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.
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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.
This article does a good job at explaining that Hogwarts Legacy is transphobic because some of the profits will be donated to anti-trans causes.
Rowling herself has implied that her royalty checks are indirect indicators of the popularity of her views on trans rights. She will be profiting off Hogwart’s Legacy, and at least part of that profit will likely go directly into the hands of those responsible for pushing the fight to roll back trans rights, causes Rowling has implied she donates to.
This article explains the antisemitic blood libel conspiracy theory that is a core part of the game’s plot.
Players can choose to align themselves with Ranrok, but the game explicitly paints this as an evil decision, aligning those players with the Dark wizard faction. On top of that, Ranrok and his Dark wizard allies in the Rookwood Gang have a plan to harness the power of this forbidden magic by abducting the player character (who is a teenager) and extracting and using their blood. This latter detail hews uncomfortably close to “blood libel” conspiracy theories which have been leveled at Jewish communities across the world for centuries, in which Jewish people were accused of abducting and murdering Christian children in order to use their blood in sacrilegious rituals.
I spent some time watching videos on the game’s plot. I couldn’t find a specific line in a cut scene where the villain explicitly says he wants to harvest the protagonist’s blood. But he does explicitly set some guys after the protagonist to try to kidnap them. They need the protagonist because they are the only one who can interface with the MacGuffins, ie plot devices. This MacGuffin interfacing seems to be hereditary in nature. Also, the villain’s powers, specifically the graphics, definitely seemed blood themed to me.
The game is transphobic and antisemitic. Arguing the game is not those things is transphobic and antisemitic. Whether or not the admin in question knew that is irrelevant.
No one is mandated to educate people about any minority group that they are a part of.
That being said, I wholeheartedly believe that it is in our interest as an LGBTQ+ community to educate people when an opportunity arises. So much hate and bigotry is derived from ignorance. The more we can do to educate people about transphobia the safer we and the people we care about will be irl.
Ada is going out of her way to talk to the admin in question which she does not need to do, but I am glad that she is. She would be perfectly justified in defederating the instance without further discussion. Making a safe space for trans people means defederating from instances that espouse transphobia. By defederating, users on blåhaj zone will not see what this admin’s posts or comments, regardless of where the posts or comments are made.
This is what the post in question looks like if your lemmy account is on blåhaj.
https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7199610
Most of the comments are not visible because we are defederated from Hexbear.
I’m really not a fan of how Hexbear users handled this. I am also not a fan of blåhaj being the admin’s trans best friend. Despite that, I think this comment from the admin is relevant so I’m linking it here.
https://programming.dev/comment/6173847
I get the sense that this admin is engaging in transphobia and antisemitism because of their ignorance involving the game. I hope that in talking to the admin, Ada will be able to explain the error in the admin’s position. Hopefully the admin will correct their position going forward and we can continue to federate with their instance. But I think that in the absence of that hypothetical success it makes sense to defederate.
It took me a bit to think about it, but it’s good that we take a proactive position on combating transphobia. Tolerating intolerance for the convenience it might bring, in not having to make multiple accounts or having more perceived allies, really doesn’t do us any favors in the long run. If we don’t stand up for ourselves we are only giving cover for transphobes to maneuver covertly in our online space. Rowling is a terf. Hogwarts Legacy funds her terf causes. We don’t need blåhaj to be connected to instances that fail to understand that. The point is to have an instance that is a safe space for trans people and more broadly LGBTQ+ people.
I’m adding this at the end, because this shouldn’t matter, but I think some people think it does. I am trans. I am ethnically jewish.
So everyone involved seems to agree that transphobia is bad, but the dude had an idiotic notion of what constituted transphobia.
I feel that if we are in the business of defederating anyone who fails a purity test then lemmy will be quite small indeed.
I will defederate from any instance with admins that excuse transphobia. If that makes our part of the Fediverse quite small, that sucks, but it is what it is. I moved here to get away from social media that won’t take action on transphobia. I’m not suddenly going to decide it’s ok if it means we get more traffic.
[I got a bot to automatically delete all my comments over 1 month old so you can’t see this comment anymore]
Hey, as a Jew to a trans person, I don’t make call outs on what is and isn’t transphobic. I rely on your community when I think I’m seeing it since as the affected individuals y’all are the experts.
Do me a favor, give us the same respect about antisemitism. I’m getting awfully tired of seeing people throw that word around and as a Jew it’s fucking scary that it’s losing its meaning.
Thanks
You and I are both Jews. It’s true that some people are using the phrase “antisemitism” in a way that promotes their own interests instead of as a warning of bigotry, but that isn’t the case here. JK Rowling and her works are antisemitic and promote vile stereotypes of not just Jews but other minority groups as well.
Rowling is a bigot and her works should be forgotten.
A racist, a transphobe and an antisemite walk into a bar. The bartender looks up and says “aren’t you that girl who wrote harry potter??”
If I cut out everyone in my life that is 99% of the time a staunch ally, but still eats at Chick-Fil-A, my life would be very, very empty. No one is ever going to be a perfect ally / comrade, even queer people. I feel like it’s especially telling that the person got so heated because they want to be an ally and don’t want people to abandon them because they played a single stupid fucking game. Especially because there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism, it’s easy to death-of-the-author JKR without realizing the direct transphobia in the game. A lot of the direct transphobia in Hogwarts Legacy isn’t obvious (like misgendering the token trans in the game files) and most people don’t know about it. Does that suck? Yeah. But that doesn’t mean those people are transphobes or bad faith actors.
I get that we need to have a sharp eye to make sure bad faith actors don’t fly under the radar, but false positives do a lot of harm too. I really feel like this came down more to Hexbear doing what Hexbear does and setting the entire thread on fire than it points to transphobia on the programming.dev admin’s side. Of course people are going to get stupid when you’re getting insulted, flamed, and spammed with stupid-ass emoji. If they’re willing to defed from Hexbear and acknowledge the direct transphobia in the game, that would go a long way.
This isn’t that.
This is the lead (cis) admin of a Fediverse instance telling trans people that a Potter game is “the opposite of transphobic” and then arguing with trans folk about it, diminishing the relevance of their pronouns as a side issue, and calling trans folk “insane” for having an issue with the game.
The hexbear pile-on clearly got to them, but that’s not an excuse for the other behaviour. I need to know that other admins will deal with transphobia even when it’s hard, not that they’ll resort to it when they’re frustrated.
this is the way i learn that a mid game like hogwarts legacy won best steam deck game? like how… do they know baldur’s gate 3 exists?
BG3 won GOTY and you couldn’t vote the same game for multiple categories.
No one took the voting seriously and it was full of trolling. Guess what won the award for most innovative gameplay?
