Updated - programming.dev defederation on hold

Update: In light of the programming.dev update here https://programming.dev/post/8399272, the defederation is no longer going ahead.

However, something more needs to be said. Even here on Blahaj, some of our users took issue with the choice to defederate over this issue.

So I would like to give some background and context.

Blahaj Zone exists, because both Kaity and I left mainstream social media to escape transphobia. Reddit, with its lackluster approach to fighting transphobia, and twitter, with its outright celebration of transphobia pushed us here, to the fediverse, and to create Blahaj Zone and Blahaj Lemmy.

To that end, we will continue to treat transphobia seriously. Our goal is to create a space where gender diverse folk can exist and let our defenses down a little, where we don't have to worry about getting dragged in to an argument with a transphobe, or a bad faith actor "just asking questions".

If you are looking for a more reddit like experience, where in the interest of increased engagement, we let low level transphobia slide, and push responsibility for dealing with it on to community mods and individual users, then you will likely not be happy with blahaj going forward. If you choose to stay here, understand that we may defederate again in the future over similar issues.

The choice is yours.

======

It has recently been brought to my attention that the lead admin of programming.dev is engaging in ongoing transphobia.

You can see the conversation in question here https://programming.dev/comment/6131539

For that reason we will be defederating from programming.dev in 48 hours.

There are only three communities on that instance used by small number of our users, so this won't have a big impact, but if you are one of those users, you will need to use an alt account on another instance if you wish to access the communities.

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243 comments

This alone doesn't seem like something worth defederating over. It seems like they just got baited hard by Hexbear. Did the comment chain get censored? It doesn't seem like there's much active transphobia here, just ignorance of the issues at worst.
From my cursory read, the only thing that reads as actually transphobic to me is when they say "And getting offended by it really isn’t helping your case here." in response to someone getting mad at being referred to as "they", and that itself was due to technical issues and not transphobia.
Frankly, one angry snapback and a slap fight with Hexbear doesn't seem worth defederating over. I'm all for defederating bigots, but I don't want hapless allies getting caught in the crossfire.
- Frankly, one angry snapback and a slap fight with Hexbear doesn’t seem worth defederating over.
  I have to agree.
  The bulk of Hexbear's userbase actively chooses to interact with others in the fediverse in antisocial ways, finding any excuse to be offended and generally make argumentative nuisances of themselves. This concerns us because they wrap themselves in trans-colored flags.
  I'm tired of Hexbear users stomping around Lemmy being jerks to everyone in the name of being trans. And I don't want us, or this instance, to suffer for it.
- but I don't want hapless allies getting caught in the crossfire.
  Especially not for the sake of hexbear
  
  But the admin here really likes Hexbear and has expressed the intention of federating with them the moment instance level blocking works
  Honestly this whole thing has me window shopping for another instance due to our admin again siding with Hexbear
  
  expressed the intention of federating with them the moment instance level blocking works
  Ah so I take it they don't believe the spam and hostility concerns about Hexbear users are legitimate, if they did their solution to the problem wouldn't be "just block them lol", it would be to keep Hexbear Censured. Though it might anyway, since the Instance blocking doesn't seem like it'll ever work the way anyone thinks/wants it to:
  Users can now block instances. Similar to community blocks, it means that any posts from communities which are hosted on that instance are hidden. However the block doesn’t affect users from the blocked instance, their posts and comments can still be seen normally in other communities.
  Siding with Hexbear is a red flag, considering the ammount of problems they cause from spamming to the pro-genocide propaganda they push out.
  
  Oh no they see the spam and bullying behavior (they've even been on the receiving end of it) they don't see it as a problem because they're a "trans positive instance".
  And the politics of the Hexbears is something they're seemingly willing to overlook in the name of keeping trans positive communities together.
  Yeah, the admin ain't great and the only reason I'm still hear is because the overlap in communities I want to be federated with and one's I don't want to be federated with currently align enough. As long as Hexbear stays defederated (and I believe Lemmygrad (almost as bad as Hexbear) is as well but IDK). But defederating with programming.dev is a big deal IMO.
  I'm curious though how our admin found out about that one thread with the admin of programming.dev. Looking in the thread I didn't see them, but I did see a bunch of Hexbears. My guess is Hexbear in their dog piling decided to inform our admin (probably en masse) about the thread once it completely went to shit to drive a wedge to isolate our community further. Hell that thread was 2 days ago and this announcement came out only a few hours ago.
  
  Oh no they see the spam and bullying behavior (they’ve even been on the receiving end of it) they don’t see it as a problem because they’re a “trans positive instance”.
  And the politics of the Hexbears is something they’re seemingly willing to overlook in the name of keeping trans positive communities together.
  Yeah that's really weird because hexbear often behaves in a way that paints trans people in a bad light, including the fact that they often push for certain ideologies and philosophies that are directly harmful to trans people. As well as certain philosophies that hurt everyone in general like being pro-genocide. How are they in any way a good representation of this community or the people in it, and how is it good for this community to have such destructive people tearing the place up?
  
  I haven't the foggiest idea how the admin here justifies their support in the face of what Hexbear supports politically
  Edit: Clarification and also: I'm not sure if you were here around the time Hexbear got defederated but the threads here on that are pretty damning. In the end Hexbear defederated from us first before our admin did.
  
  Hello! I just read this Conversation and just wanted to say you can argue very well! Back to blahaj-Lurker-mode.
  
  Lemmygrad is a huge step up over hexbear as far as toxicity is concerned, unless you're an outright fascist in which case they will magdump. It's just hard to see the difference in quality because the two instances have so much overlap when it comes to thread participation.
  
  I’ve never gotten into a tiff with a lemmygrad user in a generic community. They have their convictions, but they don’t roam /all spoiling for a fight.
  The hexbears on the other hand…
  
  If you want to see something funny, sometimes HB users will try to pick fights with lemmygrad users and it just splashes right off of them.
  
  I’m curious though how our admin found out about that one thread with the admin of programming.dev. Looking in the thread I didn’t see them, but I did see a bunch of Hexbears. My guess is Hexbear in their dog piling decided to inform our admin (probably en masse) about the thread once it completely went to shit to drive a wedge to isolate our community further. Hell that thread was 2 days ago and this announcement came out only a few hours ago.
  A user asked about it on /c/mtf.
  btw you can just look at the hexbear com that is supposedly their "dog piling" community. It's totally free to look at if you'd believe it. /c/the_dunk_tank. The only time this topic was addressed there was 4 days ago when the original topic was still actively going on. I can guarantee you there's no grand conspiracy about isolating blahaj lmfao.
  Also i have no idea what universe you live in where Ada had not preferred to cater to /c/196 despite their shit stirring, rather than work with hexbear to keep the biggest trans communities together.
  
  A blahaj poster asked about it on /c/mtf.
  No, unless there was a different post that was deleted, it looks like a Hexbear user's alt did. https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7367407
  It's her only post, on an account that was created 4 days ago. It's not some grand conspiracy by any means, but calling her a blahaj poster is a stretch.
  
  That's my bad I thought someone else had posted it, but it's still a trans user asking in a trans com. I think it's a valid thing to poll the community on.
  
  I'll very sadly and reluctantly have to do the same, if that happens - and whilst I'm not saying you're wrong, I've not seen @Ada say anything along those lines, certainly not officially.
  I do understand wanting trans-positive instances to stick together but I do feel like there is a line and that 'the enemy of my enemy' is not automatically my friend. Or, to put it another way, trans (or disabled, or gay or black or whomever) individuals are just as capable of being shitty people as anyone else and if there's a whole instance that is largely made up of shitty individuals only capable of expressing themselves with fury and hate, the fact they are supportive of or part of minority groups is not enough to make me want to share space with them or be subjected to their methods.
- Yeah I agree, this definately does seem like a knee jerk reaction which ultimately does more harm than good.

243 comments