ok. go with your approach as long as you can keep it up, if you like. my lesson learned is that it’s no longer productive for me to visit this thread, and it’s time for me to move on, but i hope others still are able to get something good from it. see you all elsewhere in the forum!
13 Likes
I say all of this with a great deal of respect for you and I don’t want it to come off any other way. I’ve been really hesitant to comment on this situation at all since I don’t want to start anything unnecessary but I hope that I can add something to this conversation that might be found helpful.
At this point this discussion has long stopped being constructive in any way or form, and is being unnecessarily divisive. I feel like, as a community this topic has been resolved, staff have made a final decision and have given what I see as an honest and sincere apology, they have updated community guidelines and the moderator thread has been closed. I understand that this issue might not be resolved for you since this has personally effected you in ways I, as a cis person couldn’t understand. But if you truly want a resolution, and a shared understanding, starting out with asking for a bullet-point list of everything the staff did wrong isn’t how you do it. I get you are frustrated, as there is a lot to be angry about but being amicable, even if you feel like the situation doesn’t warrant being amicable is the best way to actually get a conclusion you would like to see from a situation like this.
I’d love nothing more than to be able to get back to sharing fun stories and stuff but I literally cannot do that until the paid iNaturalist staff prove that I’m actually welcome here, and that they will have the backs of other marginalized people in the future
From what I’ve read, I feel like this incident as a whole has only further shown how much this community cares about the many great LGBTQ+ people in this space, and I hope that in the future people will be just as quick to criticise bigotry, intentional or not with the politeness and respect that I have seen multiple people use on this thread and others. I’m pretty confident saying you are welcome here, and I’m pretty sure even those whose words started this would say that.
My biggest issue with all of this is how much people from both sides, moderators included attribute malice to each others words and actions. From what i’ve seen, no one here meant to hurt you or anyone else, but a lot of people made mistakes, and it’s on all of us to forgive and move forward. It is much easier to believe that a small team of staff where overwhelmed by an inflammed situation and poorly chose which messages to hide and which message not to, and that you and others made important and valuable comments about this to the community, staff, and moderators and were understandable upset by it, rather than attribute malice to everyone’s actions.
I hope we can all move on to celebrating this community, and sharing further actions in the future that could be done to prevent future incidents like this. Remember that we are in a community that is very diverse, and that includes ages and backgrounds, and many people on iNaturalist are new to many aspects of pronouns and the like. But everyone that I’ve met on iNaturalist so far has been well-meaning in their words and actions.
14 Likes
I can empathise with the difficulty of this conversation. It isn’t easy. It won’t be easy.
It’s expecting people to dive into themselves and learn to be better, to do better. That comes with a lot of self-improvement wherein it is realised how one has harmed & hurt others.
The easy thing to do is to shut it down, or to leave to avoid those feelings of learning you (general you) harmed another human.
But everyone who does so, please recognise, you can only do that because of your privledge.
…A privledge we don’t have. Which is why we are still here, still showing up, still educating, still talking.
There are many excellent articles written about this phenomenon by bipoc/bipogm folk. I encourage people to do some digging and learn more.
And. this discussion and others can co-occur. There is nothing preventing anyone from posting about a “happy lgbtq” thing here. We can celebrate that while we also strive for betterment.
12 Likes
Here’s a video I think many people here could benefit from watching:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hcnep5QdSA&ab_channel=FeministFrequency
1 Like
I disagree with this. I’m seeing people sharing their perspectives and experiences and they’re not always happy or easy ones. If you feel it’s
there’s a reason for that. I don’t think anybody is happy with that division either. I think everybody wishes there was none. But that is how things are in people’s day to day lives and iNaturalist is part of a lot of our day to day lives. iNaturalist is not immune to these types of issues and people should not push how they feel aside.
I think staff wants to make things right and they should know if people don’t feel that they’ve quite done that yet. I think that’s better than pretending everybody is happy and satisfied with the outcome and then letting more tension build and resentment grow. That’s another thing nobody wants.
9 Likes
I just wish we could create a more happy space. I never like conflict and I find tense conversations hard to navigate so I guess that’s why I feel like it’s stopped being constructive or useful, but I get that tense conversations need to be had nonetheless.
3 Likes
This; so much this. I think nonbinary-naturalist said it too. The reason we are still here, still trying, is because of the glimmers of hope and believing still - after all this - in goodness of people especially when they listen, learn, and then do better. And that process is never easy, for anyone.
(Like, heck, i was raised super conservative christian, racist undertones, hatred of lgbtq folk outright, 7-day-creationist even! - to hitting uni and meeting friends and learning who they were and learning…oh…these people are not helldemons…wtf? And then learning about myself as well…so I get it xD I’ve worked through a TON of these things and feelings and I’m a better person for it, and I’m still learning. It does get easier, especially when you learn to view it as improvement of self, which is really, all it is, and stop feeling like ya have to defend yourself. People f**k up, it’s life, listen to who you hurt, learn better, do better, move on. No shame, only growth)
9 Likes
Unfortunately, aversion to conflict never helps minorities. Progress is uncomfortable sometimes and thats okay. Often when systemic issues are called out, folk bristle, because they feel like its a personal attack - but its not.
The responsible thing to do when you (general you) feel this way is to examine why it makes you feel this way, in order to help unlearn your own biases. None of us are perfect, all of us have prejudices and habits that can be problematic, and that means we might occasionally have to go through some self reflection.
I havent had a chance to watch this video yet but this creator always has good takes IMHO, and while it seems like its more focused on racism, I’d be willing to bet it hits some of the same points https://youtu.be/-1TL9id26Ec
(Also dropping it because hey, support trans creators :D)
13 Likes
I agree. It really bothers me when companies, orgs, or what have you decide they want to look LGBTQ* friendly without doing anything that might require an effort. Trying to understand where minorities are coming from can be hard if you haven’t experienced this, but it’s necessary.
Forced positivity, “but both sides…” and conflict avoidance are NOT universally helpful. There are plenty of situations where that means giving bad behaviour a pass while trying to share some of the blame with people who are being poorly for no reason.
There was literally a whole thread about the staff’s moderation decisions. People tried to explain why they had a problem with those decisions but weren’t really listened to. I don’t know what difference it would make to have one user message the staff to state things that have already been stated multiple times and in different ways.
I also don’t get the claims about people being rude and the like. Maybe I’ve missed something, but it sounds like people are exasperated only after many good faith efforts to explain the issues at hand and educate others. Talking to a brick wall IS exhausting and I don’t blame people for feeling this way.
Maybe instead of being upset that trans users and their allies are frustrated by this, people’s effort would be better channeled into trying to understand WHY people are upset and where they’re coming from.
I just caught up with things and I’m frankly disappointed by what I saw in the other thread.
9 Likes
I couldn’t have said this better.
5 Likes
holy crap literally everyone here need to watch this video essay. It is 2 hours and 20 minutes long and you need to make the time to watch it. I don’t care how busy your shedule is. Make the time.
Watch this video. All of you. I cannot even summarize it. It talks about racism, and how all the crap being weaponized against trans people right now has been used from the start to oppress people. Racism and transmisia are interconnected and cannot be separated, and goes in depth about all of the ways fascism invents to harm people.
@carrieseltzer @tiwane @kueda and whatever the 4th person’s username is. Next time you all have a meeting? Watch this video. Tell the people at the California Academy of Sciences they also need to watch this video. You want to help the trans community? Watch this video, all two hours and twenty minutes of it, and you’ll be taking a giant step in the right direction.
Edit: I am so, so, SO Serious about this. Everyone here needs to watch this video, especially if you aren’t trans.
5 Likes
I have no particular aversion to conflict… but the variegated experiences of my now long life have taught me that open conflict can often be counterproductive, producing the exact opposite of the desired effect. Human society is complex. There are a thousand and more ways people can be labelled and separated into often arbitrary groups, ten thousand direct and indirect ways in which people in those groups can be discriminated against. Gender identity is obviously important, then there is race, or skin colour, or religion… but the list could continue in unimaginable and fluctuating ways. To counteract discrimination, conflict may sometimes be essential, but it can also become a habit, even in times, places and situations where it may not be the most effective way to foster comprehension and could actually reinforce the very same extreme positions that led to the real or perceived discrimination in the first place.
I feel very strongly that an albeit virtual place such as iNat has enormous potential for overcoming preconceptions and discrimination and creating a real sense of community… but conflict is not the way. Please, please don’t get me wrong, but when I come here, I really don’t care what gender you all are, or your race, or what colour your skin is, or how you worship this or that god. What’s important is that you’re all people united (the key word) by a love for and interest in nature. That, at least here, should be a sound and stable foundation on which to build mutual comprehension and respect for each one of us as a whole and multi-faceted person, not in relation to particular labels either we or society adopt to define one aspect of our being.
2 Likes
As it’s been pointed out in many, many replies above: This is not “conflict for conflicts sake” : this is about learning and progressing and making sure that this is and remains a space where queer people can interact with each other freely. If you missed it, the original start of the “conflict” as you say, was someone coming here, to the LGBTQ thread and purposefully misgendering a trans user who was speaking about its experiences; heck, Nonbinary-Naturalist is the one who revived the thread in the first place to spread cheer, positivity, and resources before Pride month, only to be misgendered, and have staff decide that keeping the posts up and visible for all to see was appropritate–
–the entire point of this ““conflict”” is that we, the queer people who are targeted every day with these things, still took the time and emotional energy to continue pushing back against the passivism and sending articles and links to video essays about why misgendering is harmful, and eventually the original poster took the posts down, but it still took this long just to get an official apology posted, but even so the ‘apology’ in question just retroactively justified forum staff’s previous decisions instead of actually acknowledging what the original problem was-- that they refused to listen to the marginaized groups who were being targeted, let alone the marginalized, disabled, individual who was being targeted with these posts.
There’s no “conflict” going on in this thread, this is literally marginalized queer people who actually want the inaturalist forums and inaturalist community as a whole to actually be a safe and accepting place for queer users, and that includes understanding exactly what the original problem was, which the official apology and subsequent editing of the forum guidelines shows there is not.
There’s already been positive steps taken by the forum staff, and for that I am greatful, and hopeful that they will be more open and accepting of learning exactly why their decisions -plural- were actively harmful to the queer community here, as you can see discussed at length in the moderation thread.
There is literally no other way for overcoming preconceptions and discrimination except for talking about it and pushing back against those preconceptions, which is what we are doing here
Pretending the problem doesn’t exist only hurts marginalized communities, and if we thought there was no hope then literally this thread would be a ghost town, because we all would have left long ago-- but I believe in the Inaturalist cause and ethos, and I want the forums to be able to live up to that dream, and that means actual education and resources and talking about it, not just shrugging and pretending it never happened, which just allows it to happen again in the future.
10 Likes
And not just Queer users, all marginalized people. The deep-rooted issues on display here mean that unless this is actually solved the right way, more already vulnerable people will be hurt next time. Maybe it won’t be trans people, or Queer people, but it’ll be disabled people facing ableism, or people of color facing racism. None of the responses from the paid staff show they understand how and why bigotry is wrong, and that just guarentees they’re going to be harming the most vulnerable members of their community unless they actually put in the effort to do better.
And as I said in my original response:
This is not the kind of behavior that people who have their community’s best interest at heart would do. This is the behavior of people who still think they’re right even as they claim they know they were wrong.
If this doesn’t get fixed, more people will be hurt next time. This issue goes far beyond just the Queer community, it impacts all marginalized people who should be able to feel safe here.
3 Likes
I dont feel like repeating myself. So I’m just going to link to this relevent MLK excerpt
7 Likes
This is all very nice, but just because you don’t make distinctions between people, it doesn’t mean nobody else does. Unfortunately many people don’t think like this and are prejudiced or bigoted out of ignorance or malice.
I haven’t seen anyone here trying to create conflict just for fun, people are simply asking for some basic respect and for iNat to be a place where they can nerd out about nature without having to face issues they already faces in other aspects of their lives.
Avoiding conflict at all costs isn’t always a solution, especially when it enables people to get away with poor behaviour while people on the receiving end of that behaviour have to keep quiet and not “rock the boat”.
If you genuinely believe in everyone being treated equally, consider why it is that you’re expecting people from minorities to just take the disrespect and do nothing about it. That’s not equal treatment.
9 Likes
I feel like this thread has hit a dead end. People who want to ignore what others are saying and double down are just doing that. I can’t even tell whether many of the posts are coming from straight cis people who have decided this thread is for them or whether they’re coming from LGBQ users who want the “T” to indeed be silent. Either way it’s very sad, trans people have the right to be here and be respected like everyone else without having to deal with misgendering and giving whole lectures on why it’s bad.
4 Likes
Seriously. There is nothing “divisive” about oppressed people asking for bare minimum respect.
If these people really wanted to celebrate the community, then they would be helping make sure that all members of the community receive at the very least, bare minimum respect, rather than telling us we’re causing conflict for no reason.
Especially from cis and straight people who will literally lose nothing if the transmisia continues.
4 Likes
Do you not see all the trans people here explaining that no, the issue has not been resolved? Have you read any of the posts we’ve made?
Watch this video and then come back.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1TL9id26Ec&feature=youtu.be
1 Like
Did you read any of our posts?
Edit: And once again, there’s nothing stopping anyone who wants to from talking about other things. But all you seem to want to do is stop us from talking about the bigotry that impacts us on iNaturalist. It seems to me that if you wanted to get “back on topic” as you say you’d be doing so yourself, rather than continuing to try and silence minorities when we speak up about bigotry we are facing from iNaturalist itself.
If you don’t understand how iNaturalist staff silencing and retaliating against minorities is pertinent to the experience of being Queer on iNaturalist and in other scientific areas, then you don’t need to be commenting in the first place if you don’t understand even the most basic parts of this issue.
Silencing minorities is literally never going to help anyone but the bigots.
Edit #2: here you go ydobon :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vayj4174IGs&ab_channel=FeminismInIndia :)
4 Likes