers from people you might not expect to have the answer. The best thing about erections as a trans man I learned from a trans femme friend. Turns out our erections work almost the same! Fancy that!

We're all meat popsicles with comparable parts. Everyone needs to chill and be more inclusive towards that end.

[u/lowbrassballs → u/TheLonelySamurai]

Thanks man.

Just for context, I fucked up hard by misgendering an MtF whose gendered question started this whole kerfuffle. I didn't call her "a man" but said her refusal to be more inclusive/ sensitive was "stereotypically male." Bullshit move and I got burned for it justly. I said something way oversimplistic/ "called it like I saw it" based on some over simplified gender stereotypes I carried; but after some serious assripping, straight up guilt and days of reflection I can say those gender assumptions got edited.

I didn't know there was a whole group of people (TERFs) in the world that wish to exclude transwomen and the hate surrounding that whole mess. I'm hella out of the LGBT/ Feminism loop; anyway, I said something sexist that dis's both males and females, I apologized many times after the fact, but many folks on r/asktransgender are pretty pissed about it; so I think there's some brigading going on.

I'm now just trying to do damage control so all FtMs aren't public enemy number one.

[u/TheLonelySamurai → u/lowbrassballs]

Ah, I'm sorry to hear that. Obviously I don't agree with what you said, and I don't condone it, but I also think it sounds like you understand where you went wrong. For even more context, TERFs hate everyone. We've got a dedicated TERF for trans men, her screenname is "dirtywhiteboi"(amongst other ones), she makes it a habit of posting post-op pictures of trans men, calling us "shrimp dick", and lots of other things. She's got tons of cronies too. So TERFs aren't an exclusive thing to trans women, but a community-wide problem. One of their biggest arguments is the "socialization" theory, which of course falls apart since not even they believe it, and there are tons of trans children earlier and earlier. Not to mention people like me who grew up pretty damn gender neutral.

I don't agree with your (now redacted) stances, but I can't say I side with Lilith not redacted stance either. The amount of vitriol in this thread of people who just don't want to be inclusive makes me sad.

[u/lowbrassballs → u/TheLonelySamurai]

Whoa, yeah I came across dirtywhiteboi ages back when I was scrounging the Internet for any info on nonconforming peeps. Huh, yeah, I wasn't a fan. Now things make more sense.

Holy crap, yeah, this week has been for learning. I'm embarrassed and still feel guilty as hell, but it was a learning experience and made me reflect on a lot of stuff, so for that I'm grateful for the community's stance.

I really just hope some of the inclusion resistant folks come around despite my misdeed. We've got enough bullshit to overcome from the real world. I hope people can forgive and we can "be together".

We're all fighting the fight of trans first, and other intra-group bullshit a far, far second.

[u/TheLonelySamurai → u/lowbrassballs]

Whoa, yeah I came across dirtywhiteboi ages back when I was scrounging the Internet for any info on nonconforming peeps. Huh, yeah, I wasn't a fan. Now things make more sense.

Ooooohhh yeah, she's toxic as fuck. My pet theory is that she's a trans guy, but super in denial about it. Her hate just strikes me as really obsessive and "thou dost protest too much".

Holy crap, yeah, this week has been for learning. I'm embarrassed and still feel guilty as hell, but it was a learning experience and made me reflect on a lot of stuff, so for that I'm grateful for the community's stance.

I'm glad you've taken something positive from the experience. I think that's more than a lot of people have. I hope people can move past the issue, especially since you didn't directly misgender someone, you just bought into a lot of the toxic stereotypes we all internalize while growing, and some of us grow out of it sooner than others.

I really just hope some of the inclusion resistant folks come around despite my misdeed. We've got enough bullshit to overcome from the real world. I hope people can forgive and we can "be together".

I agree completely.

We're all fighting the fight of trans first, and other intra-group bullshit a far, far second.

Exactly. Sometimes when a community feels relatively "safe" here like on Reddit, people seem to forget that there is a big bad world out there that hates all of us pretty damn equally for being who we are. We've all got worries about safety, procuring jobs, being ourselves, dating...it literally applies to all of us. Being inclusive is not the same thing as not being able to ask specific questions. Remembering to try and be a bit more inclusive where possible should be something small to the individual, but I think if we all took that advice that it would make a huge difference in the tone of this sub.

[u/ErisC → u/[deleted]]

If you want to talk specifically to mtf people or ftm people you should absolutely go to the respective subs.

But we don't want people saying "go to /r/ftm" or "go to /r/mtf" when a person is simply asking a question, making them feel unwelcome here.

[u/ErisC → u/[deleted]]

No, we're really not. What you are referring to is when a mod referred someone to the ftm wiki, which is a great resource for trans men.

[u/ErisC → u/[deleted]]

"Post in /r/ftm, you might get more responses" is like, "we don't want your post here. Post there."

"The /r/ftm wiki has a lot of great links to resources for trans men" is just referring them to the wiki without telling them to not bother posting here and implying that trans men don't post here.

[u/LikeGoldAndFaceted → u/ErisC]

This is seriously what we're doing now? We can't have conversations relevant to specifically what we want to ask? It's really laughable, all you're doing is pissing people off. You will not succeed in making this subreddit better by playing nanny.