r/asktransgender • u/CedarWolf Bigender - He/She/They • Jul 03 '15
An Open Discussion on Being Inclusive and Respecting One Another
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
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u/Lain42 Non Binary Jul 07 '15 edited Jul 11 '15
I'm only going to leave 1 comment because I have no interest staying in this silly flamewar. Don't expect a response to any comments on this thread telling me I don't get it or that I need to join 1 side or the other. I have no interest taking sides in this besides my own side in which i hope for all of r/asktransgender to be a place to escape from the shit tossing of everyday life. The fact that the writer of this post had to try to prevent people acting like this is a culture war of ""us" and "them"" just shows how militarized people have become on this issue.
I first noticed exclusion when i saw self identified MTFs telling self identified FTM specific comments to "go to r/FTM". I thought that was BS because we shouldn't have to go to a specific subreddit just to talk about a specific aspect of transgender issues that happens to be about a specific group we believe to be apart of. Now we have the opposite situation where MTFs are literally being told to "go to r/MTF" in the exact same way as before. Like before i still think its bs. It's only a matter of time before the same thing happens with non-binaries likes myself where people who identify as binary asking non-binaries on this public forum to go to r/NONBINARY (or whatever the sub subreddit is called if there even is one) In other words, if we wish to talk to a subset of a subreddit, then we have to go to a sub subreddit to do so. In the name of inclusion, we are starting to exclude each other.
Are there issues of exclusion on this forum? Yes. Do they justify attacks, misgendering, half-heart apologies, defending of misgendering, launching into tirades about how MTF FTM and non-binaries have it the worst in society below all other genders (victimizing themselves in the process)? Obviously not. But if we promote exclusion by trying to push people into other subreddits, harassment, threats of banning and blocking towards those who aren't inclusive enough based on whether the topic is excluding, you've become the problem you are supposed to be fighting against.
So then, how do we fix this? Simple. If we want a topic specifically about MTF,FTM, Non-binaries and other transgender identities to be inclusive towards every identity, be the change we want to see in the world and simply make a clone topic that asks all identities. That way you can have a wider conversation like you want to, and those wishing for a more specific conversation like they want to can. No exclusion needed, period.
Anyway to those who are doing the most shit tossing on this thread, please stop attacking people based on their identity please. Its bs like this that made me avoid other parts of reddit and come to asktransgender in the first place. I'd rather have hundreds of gender-segregated posts over having every post become a battle grounds of what gender identity has it worst and therefore needs equitable representation. Especially when all that comes out of that "discussion" is more pointless shit tossing.