/r/gendercritical was also banned, an active and well-moderated radical feminist sub.
I am not a radical feminist, nor was I particularly welcomed there as a man, but I found the sub interesting to expand my perspective.
I am not a radical feminist, nor was I particularly welcomed there as a man, but I found the sub interesting to expand my perspective.
Some people would go there and read articles about gay women being attacked for choosing whom they took on as sexual partners. (I found it quite surprising and extremely rapey that anyone would consider it appropriate to be critical of anyone for choosing their consenting sexual partners however they like-- but it happens sometimes.)
Or read about people being displaced from scholarships because the top spots in track in their community were held by hormonally advantaged persons.
Or learn about cases where tomboyish young women were told that they were actually men because they were interested in science or sports.
Personally, I find it too easy to be extremely self righteous in ethical proclamations if I never even get exposed to the corner cases where there can be a truly difficult conflict of rights.
Now-- taking fringe events like the above examples and exaggerating them as some kind of endemic phenomena absolutely can fuel hate. It isn't always an easy line to walk.
Trans stuff was certainly not the only thing they talked about, but it was the most common, and trans posts tended to have the most discussion.
In this world I've encountered people that truly hate others so very much. They wish what they hate didn't exist and they honestly believe the world would be better if it happened to become true. I have even felt that feeling in my life but from personal abuse I experienced from anti-lgbtq+ parents. I consider myself permanently disfigured because of being prevented medical treatment when young. So I have constant reminders with all the other abuse I lived from my parents.
In any case gendercritical specifically promoted slang for trans people. Slang that would at the same time be used to invalidate trans people as nothing but the sex they were born at birth and while justifying the belief that everyone should just accept we're all born without choice in this world without having any right to personally fix what we dislike. Countless trans people were harassed by posts created on that subreddit of misfortunate transgender people just dealing with the cards they've been dealt. The posts would have constant comments making fun of how they look so much as their birth sex and derogatory jokes towards the person's misfortunate circumstances.
Anyway I'm happy about the decision of Reddit. I go through life with realizing people don't have free will and we're just in a dysfunctional system that's constantly evolving to hopefully one day make it so people don't behave so cruel to one another.
Indeed the person who uses biological identifiers seems often to be the hated person, a person who identified themselves as trans might hate them for not going along with that identity; but the person who is choosing how they personally identify others would in this situation often be labelled as committing hate-speech. IMO it's disagreement, not hate.
Compare the situation to that of the relatively few people who have a body dismorphia such that they believe themselves to be felines (cats) in a human body. They're no less sincere. But I'd still, without hate, refer to them as humans.
Those who disagree are surely entitled to take that position, regardless of whether someone else chooses to consider that hurtful, or do you disagree?