This is good advice. But I also wouldn't downplay the actual hatred of LGBTQ+ people either. For many conservatives, the identity politics are a distraction to mask their real goal of putting more money into wealthy pockets. But for a very large contingent of conservatives, it really is all about eradicating LGBTQ+ people.
For those of us not in the US, I think this also highlights the real need to loosen the US's stranglehold on the Internet at large. The US has disproportionate power to control content on the Internet as a whole, because so many services and so much infrastructure resides there.
This highlights the importance of building redundant services elsewhere in the world, and moving content outside the US in general. So if the US tries to remove LGBTQ+ content in some cultural crusade, you laugh at them. Make them firewall it, like China, if they don't like it.
I always found it extremely strange that a nation which enjoys true representative democracy has locked itself in a two-party system.
That's because the US doesn't enjoy a true representative democracy at all. The US electoral system is awful.
First of all it's a First-Past-The-Post plurality voting system. Widely regarded as pretty much the worst "reasonable" voting system around. It is not very representative, it makes voters vote strategically, and it is basically guaranteed that it will devolve into a two-party system.
Then on top of that they have the Electoral College, which takes an already non-representative system, and makes some people's votes worth more than others.
And then on top of that they have legalised bribery in the form of "lobbying".
If the Rs get to this point, there won't be another election. It is already in the Republican playbook to undermine democracy to remain in power. That's why they gerrymander so aggressively, that's why they make it more difficult to vote in areas that vote against them. That's also why they talk about changing how Electoral College electors are chosen and have to vote.
The Republicans are gradually working towards the tipping point where they never have to face another election.
After the network showed a clip of a young conservative activist saying that climate change was the number one issue for young voters, Fox News moderator Martha MacCallum asked for a show of hands in response to her question, “Do you believe human behavior is causing climate change?”...
I think we have to rapidly come to terms with the fact that, politically, we are never going to adequately address climate change before it is too late. Conservatives will dig in their heels and slow the process to a near-standstill, and liberal democratic institutions will allow it to happen.
Climate change will be addressed by either a deus-ex-machina-like technological breakthrough, or by means outside of electoral politics.
Trust me, I realise... I mention a technological breakthrough not because I think it's likely or a good idea to expect, it's not and it isn't. It's a terribly stupid "solution" to bet on.
But no actual, plausible solution will actually be allowed. At least not until tremendous damage has already been done.
A U.S. judge has blocked the state of Georgia from enforcing a new Republican-backed law that bars doctors from providing hormone replacement therapy to treat gender dysphoria in transgender children under age 18....
On the other hand it's kinda funny to see when someone has clearly trawled your profile and reduced everything based on reading a conversation from a week ago.
But that doesn't mean you have to feel guilty. That's, usually at least, not what people are asking for either. Guilt isn't helpful.
Being aware of the social systems we live under, the power structures those systems create, and the blind spots we might have. That's what's being asked for.
You will be no better than the people you'll fight against. I've seen it happen on every pro-men subreddit, and if this place isn't aggressively moderated to dispel hopelessness, negativity, and prejudice, it'll just turn into hate....
I just did. And honestly it doesn't leave me hopeful for this space. Boosted comments in that thread overly generalise feminism and even place blame on feminism as a whole for issues that men face. Comments saying that feminism is an egalitarian movement are reduced.
Men's advocacy is important. There are perspectives on issues that men offer that other genders cannot, the same way there are perspectives that women can offer but other genders cannot. And not all feminist advocacy is created equal, some of it is not great. But the generalised blame game is precisely the sort of tribalistic thinking that so often leads men's advocacy spaces into misogyny, where women's advocacy is treated as an infringement on men.
Hi! 👋 Here's our #introduction. We're BBC Research & Development; we explore and test new technology to discover how the BBC can best make use of it in the future. For 100 years our engineers have been at the forefront of developments in broadcasting. We're now researching how everyone could get TV & radio via the internet...
A small group of people were offended by a joke that unintentionally came across transphobic, and as a result this persons account was blacklisted. Even after getting the account reinstated, there were lasting complications with the state of the account (these probably technical issues) and the account was basically lost for...
The problem is that the well has been poisoned. Simple fact is that whenever someone says "I just have concerns", nine-out-of-ten times, they're just trolling you.
And I've been involved in this conversation for years, on a couple of different forums, trying to explain things that trans folks go through. And to this day I still do my best to always give people the benefit of the doubt if they seem sincere.
But I'm not at all exaggerating when I say 9/10 times it's just someone JAQing off, and within a few posts they're accusing trans people of being a danger to women or children.
This is combined with the fact that a lot of the "reasonable" compromises cisgender people come up with, just aren't at all reasonable from the perspective of the transgender people they would affect. The compromises usually involve denying life-saving medical care, or involve basically accepting being ostracised from public life.
Finally, cisgender people just massively outnumber transgender people. So while for any one cisgender person, this might be the first time they've ever asked anything about the topic, the trans person has likely been asked dozens if not hundreds of times. Many of which were in bad faith.
So a lot of trans people have checked out. For their own mental health.
Referring to oneself as a slur is usually not viewed the same way as referring to someone else with a slur. Doubly so if one doesn't belong to the group the slur targets.
Let's do this 💪 ( reddthat.com )
The GOP has a master plan to criminalize LGBTQ people ( www.damemagazine.com )
Some quotes:...
The Fox GOP debate melted down when the word “climate” was mentioned ( www.motherjones.com )
After the network showed a clip of a young conservative activist saying that climate change was the number one issue for young voters, Fox News moderator Martha MacCallum asked for a show of hands in response to her question, “Do you believe human behavior is causing climate change?”...
US judge blocks Georgia ban on treatment for transgender youth ( www.reuters.com )
A U.S. judge has blocked the state of Georgia from enforcing a new Republican-backed law that bars doctors from providing hormone replacement therapy to treat gender dysphoria in transgender children under age 18....
When you block a user on kbin and they're so butthurt, they ban you from their "magazines." ( media.kbin.social )
I'm a trans man. I didn't realize how broken men are ( newsweek.com )
Please don't let this turn into an anti-feminist, misogynistic, right-wing, tribal community ( kbin.social )
You will be no better than the people you'll fight against. I've seen it happen on every pro-men subreddit, and if this place isn't aggressively moderated to dispel hopelessness, negativity, and prejudice, it'll just turn into hate....
BBC Launches A Mastodon Instance ( social.bbc )
Hi! 👋 Here's our #introduction. We're BBC Research & Development; we explore and test new technology to discover how the BBC can best make use of it in the future. For 100 years our engineers have been at the forefront of developments in broadcasting. We're now researching how everyone could get TV & radio via the internet...
An interesting case of moderation in the fediverse ( blog.ownlifeful.com )
A small group of people were offended by a joke that unintentionally came across transphobic, and as a result this persons account was blacklisted. Even after getting the account reinstated, there were lasting complications with the state of the account (these probably technical issues) and the account was basically lost for...