Re: Some thoughts about Diversity and the CoC
On Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 05:23:04PM -0800, Russ Allbery wrote: > Adam Borowski writes: > > You try to somehow equate denying a "right" to be smug over forcing > > others to lie, with a direct expulsion. One of these is just a feeling, > > the other is an actual severe action. > I'm not sure that I parsed that correctly, Adam. I hope that you didn't > just imply that asking someone to use someone else's correct pronouns is > asking them to lie, and I just misunderstood what you were trying to say. > > Accept my apologies that I'm not inclusive enough to demand expelling > > people, and that I'm not diverse enough to demand a homogenity of > > opinions. > No. > To avoid any appearance of doubt, I stand with my transgender colleagues, > I believe that it is completely unacceptable to attempt to erase their > experience, and I am completely in favor of expelling from the project > anyone who insists repeatedly on intentionally referring to them by an > incorrect gender or otherwise verbally harassing them or denying their > existence. > This principle is more important to me than the unity of the project and > is more important to me than Debian. > I do not believe diversity is about accepting anything including > intolerance. I believe in making explicit choices, and standing by those > choices. I support LGBT people and do not support anti-LGBT people. If > that's in conflict with Debian's code of conduct, so be it. Seconded. There is not room in the Debian Project for both me and transphobes, and I would rather see the Debian Project end than be a safe haven for transphobia. -- Steve Langasek Give me a lever long enough and a Free OS Debian Developer to set it on, and I can move the world. Ubuntu Developer https://www.debian.org/ slanga...@ubuntu.com vor...@debian.org signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Some thoughts about Diversity and the CoC
Martina Ferrari dijo [Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 07:40:41PM -0300]: > (...) I am always sad and disheartened when this kind of threads erupt. And I can only imagine how this hurts people that cannot just sympathize with you, but suffer instead in their own bodies and lifes the discrimination. I am a believer of social change towards inclusiveness and acceptance, but it's a long and very gradual process. > It looks like that transphobia is countered with slaps in the wrist, not > the universal rejection abhorrent views deserve. A single transphobe > makes a community a dangerous place for trans people. Trans people are > disproportionally affected by hate crimes: we are attacked, abused, and > killed every day. We can't take risks: this is not a stupid debate about > English Grammar[2] FFS, we are talking about peoples' lives and health! I agree that the message that started this thread is abhorent, and am happy our community didn't leave it unanswered. I am in [VAC], so am answering to lists quite seldom. Now, I do _not_ share your views that "transphobia is countered with slaps in the wrist". We have seen some important answers and sanctions against people acting in transphobic ways. Yes, we can only react to hurting messages _after_ the fact they were posted and cannot withdraw them by the mere nature of our system. But other than that, the community response to said mail (and some +1's) was quite strong and clear. And, as I said, I believe in change. But the change must go through many steps. Many of us have been in social settings and grew in family environments that eased our understanding and acceptance; some come from different backgrounds. I hope that even the most conservative people accept the deep humanity in the very hard decisions you and countless others have taken regarding your identities. Even if this talk does not convince the original poster, I hope it does slowly lead others to understand the processes. Of course, I agree that biting the bait and going to discuss grammar was not the best course of action. But this particular community is quite prone to end up discussing technicalities and minor points. Please forgive the chain of posts that led to grammar being brought to the table :-| Big, warm, sincere, loving hugs. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: Some thoughts about Diversity and the CoC
Hey, I've been using and teaching debian for years now, and have mostly been thinking the community was friendly and dealing with consensus seeking with good faith. Nevertheless, I've also been thinking that being really involved in the debian community as a queer (not straight or not binary cisgendered) must be a harsh thing. I've never been deeply into debian though. I am myself a transwomen, and reading tina's post made me angry and sad at the debian community. It also revived my never ending hopeless wish to see things change. Tina you have my full (but sadly pretty much useless) support. I eventually read most posts of this thread on -project@. What I see from my far position is just the same as everywhere else: some cis-gendered guys have behaviors and words that have very violent consequences. They don't even realize (or maybe do, but who cares). Then some people gather courage and call out the violence. Then some other show up and say their vision on the situation (who asked?). And some support the persons who got headshot by the sexist/homophobic/transphobic/racist/ableist/whatever violence. I have seen many messages stating that one should always respect the CoC when answering hate messages such as the ones from norbert and gerardo. I want to say that this is *bullshit*. This is bullshit because the violence *has been there already*, when people have refused to respect genders and names other people use. And I can assure you, I would prefer to be told 1000 times that i'm a hasshole than 10 times misgendered or deadnamed. There is just no way to compare a violence where people feel hurt because of an insult with a violence where people feel like they don't have the f*ckin right to exist and have a word to say about *their own identity*. Plus that violence is a systemic violence. It doens't only come from individuals, it comes from the media, the police, the state, at school, at work, at home, in the music, in the movies, in front of big groups or with our best friends. So, please stop calling such nice answers "violent". If I wanted to be violent against transphobic people I'd just go find them and break their knees with a baseball bat. That would be kind of violent I reckon. I am also sad to see people make jokes or be cynical in this thread. I'm sorry you cis-gendered straight, but you just don't get it: we HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE HERE and cannot respond to your violence better than we do. Your jokes and sealioning and misrespect are bullets that violently crush in our bullet-kinda-proof jacket, we get hurt a lot, but we get up again, and we strive to keep standing up, and we will never give up. I've also read multiple times that debian or individuals should not take positions on political things. Please remember that not taking position *is taking position for the dominant*. So yes, Debian *must* take position (and it already does on many topics), and individuals should too, if they don't want to support the mainstream/dominant ideas and behaviors. norbert: > gerardo: >> I had thought that there was room for a dissenting opinion, but >> clearly there isn't. > > Unfortunately there isn't, but room for insults and aggressions, if they > come from the "correct" group. We are not talking about opinions or positions. I think Rhonda said it very well[1]. You gender normals males have the right and place to express your emetic thoughts mostly everywhere (when it's about gender, at least). I hope Debian can stay a place where marginalized people can speak and be listened to. Regarding the "correct" group, please, gender normals males, remember that YOU are the freaking correct group. YOU have all gender-related privileges. I don't have to bring facts here right? You know that already. sam: > I personally hope that we choose to respect people always--even when > they do not respect us in return. If you also mean "we choose to always respect people, even when they did not respect us before", then take a punch in your face 50 times a day and try to gently ask for help. You will scream, I would bet! As a last thing, I'd like to say that in this whole mess I have seen quite a lot of support for tina and what she said, and this makes me less angry and sad than right after reading her first email. Thank you for showing up, taking a risk in telling your support, and making this debate not be flooded by bigots all the time. My solidarity goes to women, transgenders, non-binary folks, faggots, dykes, people of color, lesbians, gays, people with different abilities, the fat, the youngests, the oldests, the weirdoes, the freaks, the ones that have died for their survivance, the ones who are still alive and fighting. gagz PS: To everyone on this list, I recommend you watch Hannah Gadsby "Nanette" show. [1]: https://lists.debian.org/debian-project/2019/12/msg00075.html
Re: Some thoughts about Diversity and the CoC
Hello, Martina Ferrari: > As I said today elsewhere, allyship, diversity, and inclusion are empty > concepts when the bystanders -the people whose skin is not in the game, > whose humanity is not being discussed- remain silent, or are more > worried about tone. Do people actually care about making Debian a > welcoming place for minorities? Then speak up, take risks, or stop > pretending you care. And I don't mean sending requests to listmaster, I > mean putting your body and privilege in the front line. Thanks for writing this mail, Tina. You're totally right with what you wrote. It's frustrating to see that again and again a few very vocal voices keep dominating these discussions with disgusting and transphobic positions and language. While I do this a lot in other contexts, I usually don't take part in political discussions on Debian mailing lists. That's partly because of the language barrier, but mostly because I only have so much resources and Debian isn't my main field of activism. Still, I have to admit that I feel kind of caught at ignoring behavior in a community that I care about and that I feel part of. I guess this also has to do with Debian being a mostly virtual community (read this as "taking place on the internet"). Because I wouldn't think twice about getting involved when something comparable would happen in one of the non-digital communities I'm active in. So a least let me take this mail as an opportunity to express my solidarity and support for everyone who is struck by (or fights against) transphobic, sexist or otherwise discriminating behavior within (and outside of) Debian. And - once again: thanks Tina for standing strong (at least that's my perception). Also, thanks a lot to all of you who don't get tired to oppose each and every bigoted discriminating statement on Debian mailing lists. That's particularly directed to Tina, Rhonda, Russ, Steve, Enrico and Colin. It's awesome to see you fighting the struggle for diversity in Debian <3 In solidarity jonas signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: Some thoughts about Diversity and the CoC
Hi, Am 18.12.19 um 09:53 schrieb Gerardo Ballabio: > Dato Simó wrote: >>> If it turns out that […] what I think […] is unacceptable >>> rather than the way I express it, I will not post any more. >> Well, that’s the crux of the problem, isn’t it? > Yes, exactly. > > And I read the rest of your message as saying "what you think is > indeed unacceptable". And that's in line with what other posters > wrote. > I had thought that there was room for a dissenting opinion, but > clearly there isn't. There is room for dissenting opinions - but unfortunately yours wasn't an opinion, it was based in prejudices and multiple false believes. If you can't deal with having these false believes corrected then I'm sorry but that's your issue then. And intentionally disrespecting people is not an opinion, no matter how you want to frame it. Calling it a "preferred pronoun" is wrong to start out with. It's not preferred because that would imply that there are other acceptable ones, which there aren't. Your assumption that you can tell the chromosomes of a person is utterly flawed and shows that you know quite nothing about biology. For a freaking start, you don't know the chromosomes of a person. I highly doubt that the first thing you do when interacting with people is asking them for their chromosomes. I personally don't know mine and haven't had them tested. Did you? Because as it is, there is more than just XX and XY, and I hate to break it to you, even between those two they don't always align with the sex assigned at birth because they can differ from what you believe to be the "biological sex". So pretty please read up on the topic and educate yourself before you make a fool of yourself again when you claim to know the chromosomes of a person by looking at them (or claiming that they mean anything). > Thanks anyway for actually reading my message and replying to it, > rather than just assuming that I was trolling. Well, you used quite some alt-right rhetoric in there, frankly spoken, and if you are on the receiving end of the hatred and invalidating of your sheer existence you have to understand that your pattern is very well aligned with that and thus doesn't come over as anything else. Also, thanks Dato for speaking clearly of what I thought when reading this whole mess, otherwise my mail would need to be longer. Rhonda
