Yesterday we were shouted at over our wanting to be safe and not see misogyny in a space that is supposedly safe for women/transfems.

We did try to raise it with moderators there but they left it and the whole experience left us utterly confused and heartbroken. We truly do not understand why beings should be okay to use misogynistic language negatively purely because of their gender.

Nobody has ever given us a reason beyond "it's their gender so it's okay." Which doesn't seem like a valid reason to us as all it is doing is continuing the same violence that patriarchy and other systems of opression do.

It feels similar to girlbossing or other attempts to 'level' the playing field and missing entirely.

We are utterly tired of all the harm we see on a regular basis, lacklustre responses to it, and really bizare and unhelpful justifications or rebuttals beings come up with just so they can continue to use harmful words.

We guess we just do not get to be safe except in our own communities.

Didn't know this community existed, we'll absolutely maintain our transfemme activity here.

And yeah, the whole thing that happened in other communities, is really disappointing. It's a dubious word, lest they could've done is spoiler it as a "reclaimed slur" (nope, the user used the negative meaning 💀). Butttt noooo, let us throw our problems at these beings who raised the issue.

CW: Violent Idiom

lest they could’ve done is spoiler it as a “reclaimed slur”

It isn't reclaimed though, reclaiming a slur requires it be used positively or at least neutrally.

Using it negatively still isn't reclaiming.

We didn't see the word in the user's initial post btw. Did the user remove it?

and if it was used negatively, yeah that's fucked.

It's like, wow, such mental gymnastics.

It's like a brown being being discrimantory about other brown beings that they hate, by using brown slurs agaist them. What the fuck?

[relization]

OH FUCK IT'S THE POST TITLE 😟

It's in the title.

YUP!

Yuck. I hate when that word is used negatively. It should only be used positively or neutrally.

I do object a bit to the assertion that all i did was say it was fine because the post was a woman. I did try to add context from an intersectional perspective. And I've chosen to add more here.

I understand the argument that words hold power and that using words that carry bigoted power does in varying manners prop up that bigoted power. I think its worthwhile to examine this from an intersectional perspective.

Not every slur is equal in bigoted power structures. Not every speaker has equal power. The speaker, the audience, the context, the language, these things are all worth examining too. If you want to have a nuanced conversation about bigotry, about slurs, about power, all in the context of the word in question, you should be able to factor in all these things and consider them.

I do not ascribe to a black and white view of the world. Reality is a gradient. Social interactions exist on a gradient. Social class is an interconnected web of gradients. How social power moves and interacts with people is more than any one single factor.

In a supportive community for transfeminine people speaking to other transfeminine people, some degree of allowing someone to properly vent their feelings is necessary. I think there's a line to be walked around there and like ive said in some past discussions we have had, that line is not fixed and I am still thinking on exactly where it is.

All of this being said, you are absolutely welcome to raise your opinions on it. You did not say or do anything against the rules in my community. I think the comment insulting you (with ableist/bigoted language) crossed a line and have chosen to remove it. The way they responded to you was against the spirit of the community I run.

Ive also consulted with other moderators on this issue and tried to take all opinions into account, including yours. It is possible I may amend the rules of the community somewhat to better address situations like this. Your arguments have sparked thoughts in me.

That is fair, but if you did we think we did not see it because we blocked the community and that user, not you, but the other one.

Anyway, we will think on this but understand we don't do this because it is some kind of 'black and white' (though we prefer polarized to avoid the potential racial implications) view of the world, we're actually anarchists and see a lot in nuanced ways.

We are just genuinely hurt by all sorts of bigotry due to them being used against us, our friends etc but also, a lot of them are meaningless, they do not accurately explain what the problem is.

We get why beings do it, the viscerality of it, they just want to get the feelings out. We are just a lot more... careful about how we do that so that we do not confuse others nor harm them, or at least we try not to.

We wish others could try to be less harmful about how they communicate so we were not constantly on edge and feel like we won't take 8d6 psychic damage every time we open a post, read a comment or message etc. It's true, we could just block 90% of communities or so, but then we wonder what the point would be?

Thanks for your reply though, we appreciate it.

so, for context, i think OP are talking about this post: https://lem.lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/48640867

Is it not a slur when used in that context?

yeah but it's a slur because the person using it was angry, that's what makes it a slur. replacing the word by any other word would not make it any less insulting. it's not about the word-choice, but about the intent. and the intent was very much appropriate if you consider the whole context (2 week post history) IMO

Well, we disagree that it would be exactly the same, the b-slur is misogynistic (when used negatively). That's the whole point of it when used negatively, it is inherently related to gender, and thus misogynistic (when used negatively).

There is a lot of misogyny in english (and probably other languages) that is sadly normalised and we genuinely get upset whenever we see or hear it because both us and our friends have had it used against us/them a lot and to us, it merely reinforces the power structures in patriarchy, regardless of the gender(s) of the person/being(s) using them.

We do not care about the context of the story, we do not think any deserve misogynistic slurs regardless of what they have done.

We also do not think any deserve slurs in general either, but that's a conversation for another time.

Using an insult that does not stem from bigotry, is meh, but less worse.

Like "you stink"

instead of "you b-word" 💀