this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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As far as I know the original subreddit this com came from was very trans, to the point where I, as a cis straight ally, was nervous that I was somehow not supposed to be in it. And I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one.
So I'm witchu
I must have good filters or something, because I don't think I've noticed any TP / TERFing in here. Sad.
(of course i follow from a mastodon account so i probably miss a lot of stuff)
Just so you know, before I say anything, I am happy that you've joined this community. I don't want anything I say to seem like I'm discouraging you from participating. The overall point of what I'm about to say is that this should be a trans community. I don't want you to feel uncomfortable because you don't know if you're allowed, but at the same time I wish that non-queer people as a group had to have a moment of empathy of "oh this place isn't for me". It's a similar fear to how trans people feel in men's and women's spaces
196 is extremely trans oriented at this point, to the point that I'd consider it a borderline trans community. I like that it isn't fully trans though. You know how often cis people have a monopoly on the conversation on a distributed community? There's nothing necessarily wrong with cis people having that control, but why can't trans people have that same space? Other people are allowed of course, but if we have to enter a separate reality for other people's communities, other people should have to enter ours. There's no way for us to force an equal medium, the best way we can enforce that is by wanting empathetic but easy experiences for other.
WADR, that's really not at all been true.
https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/z1kzd6/r196_is_inclusive_you_dont_need_to_feel_excluded/
https://www.reddit.com/r/196/comments/y6v4kf/the_196_demographic_survey_which_about_6000/
You realize trans people are only 1 percent of the population normally right? Trans women representing 15 percent of the group is quite a large demographic.
Edit: sorry this sounds condescending, didn't mean to make it so. Just explaining that statistically, there are a ton of trans people on here.
I guess I don't know why you need to bring this up.
I'm fully aware this forum has a lot of trans folks in it. And I am happy to embrace that. But up till now there hasn't been any "please no cis folks" pressure in it, either.
It's not like 196 started out as a trans space. And there are definitely a lot of places that were. And I would tread very lightly in them if at all.
Is it even a bad thing for trans and cis to mix and enjoy things together? Isn't that, like, positive?
Sheesh.
It's not "no cis folks" it's asking to recognize that this is a trans space, on an explicitly trans Lemmy instance. Cis people can participate here the same way trans people can interact with cis spaces. If we want to enjoy it whatsoever, we just have to accept a certain level of shittiness to conform to those social standards. I'm saying that in a space where there are 30x more trans people than average, also on a dedicated trans server, yeah this is an explicitly trans space at this point. You may not like that, but I hate how Lemmy.world is pretty much entirely dominated by cis people, it is what it is.
Cis people can come here, they can even make their case for things they believe. People of different perspectives add to communities. Monoculture is never good. However, there needs to be some empathy in the way we feel like we're walking on eggshells anytime we're not talking to other trans people. We both feel like outsiders in the same way, and I don't necessarily like that, but I also don't think there's any way to actually explain that in a truly applicable way. Lived experience goes further for empathy than anything, yk?
I would be sad if trans folks stopped communicating naturally in this space because in my opinion that's the main reason that makes the space worth being in.