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[–]worried19 24 insightful - 1 fun24 insightful - 0 fun25 insightful - 1 fun -  (10 children)

They banned our small gender debate sub that I'd been a member of for over 3 years. That sub helped me several times when I was feeling suicidal. Fuck Reddit and fuck their attempts at censorship. We had a good sub, full of both trans and non-trans people. Yes, there was debate, but I feel like we were a community. Many of us liked each other. I had both trans and GC friends there.

R.I.P. r/GCDebatesQT. If anyone can set up a debate sub on Saidit, it would be appreciated. We're homeless right now.

[–]worried19 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

For anyone curious, a new debate sub has now been created:

https://saidit.net/s/GCdebatesQT

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (8 children)

That sub helped me several times when I was feeling suicidal.

And yet I was denied this same support because I did not fit the ideology enough, and it was not spoken up against enough to stop people like me from experiencing this.

Any female members are welcome at the alternative women's open discussion sub, though the rules are a bit different than GCdebatesQT. Also /s/feminism allows anyone to post and could probably facilitate open discussion until a new debate sub can be made.

[–]worried19 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

What was your name over there? We had people from a variety of viewpoints. I can't remember anyone being denied for being too GC or too QT.

Not doubting you at all, just curious. I really hope we can get a specific debate sub started here.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

GCdebatesQT was extremely strict about enforcing everything else in the "oppression hierarchy" except for trans stuff.

I was banned several times, and I don't remember all my usernames. I don't remember what it was for the first time, honestly, probably "homophobia" or "racism" or "antisemitism". A sulky TRA user who kept talking about how GCdQT was "self-harm" had been trying to get me banned iirc, and eventually succeeded. The most recent time it was for a comment on ellielie's (I forgot their username exactly, the mod) mod post about "antisemitism". I complained about it -- I did not use slurs, I did not say anything hateful, I just complained about it the same way people complain about TRAs -- and it was hidden and removed. Similar stuff happened on GC and G_C and ActualWomen.

Yeah, yeah, fine, whatever. "It's not the right place for me, if I don't believe in anti-racism and anti-anti-semitism and anti-homophobia-ism" to the same extent and in the same ways gencyn believes in anti-transphobia-ism. Hearing someone say how valuable those communities have been to them really drives home the point, though, about how much I was denied. I had always been more of a liberal-leaning person, but my experience was that "peak trans" was "peak" a lot more than just "trans", and it wasn't fair that I to self-censor about the legitimate stuff I'd had my eyes opened about. That "there's weird stuff in LGBT history and I don't know if I believe the official narrative" is considered unsayable. That "Jewish people sometimes abuse anti-semitism to suppress valid criticism" is considered unsayable. That the extent of the censorship wasn't even openly revealed to other participants. That everyone's anger is valid and beautiful and legitimate and good and powerful, but not mine. Not because I'm wrong, and not because I'm advocating hate against anyone, but rather because somebody who has control of the space wants to suppress certain ideas.

[–]worried19 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

I don't recall discussions about those topics at all, but you are right anything along those lines probably would have been quashed. I know they were strict about not allowing anti-feminists, MRAs, and other similar groups.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

You don't recall them because they were censored and you wouldn't have been able to see them. You don't recall ellielie's post about antisemitism? It was within the last year I think, it was a mod sticky post for a little while until another one replaced it.

That's the thing though -- what does enforcing one specific dogma about human sexual behavior have to do with feminism? Or protecting people from hate? What does only allowing positive discussion of Jewish people have to do with feminism? The smear is that "oh we're just removing people who promote hateful and anti-female ideologies" -- but that's the same kind of smear that just got all the GC stuff removed from reddit. I didn't do anything wrong, and I wasn't an "antifeminist" or "MRA" for trying to have an accurate impression of the world or for being angry if I thought things were being intentionally distorted.

[–]worried19 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

I don't recall that. It probably just wasn't on my radar. I prefer to debate gender issues in a feminist space. Those other topics are not something I'm comfortable with.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Those other topics are not something I'm comfortable with.

People would talk about race issues on GCdQT all the time though. "People sometimes use antisemitism as a shield against valid criticism" is a perfectly normal, natural, non-hateful response to someone bringing up the topic of antisemitism out of the blue themselves. And that's almost word-for-word what I was banned for. I don't think it's right.

If it were only about "only discussing gender in feminist spaces" then all of that conversation would have been removed as "off-topic," but that's not how it was handled.

It's the exact same MO as the TRA stuff that got GC banned.

(And I don't remember what you personally chose to engage with but I wasn't talking about you personally, I was talking about the sub. You weren't a mod iirc.)

[–]worried19 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Yeah, it's not really something I even feel comfortable discussing. So I think I'll wrap things up here.

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

People can engage with or not engage with whatever they like.

I'm not sure what "feeling uncomfortable" is supposed to mean here but it sounds like there's an implication that I'm evil or hateful or something. That's not fair and it's not right.

And I am just as much deserving of compassion when in need and attention when alerting to something wrong as anyone else is.