Published on 12, July, 2020
So another thread relating to trans rights has been locked under Rule 4 ‘Be Nice’ , but shouldn’t hatred directed at trans people be actually deleted? The thread was going really well with lots of trans, gender fluid and queer people supporting each other, but as usual the cis hets dive in to invalidate us. The mod response is not to target the prejudice but to lock the entire thread! This is wrong. Can we trans and queer and pride people on the spectrum not have a safe space here? I know the mods have a policy of non-deletion but this is wrong, were racist comments being made I’m sure they’d pounce on that pdq, but hate against trans people is unchallenged and left to stand. Apalling of you NAS!
I was afk and missed it being locked, but I have seen this happen before and tbh it isn't right that our spaces to talk get shut down just because others feel the need to come and disrespect those being supportive of eachother in the conversation. Trans folk on this forum are not failing to be nice just because we refuse to back down when being gaslit about our own experiences. There's nothing wrong with curious cis folk wanting to ask respectful questions in good faith but that isn't what is happening in the majority of these threads.The Mods are volunteers and there's a degree to which limitations can be expected BUT in a forum that claims to be a safespace where transphobia isn't allowed it's apparent that a professional mod team should be the core of those roles with the volunteers as support because in other forums this kind of thing would not be allowed to continue. We're either all expected to follow those rules or none of us are.
Who are you calling normal?! I take exception to that - I have never identified as normal even if I am straight! :)
I am also new to a lot of this terminology, but I can see that cis =/= straight, because gay people can be cis, cis is the opposite of trans as straight is the opposite of gay. (I am not sure if I am using gay correctly - as I understand it, the word can be used of either men or women, but gay seems to sometimes mean only men or why would there be both L and G in the acronym?) And there are some people not polarised to either end of both of those of course.
I agree that transphobia is not an accurate word, but it is being used in a similar way to homophobia which more generally means people attacking the other, which was presumed to arise from fear. As we tend to be literal, such inaccuracies annoy or confuse us, but I have to accept that most people use words inaccurately and enlarge my definition of the word to include majority use rather than only strictly accurate meaning!
As for "cluttering up an autism forum" with such discussions, it does seem that autists have a significantly greater likelihood of different gender identities than the general population, just as we also have a greater likelihood of digestive issues, yet nobody complains about the number of threads about digestive issues, even if it is not immediately obvious why an autism forum would have so many. So I think these discussions do belong here and people who don't like it can try to avoid those threads or try to gently understand and ask questions, although this can be difficult as we don't always come across well, and our tendency to bluntness can seem impolite especially to people who are understandably sensitive, in that even a gentle touch to an open wound can be painful.
I have never seen not being normal as = being abnormal or broken though, as Beeswarm Sam put it. My physical disability does make me feel broken, but not because of how I think others see it, but because of how it feels compared to how I felt before it happened to me. I would reserve the term abnormal for people who are not normal in a way which damages others, such as mass murderers. I am in several of the minority groups you list in an above post, such as cyclist and Christian, and agree that those can both lead to abuse, but are not what I would call abnormal. I think people who are in a minority which tends to be abused can become defensive as they have been hurt and threatened a lot, although the better response is to respond gently, but that is a difficult path which even us Christians whose book teaches us we must respond this way often fail at.
I sincerely hope nobody takes offence at anything I have written here, I have tried my best and apologise if I have failed or got anything wrong. I probably have, as I have before, but I am going to post anyway.
That's OK, I understand. Easy mistake to make. I did wonder if something like that had happened but didn't want to make assumptions! I wonder if one can't delete a post someone has replied to? It would have made my reply look crazy if you had anyway!
Apologies, I typed that shortly after waking up and to be honest I messed up. I started reading a post by I-Sperg, lost focus as I was still half asleep, and had scrolled too far without realising - into the last part of your post but thinking it was the back end of his. I’m very sorry for giving neither post full and focused concentration or understand and yet commenting anyway. I’m an idiot sometimes. I did try to delete just now what I said above but the forum won’t let me. Not sure why.
Confused by this response? I said I do not identify with normal. What is normal anyway? I think it's normal to have some traits which are majority traits and some which are minority traits - someone who was in the absolute middle on every trait, while technically being the very definition of normal, would to my mind be quite unusual! Although they would not appear so until it was realised... (and of course it would be culturally dependent, someone who was average in their own culture would stand out in a different culture.)
I never claimed I had any problem with the disambiguating term cis-het, I just said it was somewhat new to me and attempted to provide some clarity on how I understood it, while indicating I was open to being corrected if I was mistaken? I'm always happy to learn a new word!