As the one who created this thread, I have zero problem with it. (And, as far as I know, they aren’t breaking any rules, so I think my opinion means something, if not a lot.) LHOD is combatting the disingenuous arguments I mentioned.
And LHOD is a good guy, and does not deserved to be tarred with a bad brush because he’s fighting back against what is at best bigotry from ignorance.
He’s in the right forum, and he’s fighting for the right side.
And those who want to discuss possible redemption, that is not what this Pit thread was intended for, but, hey, whatever. If somehow DemonTree actually reforms, that would be amazing.
Count me as extremely skeptical, however.
Gonna go talk with my boyfriend, who is home, and the fact I’m still finishing this post makes it seem like this place may be too addicting to pop back in on.
Maybe I’m misremembering, or have built up a terrible image of her in my mind and used it to attack her unjustly all these years? Oh shit. I hope I haven’t done that.
I don’t normally go sifting through old posts, but I really want to make sure I haven’t done that to someone.
That’s from the first hundred or so posts in a single thread. Reviewing them, I’m seeing typical scaremongering about trans teens, complaints about transwomen receiving awards for women, scaremongering about bathrooms and changing rooms and shelters, and more.
If her views haven’t changed, I don’t see a reason to praise her. If they have, an acknowledgment of the change would be helpful.
I find that a lot of transphobic people (and I’m not bothering to look up DemonTree-specific data for this observation, so I don’t know how much of it applies to her directly) have a fair bit of cognitive dissonance on the subject.
They often think of themselves as humane and sympathetic people, and they’ll claim to support trans rights, respect people’s pronoun choices, have transgender friends, etc. But then a ways down the road they’ll be foaming at the mouth about “male-bodied individuals”, “trans-identified males”, etc.—i.e., transgender women—being in women’s sports or a women’s prison or a women’s locker room, or whatever. Or if a transphobic co-worker of a transgender person is being disciplined for misgendering their colleague, there’s indignation about “freedom of speech infringement”.
It’s like, okay, I’m a humane and tolerant person who is willing to accommodate rights for transgender people, as long as they don’t come into conflict with my views on the rights that transphobic people are entitled to. The transphobic people’s “right” to express their rejection of transgender identity has to take priority.
Yeah–I didn’t quote the bits where she essentially lamented how in the good old days, trans folk were rare and were always understood to be attempting to present as their identified sex. I get why that might be confusing to someone who’s just starting to think about the issue, but I struggle to understand how someone who’s humane and kind can’t, upon reflection, just shrug and say, “Hey, friend, whatever gets you through the day.”
Some people are incensed at the idea that they could have ever been quite so oblivious. They take it as personal insult that maybe they weren’t as much on top of things as they thought. So, it must always be somebody else’s fault.
Some take the pushback against their anger as an opportunity for personal reflection and growth. Many people don’t.
Well, that’s disappointing. That you believe your spreading transphobic bigotry online is harmless is at odds with your becoming suicidal at being criticized online. It shows you have a lot more introspection to do. A lot more reflection on the consequences of your choices.
I was like that very briefly until I snapped out of it. I think that someone just told me, just be a decent person to people, you don’t need to bend over backward and be a saint, just don’t be an asshole. And that kind of frank advice stuck, and I stopped being defensive about it, and accepted that I used to have wrong and backward ideas, and it’s okay to admit it and move on.
I never hated anyone, but I did used to think that being gay was weird and worth making fun of, because growing up in the 80s that was how it was treated in media and that’s how people I knew back then thought of it. And I’d never even heard of the possibility of trans people, and when I first heard of it I thought people were just making up BS and asking me to go along with it. In both cases it was just a matter of being educated about reality.
Then later on in life, having gay and trans friends made it just so normal. I have a bit of sympathy for people who haven’t gotten to that point, but it has to start with being open about it and not being a pigheaded asshole.
So, to put it simply, you want the ability to post links to and quote hate speech without fear that that will effecting your posting privileges because of your posting history (and I mean your entire history not just the posts that led to your suspension(s)).
Until yesterday, I’d never heard of this woman (Unity Mitford) in my 52 years on this planet, and I’ve seen her referenced twice on this board in the last 24 hours. Weird.
And to all of the folks who say things like “It isn’t black people who are the problem; it’s black culture”… Well, what culture is that? Black peoples’ own culture was forcibly stripped from them. The culture they were forced to adopt was that of white Southerners.
