I recently made a new account on lemmy.blahaj.zone, because I’ve been harassed and doxxed on my old account and I wanted a fresh start with a more lighthearted online identity that I could be more open about my gender identity on. I’d heard blahaj zone was good for trans people, so I made my account there. And yeah, autism@lemmy.world removed my post discussing neuronormativism from a queer perspective, but I hoped maybe “the trans instance” would be friendlier to trans people.
A couple days after making my account, I saw someone on Blahaj engaging in the tired old cliche of “I hate politics, there’s no politics on my social media and I want to keep it that way!” Well we’ve all heard the joke that the two races are white and political, the two genders are male and political, and the two sexualities are straight and political. Hatred of politics is a transphobic, sexist, and racist trope. And having sufferred harassment and abuse from people inside the queer community who “hated politics” and saw trans or nonbinary or xenogender identities as political, I knew this kind of speech was going to make bigots feel comfortable saying they also hate politics, and they think us trans people are it.
So, I responded to the transphobia. I started out by attempting to educate them on what politics actually means. But I was interrupted by the Blahaj admin Ada, who told me that politics is “anything I disagree with”, and that indeed politics isn’t welcome on Blahaj. This language was deeply triggering of my past issues dealing with abuse, and I knew from past experience this sort of thing is said by people who are getting ready to say some enbyphobic or racist hate speech. It is especially common for white queer people to talk this way to BIPOC queer people. I tried to reason with Ada, explained the history of the cliche, the trauma it’s caused many trans people, and the consequences this kind of speech will have on the community here, making us all less safe.
Ada wasn’t having it. She minimised my concerns by reducing them to my personal trauma while ignoring my wider concerns for others’ safety, and weaponised my PTSD to paint my opinions as invalid because I am mentally ill. She said she owns Blahaj, and she gets to do whatever she wants with it, and nobody is allowed to express a differing opinion, even one that protects trans people, because that’s politics. At the time I thought her concern was me speaking directly to transphobes and making them feel uncomfortable by calling out their actions, so I said I’d just report it instead, and she banned my account.
This behaviour protects transphobes, WILL lead to trans and BIPOC people being harassed on this instance, attacks and gaslights victims of trauma (my concerns can’t be valid because I have a mental illness), and forces out any trans person with a commitment to safety for the community.
The thread where all this happened: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2143969
EDIT: The person who originally posted the transphobic views on politics is now misgendering me and calling me a “guy” despite me being very openly nonbinary: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/comment/2319669. And I didn’t call them autistic at any point.
Sometimes, after a period of time dealing with the day to day realities resulting from political issues, people just want to be somewhere where they don’t have to keep having to experience those issues, even in text form. Everyone needs a break for awhile and saying so is not an act of transphobia or any other kind of intolerance, its just an acknowledgment that everyone has a limit and needs to be aware of how stretching that limit can effect mental health.
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That’s not what the issue is. Nobody minds that anyone dislikes controversy. The issue is people being untruthful about what politics is.
If you’re going to get this caught up in worrying about exact definitions, you need to take a step back and accept that colloquial/informal usage of words often differs from their technical definition.
Social issues are hopelessly entangled with politics in the world we live in, it’s basically impossible to discuss one without the other in any real meaningful, practical way. Trying to make that distinction is really a purely theoretical exercise, it’s sort of a “spherical cows in a vacuum” situation, if you try to discuss politics without acknowledging the vast array of social issues that impact them (or vice-versa) you’re left with something too far-removed from reality that it has no real practical applications.
Now that kind of thing can certainly make for some interesting discussions with people who enjoy that kind of thought experiment, but you’re not going to find anyone who’s willing to have that kind of conversation in a space where it’s been made clear that they don’t want to talk about politics.
I accept the existence of the fact that some people believe politics means controversy. But I don’t accept the morality, justice, or rightness of that fact. It’s a bad thing that people believe politics means controversy. It should be challenged. Nothing good can come of agreeing with the propaganda of transphobes.
You cannot and should not separate politics from controversy. Politics is the means through which we address our controversies, and the controversies impact how our political systems operate.
If we didn’t have controversy, there would be no need for politics, we’d all simply agree and do what needs to be done without needing to discuss anything, appoint leaders, make decisions, etc.
Agreeing and doing what needs to be done without discussing anything or appointing leaders is politics! When everyone goes on r/awww and looks at pictures of cute kitty cats, they engage in the collective exercise of making a decision that the cat is cute. Why do people like agreeing that an animal is cute? Because humans are a social species, humans are designed for politics, and agreeing a cat is cute is a low-stress way for people to do the politics they were born to do. It’s play politics. Politics is in everything, we love politics and we always want to do it. Politics is everything. So you’re right that controversies are political, but only because everything is political.