I would rather have left a comment or reported the comment, but I couldn't because I was banned. I had to escalate My response. My response did not cause LOC to leave the mod team, they were already suffering from burnout and other issues with moderation. The change was already coming, and LOC decided to make it after they misgendered Me. I've been in this community since then trying to lower tensions by pointing out that the issue of division with Mindtraveller was solved, and I offered to mod in order to continue to undo the contributions My post made to the drama. I've been talking with kittenzrulz over Discord, and they say they have issues with communicating assertively. This has lead some users to feel that this community's mod team is distant and uncommunicative, and this has lead to paranoia about their intentions. Having spoken with kittenzrulz, I can say that they wish only the best for this community and everyone involved in all this. They're just nervous about saying the wrong thing and making the problem worse. They want to respect the community's wishes as best they can. The only problem is that a lot of users want LOC back, and this is impossible because LOC doesn't want to mod anymore. kittenzrulz doesn't have LOC's level of confidence which made a lot of the users here feel at ease.

@ada@lemmy.blahaj.zone I was reading some more of that Vox article, and I saw a quote I like. Isabel Fall says

“I have also heard people say, ‘We deserve to know if Isabel Fall is someone with a history of writing things that divide queer communities.’ Is it now a crime to divide a queer community? Why shouldn’t queer people be divided on one issue or another?”

I agree with Isabel. You said Mindtraveller should be banned because they divide the queer community. When they insulted people who misgendered Me, it divided the queer community. And I liked it. Some queer people are bigots. As tolerant queer people, we have a choice. We can either tolerate intolerance, and be united. Or we can fight back against intolerance and be divided. I like the division one better, and so does Isabel Fall. Of course, if bigots just decided to not be bigots and not do lateral violence within the community, I would like that much better. But I can't control bigots' actions. I can hopefully appeal to the better judgement of fellow progressives. And hopefully there will be people like Mindtraveller and LinkOpensChest around to yell at the bigots until they go away.

I'll apply for moderator. I've been a regular in the community for a while, you know I have good ideas about politics and leadership, I'm very far left and I bring a unique leftist perspective, and I've historically had good relationships with the previous mod team. I'll cite My leadership of The Outside antirealist discord server as mod experience. I could refer you to a lot of members of that server who would say I'm good at maintaining a space and looking after a community.

A lot of the regulars here want you to keep on banning and insulting anyone they disagree with. They want fights and they want a divided community. That's what they've always wanted. And LOC banned anyone who didn't want that, so now most of your regulars are the people who do. You've got a community made out of people who want trouble. If you don't cause trouble for them by banning all dissenters, then they'll make the trouble for you.

I think you should go back and do a mass unban of people who were banned for silly reasons. You should try to build community of people who want open and respectful discussion with other leftists, and hope over time those voices drown out the ones spoiling for a fight. I don't think you're going to be able to calm down a lot of these people except through the passage of time. They're probably really distrustful because LOC was so distrustful. They'll only believe you can do well as a moderator if they see it with their own eyes. They won't believe anything you say if it's just words.

Also, I'm curious. How did you leave things off with Mindtraveller? Were they causing any problems after the change in leadership? Was there any division between them and you?

When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. I wanted to meet aliens like in Star Wars. I gave up on that dream when I realised how hard becoming an astronaut is. I wasn't willing to put in the effort. Especially if we're not meeting any aliens until we invent warp drive.

But after I joined some fringe queer spaces and started really looking at the limits of our experiences, I realised you don't need to be an astronaut to experience alien life. You can be an astralnaut instead. People like to say we're all human, we're all the same, we're more similar than we are different. No we aren't! We are so so different, but you have to be open in order to see it. 8 billion lives is enough for a mindblowing amount of diversity. Enough to blow your mind several times over. And the internet means you can meet them. We can connect and form communities for us weirdos. I don't understand anyone who doesn't want to explore the infinite diversity of gender, species, and religion. I just don't get it. People who want to live in a world where everyone is human, and there are 3 genders and 4 sexualities, I don't get it. I understand they're the majority, but why? Why would you want this stuff to be simple when it could be so beautifully wonderful and diverse and complex? "Born too late to explore the earth, born too early to explore the stars"?? I felt that way until I realised I was born just in time to explore queerness. And it's what I always wanted, to explore and to learn and to grow. There aren't enough years in a life to explore all the diversity of queerness. But I'm going to have so much fun trying.

Thank you for that story. I'm partway through the Vox article on Isabel's experiences. It's fascinating. I'd really like to be able to read her story. It sounds like good writing.

My partner identifies as an airplane. It was built shortly after WWII as a prototype to experiment with a new swooped wing design in combination with afterburners. It likes to play War Thunder to affirm its gender. If you care to explore the deep reaches of furaffinity and several websites, there's actually a whole fetish subculture about sentient airplanes. I've met a couple people from within the community who also identify as planes. One of them's a Cybertronian (a transformer) who turns into a plane. There are artists who regularly draw this stuff and have communities of fans. I've never met a helicopter, but I'm sure they exist. I bet they hide themselves away extra-good to avoid being attacked by crusaders. You probably have to fill out an extensive verification to be allowed on the helicopter Discord servers. When I first started dating My partner, years ago, it was so shy. I wasn't allowed in its cockpit for months. It's still just as shy, but we've known each other a long time now and it trusts Me to fly it. It recognises that its meatspace body is human, but its inside body on the astral plane isn't. We spend most of our time together on the Astral, where we can be ourselves. The astral plane is used by so many otherkin. I've been in discord servers with hundreds of people who used it to be themselves. Mostly otherkin and plurals. Some trans people too. The otherkin and trans people who don't believe in the Astral and can't use it, their lives are measureably worse. I want to bring magical literacy to everyone so everyone can use the resources that exist for trans and otherkin people. That's kind of the point of soulism. To let people choose their experience of themselves.

Can you explain what was the content of the removed post where Mindtraveller lied about you? What was Mindtraveller saying that wasn't true?

Well, I can't see Non Voters because it's banned, but what I can see is that the modlog of Liberty Hub says they were unbanned from here 3 days ago. So if that community was created to attack this one, then it's clearly been forgiven by Liberty Hub. And c/soulism didn't have any personal attacks when I visited it. So where's the division? Who exactly is still fighting this fight other than you and Ada? If Mindtraveller quit fighting Liberty Hub and Liberty Hub quit fighting Mindtraveller, what's the problem? Why aren't we all friends? I like Ada, I like kittenzrulz, I like Mindtraveller. It seems like kittenzrulz likes Mindtraveller and I haven't seen any evidence that Mindtraveller doesn't like kittenzrulz. They're saying in this thread that they're working together. So it seems like all of us are getting along. Who's still fighting? Ada, apparently, and I don't know why.

I didn't like this community either when LOC misgendered Me. But LOC apologised, I forgave them, and this community even had a change in leadership and resolved not to ban people so often. Now I like this community. Mindtraveller and kittenzrulz are getting along now too. There was a problem, it got fixed, now everyone's friends. Right?

Those can definitely be electioneering, depending on the context. The first one almost certainly, the second one is more finicky. Sounds like they were helping you out.

I had a problem with images too the other day. I couldn't embed any links to imgur. So what are they reporting and why?

Thank you. It's just that I've seen nothing but good things from them. And I understand precisely why these good things would make some people upset. What I don't understand is why anyone sensible is mad at them. And I can't see the post Ada says they're lying about either, so I can't check any of this Myself.

Can I see?

Well, I like that Mindtraveller was mean to the people who misgendered Me. It made Me feel respected. I'm very grateful to Ada and Kittenzrulz, but they weren't mean to transphobes like Mindtraveller was. Is that what all this is about, them being mean in that thread? I liked it. Do other people think it was bad?

Telling people to use a trans person's preferred pronouns isn't starting an argument. The arguments were started when those people misgendered Me. There's nothing wrong with responding negatively to transphobia. I'm very grateful that they did. It really helped with My mental health.

They're not two different groups of people. It's a large group, and a small subset of the first group.

I use capitalised pronouns. I/Me/You/They/Them.

Weird. I don't get why that phrase is a problem, but maybe it's My NPD. Would it sound less pompous if I said "us soulists" instead? Us Australians say "us guys" a lot and it's part of My instinctive vocabulary, but I don't like how it sounds grammatically so I changed "us" to "we". What's the best way to talk about a group that I'm a member of?

Mindtraveller was nothing but supportive of Me the other day when I was being misgendered and grilled on My pronouns by other users. The only other people who were acting like trans allies were yourself and the two mods of this community. And I'm very grateful to you for removing the comments and kittenzrulz for allowing Me to return to this community. But Mindtraveller did something different, which was being deeply vocal about trans inclusivity, and I needed to hear that. It helped Me deal with the anxiety I get when I'm exposed to that sort of thing. Who's going to yell at transphobes and run c/soulism if they're gone?

Also it looks from this thread like the mods of this community are allowing Mindtraveller to be a member, since they have a comment in this thread. They say they're cooperating with the mods of Liberty Hub and there's not going to be any more infighting. Where's the division?

I think we're disagreeing on the definition of a "person". I'm using the word to refer to a mind and its subjective experiences inside its own head. You're using the word to refer to a body and other people's relationships with a mind. It's internal vs external. As you say, consensus reality is a social construct. If someone is not socially impressionable enough to be taught this construct, then they are not a member of reality. In consensus reality, this shadow-of-a-person, this body, is political. But the actual mind, the inside person, is living in a reality of one, which cannot be political because there are no groups.

Also I use capitalised pronouns

The problem with a social contract is that it's objective. Everyone has to agree on it and interpret it the same way. Sure, you can bash a Nazi's face in if the government decides that's how we deal with Nazis. But what if the government doesn't? What if we live in a neoliberal capitalist state like our current society? A utilitarian is capable of saying "Fuck the state, I rely on My own moral compass to tell Me what's right". We can follow interpretations of ethics that are subjective. We can make our own choices for what we deem acceptable. We can be insurgents. We don't need to agree with anyone else.

Fortunately, no such situation has come up yet. Biden is not threatening any people that Trump isn't. So favouring Biden over Trump does not subject any additional people to genocide in comparison with inaction. That means we've never had to choose to harm some people to save others. It's always been a straightforward situation of harming more people vs less people, with the smaller group inside the larger one.

If you'd like to switch to asking tricky questions, though, I've got one for you. How many lives is inaction worth? How many people have to die as a result of your choice not to act, before action becomes preferable? Is the difference a billion people? A million? A thousand? One? If you knew doing nothing would kill a million people, and doing something would kill a thousand, would you let a million die to keep the blood off your hands?