bejapuskas
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Posts posted by bejapuskas
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4 hours ago, ValiantSalvatore said:Spirituality has been big in Egypt and the Nile delta, although there is seemingly less interest and it's not easy to find reminents I believe of that. Most cultures had shamans. Leo sort of tailors his episodes towards the majority of his audience I don't know if he specified a target group. He could make a video about himself for example worst aspects about Leo and following my teaching. Similar to Shinzen's video why I am a lousy teacher. I like it for example that Shinzen includes way more cultures in his descriptions, yet keeps it secular. So I resonate a bit more with that, I dislike the term pure philosophy a lot intutively, although I like 100% of it's content. Anyway thanks for taking the time to answer my comments!
I feel like even if Leo's target audience is White, it is no excuse to exclude African thought. There are so many toxic ideas in Western culture, like the mind-body disconnection, that are there in other cultures, but Leo thinks they are so profound because he found them as a Westerner through philosophy, when it is really like a given in a lot of places. Also how white supremacy unteaches people the kind of natural compassion they have. Beauty standards we discussed that. There is so much need in White people to educate themselves about different than just their ideas, that's the entire idea behind this thread.
4 hours ago, Bobby_2021 said:Me and the OP disagreed on some issues which led to a lengthy discussion on PM. We shared our perspectives and got a lot of understanding on the other side.@bejapuskas is a well meaning, nice guy who is fighting for the ideal he believes in and I have a lot of respect for him.
Thank you for acknowledging that.
Mild disagreements is not hate nor being phobic about the issue. Note that sort of radical behaviour screams privilege and it might evoke actual disgust from normal people, who are otherwise well accepting of trans people. So it's a real possibility that your behaviour might be indirectly transphobic. Calling people as transphobic if they don't bend over backwards in support of trans issues decreases the intensity of real issues faces by trans people. It has also become a sort of reverse slur that you can use on people. This makes the whole thing name calling with no real substance om the matter.
You are kind of right on this. I disagree with the reverse slur, that is just fragility. But yes, definitely. I would not be as privileged in my identity if I did not get massive financial support to study in the US. I definitely became more angry since then and I see your point and my non-binary partner does get mad at me when I complain about for them "petty stuff." I still think people here could do a better job.
At the end of the day, this is Leo's forum and he owes no explanation to you me or anyone else on how he runs this forum. Still he is doing a pretty good job at it, given how hard it to do. Most platforms like twitter has literally become a set of echo chambers which repeatedly validates things you already believe in. We have diverse perspectives on this forum being exposed to everyone all the way from racial IQ disparities to everything being racist and bigotry.
He does a pretty good job and yes, twitter is an extreme from what I have heard, but I have no personal experience with it. I just think there are really like simple things we could do better here, as I previously said, it does not require understanding of anything an on the internet it is even easier with trans people because they can for example mention their pronouns next to their nickname and everyone just knows.
I also believe this forum is kind of an echo chamber tho. One person here came here with a strict set of ideas and did not seem open to the opinions I had to offer. There are some cool people here, but overall I don't think the value of open-mindedness is as radical as we make it to be.
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@Jacob Morres I tried being nice to people but it did not work, I am sorry to disappoint you. I am only nice if a person shows at least some openness to me. I also do not think I have the responsibility to respect those who do not respect me. People have google, they can google information, I do not have to fill the role of their personal answer provider.
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6 hours ago, mr_engineer said:When you say you don't think it's pretentious or savioristic, I agree with you. Having said that, it's very easy to build that kind of reputation in your own in-group when you go against the collective ego of that group and call out transphobia. Because no victim, no crime. And people don't like to admit to the existence of a victim if someone (like a trans-person who has been a victim of transphobia) doesn't claim to be one.
I'll give a very relatable example. Why is it so hard for a man to call out other men's sexism? Women look at that and they're like 'Just hold other men accountable! Step up and 'be a man'.' It's not that easy. You will build the reputation of a 'simp' among men if you try to 'hold them accountable'. But, women don't get this, cuz they don't understand the bro-code or the point of it.
I am not trying to discourage your solution in any way, shape or form. It is the right solution, in fact. I'm just showing you the depth of the problem that you're dealing with in cis-dominated spaces.
I am glad you support me, but I do not support cowardice. I know in fact it is very possible to find cis-friend and people with whom you can share bro-code who are not transphobic. I have a lot of cis friends who are totally fine, and even trans and nonbinary friends, and if any of them says something offensive or I say something offensive, we feel comfortable calling each other out. Just like if one of your bros gets victim blamed for being sexually harassed as a guy, you also call out their victim blamer.
I believe in your ability to come up with something better to raise awareness about LGBT-issues. Because, and I'm sorry to say this, this responsibility falls on the shoulders of the LGBT-community. It is an unfair deal for you. It's not your fault, it's just the way things are. And, before your ego resists what I'm saying, I'd like you to consider this - most transphobes don't wake up one day and say 'Okay. Should I hate trans-people or should I accept them? What ideology serves me and my community the best? Is it transphobia?! Alright. Transphobia it is.' That's not how a transphobe is made. It is unconsciously conditioned into them and they simply go along with it. Which means, that this is a powerful opportunity for activists (you may or may not put yourself in this category) to educate open-minded cis-people about what it means to be 'trans' and what your lives are like and what rights you lack, etc.
I disagree, it is much easier for you to stand up against bro-code than for us to stand up against it. I am sorry, but I am not willing to accept that other people get to chill when I don't. It is a shared responsibility. Plus you never know, maybe one of your bros is a closeted trans person and by calling somebody out you will actually make them feel much happier about themselves.
To someone who really wants to resolve this issue - I'd recommend that you really understand religion and the origins of transphobia. It will help you pick your battles well. And create an impact that actually matters.
You will need open-minded cis-people on your side. And, I'm showing you how you can do that. HTH!!
Thank you for being one of the only open minded people on this thread.
6 hours ago, DocWatts said:It's not that people are intentionally trying to be jerks to other people, at least not most of the time. It's more about being unintentionally dismissive of other people's lived experience. It's okay to make mistakes, but at least be willing to listen when someone more intimately aquanted with whatever you've been making assumptions about tells you about thier direct experience.
Yeh I fully agree. I literally will stop being mad and holding grudge if you all just stop acting so defensively. I do not hate you. My government does not have any policies against your gender. I just have a lot of bad experiences which cause me to be very wary with people, but I do in fact see cis people for people. Just listen and learn and I will do the same with you, just not with your gaslighting and denial of my experiences. Thank you.
25 minutes ago, Heart of Space said:Shockingly, there are some legitimate perspectives that offend the progressive thinker. This is the primary issue with your approach.
I feel you are a bit overly sensitive and take the forum too seriously.
You assume hate and prejudice when there is none. You can't label everything you don't like this way.
Stop making assumptions and gaslighting me. Gaslighting is also against the forum guidelines by the way.
It's fairly clear that you are just another young progressive liberal who can't handle certain opinions.
You know, I just came out of the closet in a normal way at work the other day. I've heard one of my coworkers outright use the word fa***** unironically. These are extremely prejudiced people I work with and they are the leaders of the environment. I sure hope they don't think like you do, I could end up with an infraction because my 'gayness' is hostile to their feelings.
I already talked about what I face here. I am sorry about your work environment, but you are not the only victim in the world.
22 minutes ago, Tyler Robinson said:@bejapuskas a personal note to you. You are an extremely valuable, talented and highly qualified moderator and individual on this forum.
Please never step down as a mod, it will be a huge loss. I see tremendous potential in you in terms of growth.
Thank you, I might step down though if this continues and maybe you should too, maybe this is not worth your energy.
I learned a lot from your posts. In fact I read all your posts nearly 6 times, they were so good and enlightening.
Leo should never take away your moderator status as you're extremely valuable to the forum.
You write very succinctly and your language creates hope and encouragement rather than judgement and negativity like the rest of the forum does
I have never enjoyed someone's posts on this forum as much as I have yours. They are very in depth, super articulate, full of empathy and show amazing levels of intellectual and emotional maturity.
Please never leave this forum is my recommendation. You're a warrior and no matter how much ever the forum gaslights you, a warrior's courage is needed in a place like this.
Thank you for the thread.
Thank you, I appreciate having you here. Just don't be too hard on yourself and leave if you must.
5 minutes ago, Heart of Space said:@bejapuskas You wouldn't last a day in my world. I've literally worked in some of the most masculine and hateful environments outside of a mining shaft and the military.
I last every day I live in the world. I can simply avoid toxic environments, it would be dumb of me to hang out in them if I don't have to. The world is also not like that you know?
2 minutes ago, Heart of Space said:An evolution of how we handle this particular problem is to understand that our feelings belong to us and that we are responsible for them.
That being said, I understand the desire for someone who owns a forum to ban certain types of discussions. Because they themselves have a reputation on the private market to upkeep.
There is nothing that banning an individual gives me. It is a free labor that I am doing for this forum. I just want to create a safe environment and that is my decision. Stop making assumptions about me and look at yourself instead.
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On 27/11/2022 at 10:44 PM, Leo Gura said:As a trans person, just like as a public figure, you are just going to have to accept that you will receive harsher treatment and more shit from people than a normie. No platform can save you from that. Holding non-normie positions will get you haters. That's how society has always worked.
I guess this kind of helps, but it still does not excuse how little this forum does to include. You cannot just say "this person gets hate in real life, so I will give them more hate so that they realize that they are gonna receive more of it." That is not an excuse for you and other people here to exclude me and others.
We would all be killed for the positions we hold today 100 years ago. So don't take for granted how this stuff works and how serious it is. If you're gonna be on the cutting edge of social evolution you will have to endure a lot more shit than normal people. That's part of the challenge of evolving society. Trans folk will have to endure decades of non-acceptance before they are widely accepted. Because you are asking a billion people to change their minds on very fundamental issues just to accept you. I understand you just want to be accepted, but you must understand why that will not happen as readily as you demand. It's actually nothing personal. You are asking all of civilization to change to accomodate you. That's no easy thing.
Yes, except people here hold the white supremacist view on history that cancels out the fact that queerness was normal historically in so many cultures before it was erased. Cishetero normativity is not actually the norm, it is totally artificial, but maybe you know this?
But thanks, I feel like we are having an actual conversation as two people now.
On 27/11/2022 at 11:11 PM, ValiantSalvatore said:Briefly, I enjoy the perspective, race is an invention by Blumenbach we are 99.9% genetically identical. I don't know how good your German is, yet here is a good article. There is also a good book explaining this based on research and other articles pointing to that relative truth.
https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/650077.htmlSorry, I kind of get the main idea of the article, but my German is not good enough.
100% most humans are in denial about their biases, for their survival agenda and group-think and sheep heard mentality. They are not threatening their need to belong and are incapeable often of including a larger belonging, as the group dynamic changes.
Also the belonging of the people who are the most fragile (cishet white people) is actually not threatened as much. Their lives already matter in our world, except they are like Ukrainian or Russian, there is very little to fight for. And then, even cishet white people would be more free in a world without white supremacy and queerphobia, but we both know that and we discussed this.
Yeah, this is so common also the Asian hype-train of white guys chasing asian women, I find this partially disgusting even bi-racial, bi-national people because of white beauty standards and fundamentally Blumenbach, this is why I hate also the term pure philosophy from Leo as it evokes this whitness agenda again in my head. I like all the philosophies in them, I just think the term "pure philosophy" is not good. Because it evokes these old historical concepts, mainly beign focused on "eurocentric white" stuff. I am no expert nor do I have time to dive that deep into this area, and I've been attacked from all sides, that I just focused on beign integral.
Definitely pure philosophy and like history, politics etc. too is very European and US centric. There are so many cool philosophies in the world that Leo's channel does not pay attention to, although I enjoyed his Aztec video a lot, it was one of the best for sure, even though I disagree with the idea of unifying spirituality into a uniform one ideology, instead of unifying in terms of unity and acceptance of different practices etc. I think you are definitely onto something big here.
It's funny how I basically clown them, as there are studies showing "bi-racial" faces are more beautiful etc. According to new public perception as it basically became a norm in the 1990's to date interracially. A term that is also not very good imo, as race is an invention. You could say intergenetically, and it's still sorta not good. I just focus on holonic beauty asymmertically and symmertically, there are so many beautiful aspects about an individual. What annoys me is the greed for apprecation for these, even in myself.There is definitely that pressure to look cisgender and white, you get a lot of messages every day. I like when youtube like gives me an advertisement where the person speaking is for example a black drag queen, it is a small thing, but it actually shows all the ways people look, not just the one way they think is ideal. I remember as a child when I learned that these people are chosen based on beauty and I at first did not understand it, but later it got internalized and I had to unlearn that shit.
I do believe the core value of this is having a nuclear family without these, it's impossible and you would make evolution a sheer scientific perverse endeavour, having a nuclear family is a good agenda imo. Most humans don't understand drives and needs, listening to Maslow a transgender human can easily evolve like anyone else there are other obstacles that for sure deny needs, for integrating a self-actualization perspective. Most and me included at times are vigilant about corruption, so I dunno the youth is quiet open Gen-Y to alpha and are more acceptant instead of tolerant, the social dynamic although can be quiet bothering ngl. I would like to know more about my biochemsitry to cope at times. I mean I've been raised with gay and lesbian people basically when that was a tabu, and my existence has been a tabu for many. So I get the picture, the point is you are a cultural creative similar to me and everyone else, and some will go against that strain. It's survival unfortunately!
It is survival yeh, good luck!
On 27/11/2022 at 11:19 PM, Ulax said:@bejapuskas I think you're jumping to conclusions in your most recent reply to me and also the way you seem to me to understand the points I'm making is different from the way I intend for them to be understood.
I'm going to end my discussion on this thread with you here.
Seems like the advocates for having discussions and perseverance do not have enough perseverance and energy to have discussions, well enough. I also just get the sense that I was labelled as proud and stupid and this person just did not change their mind anyways.
19 hours ago, Matt23 said:Also, as a queer person on this forum, I've not once felt anything anti-queer or misogynistic.
Well misogyny is here everyday, but I do agree with you that harassment of males happens a lot and I was also in my life victim blamed for sexual harassment for "being naturally horny," which by the way is an idea that Leo propagates a lot in his videos which is very toxic. Just get rid of all the stereotypes honestly.
I actually felt quite uplifted and supported when I posted (while doing mdma ... I know, for-shame) about coming to terms with my sexuality. Lots of support. From straight white guys too.
I am glad you did, but not my experience. Also sexuality and gender are different and I do not feel included in many gay spaces and by many gay people, even though I am also a lesbian.
As long as people don't use slurs or language that's clearly just plain insulting/demeaning, I think people should be allowed to voice their opinions.
Do you think that somebody should be able to voice the opinion "heterosexuality is the only sexuality that exists?" Did that ever happen to you on here?
We won't get nowhere by straight up silencing people just cuz people can't take others' opinions due to their past traumas and pains coming up unconsciously.
13 hours ago, mr_engineer said:@bejapuskas Here's my 2 cents on this issue - the root-level solution to transphobia is to question the cis identity. People do struggle with this. Most cis men and women struggle to even build a cis identity to begin with! Let alone question it.
That is true, but I guess we should still be able to do this here, because like I go through this almost every day and just because they are fragile does not mean they exclusively should have the privilege to remain like this in this space at least, as this space is supposed to value self-exploration and truth.
If you ask me 'Where's the help for trans-people?! That's cis-privilege!', I agree. It is cis-privilege. We don't have our own shit figured out yet. So, it's going to be very difficult for us to help trans-people and all of our help will be riddled with 'benevolent transphobia', so to speak.
To be honest you do not need to understand anything, just use correct pronouns, don't assume gender and dont use slurs or say things like there is only the binary gender. You really do not need to understand others, I do not fully understand myself either therefore you cannot understand me, because your only source of knowledge about me is me myself. So you're chill
And, I think that trans-people would benefit a lot more from trans role-models than from cis-people actively doing stuff for them. Yeah, fine, cis-people can help you. But, we barely understand the problems that trans-people go through! It's actually very difficult for us to empathize with trans-people. We do not want to be arrogant enough to assume that we know more. And, please excuse our ignorance as it shows here. This is how educating ideologically stubborn adults works.
True, but at the same time it is less emotionally draining for cis people (and white people and other people with privilege) to speak up. It is really hard for me to speak up when I am singled out. Sure, we should get role models and representation, but there is stuff that I think is not an issue if cis people do you know? Like speaking up against transphobes, I don't think it is pretentious or savioristic at all.
Edit - I understand you have an issue with cis people looking at this thing from a cis perspective, being unable to set aside their cis-identity while doing so and being given air-time to do so. Here's the thing - on this forum specifically, the emphasis will be placed on using this air-time to questioning the cis-identity and ignorant perspectives. I think explicit transphobia will be moderated.
I hope so yes. But what I see now is an echo chamber of cis perspective and trans perspective being silenced. Do you get what I mean? People left this thread because they think I am too proud for wanting inclusion.
And, the fact that Leo himself is cis and not trans does play into this. The issue is that cis people have literally no experience of being trans. If you just have a problem with being on a forum headed by a cishet white male and those biases showing themselves, which they inevitably will, feel free to start your own community for trans-people!
There is a lot of stuff on the internet they can read about. Leo has read so many books, I think it would only need to read like one book or like one article even about trans inclusion to know all the basic stuff. But I understand, and I get this too, that people are sometimes inclined to trusting actual individuals more than books and I am happy to discuss this. I do not hate cishet men. I have been one for the majority of my life, I know there are struggles to this. Counter-intuitively, I understand cishet male struggles so much, maybe even more than cishet men themselves, because I questioned this identity in the past more than most people.
3 hours ago, DocWatts said:Call me a big old Green-ie or what have you, but generally speaking I'm going to advocate for actually listening to people who say that the community has been unwelcoming to them.
Actually, thank you for this. I feel like stage green is like demonized so much here, even though most people on this forum are below it. And like genuine effort to include is demonized as "Social Justice Warrior syndrome" or something, which is also dumb, inclusion is just decency, it should not be demonized.
We want LGBTQ people to feel welcome and comfortable here, and a big part of that is not assuming that people are being unreasonable when they talk about the ways that this community has been less than welcoming and dismissive of their concerns and life experiences.
Thank you.
2 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:Don't be a jerk when you are posting, that's it, and also, you are free to leave the forum if you are too triggered and offended. Also, don't be in the forum when you're having a bad day as that can influence your posting style.
I also think this was a totally ok post and your fragility just got triggered. Look into the mirror and question yourself what made you so triggered in this message about "listening to others." Have other people listened to you in your life? Besides the whole world being centered around your gender identity that means. (I am not trying to be men, I know that cis people also have problems)
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@Danioover9000 Yeh it will strawman, because it is hella afraid of getting harrassed or silenced. I don't know, I felt afraid Leo might take away my moderator rights after this thread, or just ban me, I don't know. It didn't happen. But it was there. This is exactly why we should not trigger people, because triggering them makes it harder for them to share their diverse perspectives. (and people who others are afraid of have like the most diverse perspectives there are)
44 minutes ago, ValiantSalvatore said:I find it odd and sometimes to stereotypical, it would be cool for instance if I could associate my identity to a country and not to my phenotypical expressing and laughing about the "stupidity" of ethnocentrism and instead I am forced more or less to think I am part of the group black. I could not laugh for example about the prejudices and ethnocentric behaviour as I frankly don't know which country my black family stems from, from Africa. I can easily laugh and empathize with German stereotypical Memes and Stereotypes, I mean I can watch Hitler in his original language and I legit have empathy and compassion for the guy, as he simply did not knew better, and I frankly just think he is funny. In terms of also German society beign idiotically compassionate to that idiot. With that I mean sometimes on the forum things are not appropriately associated, there are no "white memes" making fun of "white people" as a group, there used to be some mems and videos that invovled black people doing smth. stupid and fun and it's associated often to blacks. It's not like oh that is so sterotypical "italian/russian" and you can laugh about the cultures and manners, I mean it's implied, yet I often felt and saw it was blown out of context. Every black person is a stage red macho-jerk. I saw that a couple of times. Also the subtle nuances sometimes I experience as a black person. It could just be me, also gaslighting these experiences is so common, when I talk with black friends they listen first and at one point might tell me, oh that is garbadge or smth. To show me I am lost in my perception. I mean I have close to 0 mistakes in the implicit association test. etc.
I am sorry you feel stereotyped here, I wish people could see you more as a person. I get that, in the Czech Republic, we also laugh at Hitler and it is nothing, because it is like super old and behind us. This one German cried to me when she heard me speaking German because why would I learn such a horrible language and I was like chill it is ok. But I am not justifying invasion of countries, I just think that Germany made progress in this way, but other countries and systems have not, like racism and slavery, so I do not support jokes about them. I did not know Germans were compassionate with Hitler, how so? Any kind of black stereotype is wrong, like even positive ones, because then people see you as like the model minority. People should just be seen as people, without being blind to the experiences they might be uncomfortable with of course. But that is just consent and common decency, or it should be. I think we should make fun of white people more, white people (like myself) are not really taught to see their race as something that plays a role, like in the Czech Republic people say that Roma and White are the same race, which is kind of ass, because they obviously live in totally different realities. It is really problematic to like put people and countries into this spiral dynamics stage model, that is also why I shared the articles about non-Western societies being super politically developed, but the ignorants who should have read them said they are not currently interested, that is what I get for being nice and making suggestions. It does not work, yet they tell me it does, stupid hypocrisy. I don't think it is just you, people here are quite gross and they have so much white fragility in them and they should really like start doing real self reflection work, not just confirming their biases.
You know I am not black, but I am a trans woman and I feel like black men and trans women of any color have this one similar stereotype associated with them - being perceived as violent threats. So I hope you do not get offended if I say I kind of maybe relate to you at least in this way. I face a lot of shit everyday related to this, and I was very aggressive and I would fight back in the beginning when I came out to myself and others, but at this point I just cannot see people ever changing, so I just deny the possibility to make any influence on them. What I am trying to say is that even though I still face this shit, I suppressed my willingness to fight to a big extent and I just gaslight myself constantly, because it hurts less than trying to hopelessly fight. Do you get what I am saying? I was wondering if your friends are maybe doing this just on like a collective scale, like being aware of what is happening, but like suppressing this things to like keep each other safe from bastard cops etc.? Just something that came to my mind, maybe it is nonsense, but whenever somebody makes you uncomfortable, it is their fault and you are totally real for feeling it.
It's just as far as I know the issue of human design for example the doll test, where even black kids choose the white doll, I don't know if this is priming as well as if Ukranian Roma's have darker skin color. There are just more strong negative associations with the color as well as perception of black.
https://www.verywellmind.com/the-color-psychology-of-black-2795814
You can also see this in the beauty industry which is an annoyance sometimes to deal with mentally, as there is legit a secret hierachy created, which can be an annoyance and definitely shapes my perceptions about dating. I just wonder why at times, as so many humans/people are beautiful. I just don't find it easy sometimes to appreciate so much bias in a sense, as well as it's also just stupid at times, when westerners want darker skin to show they are rich/well-off know it's a beauty thing, as well as simply enjoy the tan! It's sometimes annoying to see lower stages beign heavily impacted by that. For example a couple of my old friends even black said they would not appreciate dating a black skinned girl caus ugly, in simple terms. I find this laughable, and I am the whitestest of them all it's so stupid.I don't think it is because of black kids hate themselves, but it is like internalized racism, media showing white people as the beauty standard, white models everywhere, white models on products... There even exists colorism within the community from what I know. So like there are definitely so many messages that you receive on daily basis that programme your mind, but it is not like this shit is the natural state, it is constructed by the white supremacy.
Beauty standards literally affect everyone negatively. I met this really nice girl from Kenya once and she was flirting with me and we had so many common interests and I felt really happy in her presence, but my internalized racism kept telling me she is not attractive, even though I only rarely feel so comfortable with someone who approaches me. And I feel like I realized I liked her too late and she went cold, I wanted to at least be friends but we moved different ways, I regret it to this day. Later on, I actually dated a very dark skinned Indian girl, and my family had like issues with that because they thought interracial cannot work. That also messed me up and my relationship. I was also objectified for being white and people wanted to sleep with me just because I am white, and this is not their fault, because obviously internalized white supremacy, but it sucks for both of us, even though it does suck for them definitely more than for me. Don't gaslight yourself because your skin is lighter, you are definitely onto something here.
That is interesting to design such a competition would sound interesting to most I think, as you could design a fair obstacles course for all and then so people would even be more exposed to it on the media under what people deem normal conditions, I mean you have even mixed events in Olympics, I bet you could design a fair competition although it would take time. I would personally just think that is cool and gives people purpose as well as more access to friendships and a shared culture. Like sports and anything included under that umbrella.
Yes exactly, but of course the cisgender patriarchy will keep it gender segregated because they do not want to listen to ideas from a tranny like me and they will just keep doing shit their obsolete way to make their point about binary gender and oppression clear. I am glad you took your time to understand my point, it is so stupid that people assume that trans girls just want to win in swimming, when maybe we just want to make sports more fair than they are.
Also the idea of restoring black culture is so far off from me here in Germany, maybe in France and England I could not even imagine what that means in terms of Europe in America I can simply see that a majority of them are dominating culture and that has an affect in europe in terms of music and television displaying black americans. Yet we legit have more Africans here, so it's an issue for me personally to relate to others. As cultures are enormously different.I meant also just like restoring the cultures in Africa itself, because so many things were stolen by Europe and out into museums in Vatican etc. which is really dumb. And also like Christian colonizers introducing sexual repression to various cultures which made it harder for women of colour especially in so many different cultures, but really for everyone because I know that gender roles influence everyone badly, as they take away from everyone's freedom. But definitely it would be beneficial to learn about different histories from different African countries in Europe too so that people question their biases and the black people can reconnect with their roots more if they so wish.
I can share a personal story of wanting to date a transgender person, she/they then namecalling me and I thought well this is just stupid I am beign very open and vulnerable here and it's beign massively abused. Now I am pretty much confinced to not date transgender women? anymore because I don't believe anyone is healthy enough to keep up with my normal health routine from the transgender women I dated. As well as none of them really have been very spiritual and a lot of them like me? As I seem trans? Because I am "bi-racial" , "bi-national" that already evokes the picture seemingly of openess. It's difficult to not make it about looks and more about character and beign interested in the women, as this can involve a lot of shocking details, I did not know. It's crazy for a heteronormative guy to consider all of these worries. Although interesting!
No I mean definitely trans girls can totally be racist towards you and I do not want to defend them on that and I do not want to defend myself on anything either. I am trying my best, but you can still tell me if something I am doing makes you uncomfortable. You know trans people are also just people and there are many of them so obviously they are diverse and not all of them will be a good fit for you and some of them may be actually horribly racist. I did not really get the last part of your paragraph here about heteronormativity.
Sharing what I experienced. Find it odd how many free passes I get from transwomen/gender people online. Unsure if bias. Just sharing, would be curious if others have the same experience. And yes it's about the individual! Not the group.What do you mean by free pass? It definitely is about the individual.
I frankly don't know I would even have to pick myself on things, based on the nuances on the forum sometimes beign ignorant I find it odd at times, that sometimes black people don't receive an answer, as well as seemingly black people don't receive an answer on elaborate writtings etc. I for example prefer using a white picture of smth. I like as it evokes more positive associations for others, as soon as I take a black smth. People are not acting usually as innocent anymore, that would be a "stupid" like chess double standard for me where black begins and white is second for fairness. It's not easy to come up with examples. Also for example when I am with my aunt, my aunt as a white women beign adressed first, when I would be a skinny tall white dude, they would adress me first. It's not easy to describe these perceptions. Anyway I am out! Would take to much time to explain and write it all. It's easier for me to talk about bias, as I mostly engage humans. Although some stuff is just stupid.
I am sorry that happens to you. If you want, you can report previous occurences of that to me, or reach out to me or message me and I will try to talk to that individual.
Ignorance on this subject is very big and just speaks for "majority/white priviledge" and systemic abuse at times. -
58 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:Me developing thicker skin on what issue?
I meant the people who get reported, developing a thicker skin and taking a warning as a message to think about their behavior. It is much easier for me and does not require me to write so many messages just to find myself burned out and the other person not changing their mind.
I have been forced to develop a lot of thick skin from people criticizing me on all sorts of issues.
Yeh, it is hard, but does any of them invalidate you as a person or feel like a personal attack, or make you afraid of sharing who you are or what your perspective is?
I force myself to endure perspectives here which I disagree with because I don't want to create an echo-chamber.
I hate to break it to you, but the echo-chamber is already here. The echo chamber is that of privileged conservative people, because the atmosphere here that allows biased perspectives to be freely shared makes it so that people from marginalized groups are hesitant when sharing their perspectives. Can't you see how this is obviously the case? Do you see anyone sharing books about gender, sexuality, race etc. that are kind of different from the general rhetoric here? I really don't, this place seems like a very intellectually homogenous environment.
Our general policy here is to control speech here as little as we can get away with, so that diverse perspectives are shared. I don't like blocking any perspective unless it is clearly toxic or in bad-faith. Or is just misinformation or dogma.
However, because of the fear that this "free speech" creates, diverse perspectives are not shared. Put yourself in the shoes of somebody who is worried for their safety everyday and then try and imagine being on a forum like this one. You really would not feel like sharing your perspective here, you would run the hell away pretty quickly. This is already an echo chamber.
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Anyhow, if you find content here that disturbs you, let me know and I will investigate it. If I think that it's harmful/toxic I will remove it.
Thanks
BTW, we issue warnings to people every week for vulgar posting. So it's not like people will get away with that here for long. Any genuine racist, homophobe, sexist, etc. will eventually get banned here. We have banned dozens of them.
Thank you for banning those people. However, if you think that saying that there are 2 genders, which is literally both psychologically and biologically wrong, because there are more than 2 sexes and they are not just a versions of man and woman, is just a perspective - to what lengths do we want to tolerate people arguing for these lies? If I say I think Asian people are less intelligent because of some biased experience or that women enjoy being paid less because of something else, which I have no proof for, do we also tolerate that? Or is this targetting specifically trans and nonbinary people? Because that's what I currently feel like it is doing, the limit for what is tolerated, what perspectives we are willing to listen to here, is higher than other groups, because of double standards and transphobia. 2 genders is not a perspective, people are denied control of their bodies and freedom and so many other horrible things because of this ideology, and cultural cleansing was practiced on cultures with more than 2 gender because they were like this, there is generational trauma around this too.
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@Leo Gura What about you developing thicker skins? Why are you using this double standard again? And thank you for offering me help, I am glad you are here for that.
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@A_v_E No, problems also stem from the people who beat you up if you dress a certain way. See, in your point of view, the strict roles and identities are still operating, you are assuming if people lose identity, they will just fucking keep identifying with the oppressive norms, but that is not how it works buddy. That is just spiritual bypassing, and it can only be done from a place of privilege where you literally don't need to care about these norms because you are safe either way.
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1 hour ago, Ulax said:@bejapuskas I agree that I don't know what its like. I'm just trying to provide a perspective on how you can be more effective at achieving your goals.
I don't know if you still don't get it, but I tried your approach - it does not work to be nice to people. If you are a trans girl, or even a cis girl, any girl really, people will not take you seriously, even if you are nice to them.
Speaking plainly, I don't really care whether your anti whatever. What I care about is the actual effects of people's behaviour. Just being anti something does not mean you are helping, sometimes you can be hindering the very goal you are going after.
That shows how you privileged you are, not having to care about people's opinions all the time. You know for me it's a matter of safety on daily basis where I live. What you call actual effect on people's behavior is just your speculation. You are still assuming that being nice to people achieves change more easily but it does not. I am like this exactly because I already burned out from trying to be nice to close-minded individuals. If you don't trust my claim, I don't know what to tell you.
For example, if a discussion on race realism gets banned is that good? Maybe the discussion stops. But maybe the poster feels alienated, and leaves forum, and joins 4chan instead. And on 4chan he gets radicalised further into racial hatred, and gets more and more people to join his 4chan space. Which leads to a black person being harmed. And if you are someone who encouraged the banning then imo you are partially responsible for that person's radicalisation. Maybe you consider that the effect of having the discussion actually has the consequence of harming a lot of people too i.e. an african american dude ends up feeling increased feelings of shame and fear, and on the balance of things you decide that the consequences of getting the discussions banned would be better.
This is again just speculations of what happens. It is victim blaming. It is saying that the discrimination is the victim's fault. That she could have done something differently and then she would not face the hate. No, trust me, I tried, does not work. Try dressing up in a dress and go up to people and see how seriously they tell your philosophical arguments. They won't.
Have you actually seen somebody joining 4chan after getting banned by me? I rarely actually ban people, even the neo-nazi guy I just put him at the border line ban, where if he does one more thing he will be out of here. I mostly ban serious spammers.
Do you ever think about the black person being harmed here by the people questioning their validity, their intelligence, their everything, for the same of some dumb "serious philosophical discussion?" Like come on, there is no serious discussion happening and you see, both I and Tyler Robinson got harrassed here and so did many more. We are also people, we have feelings and we feel hurt in the space you are creating at this very moment by being so defensive of your fragile privileged ego who does not want to realize that people are actually victims and still tries to find some logic behind violence. Sure, go educate the oppressors, but don't silence us please, we are not guilty for our own hate, thank you. And it is also not our responsibility to advocate for our own safety and security. It is the obligation of those with privilege, they have more emotional resources than us, they are not constantly told to toughen up because people are dumb out there. African American dudes already feel shame here and so do others, do you think seeing a running discussion about race science does not trigger that? You bet it does.
Its a complex thing to think about imo. And, I think righteousness is an indication of not understanding that.
On another note, I'm not that interested in reading those articles at this time.
Why are you not interested in that? Because they would question your privilege? Are you afraid of actually questioning your biases rather than just going to this forum and talking to like minded people all the time? Fine, you can watch the movie Bending the Arc or maybe the Netflix show Heartstopper instead if you want some entertainment.
1 hour ago, Thought Art said:This was all I can remember pushing back against. I think that people can have their opinions about what a man or woman is, and say it and they deserve respect about it even if I disagree or see more nuance and relativity. I think it’s dangerous and unfair whenever anyone questions or have different views than a or queer trans person that they get shunned, silenced and accused of hate. This, in my opinion is unfortunate over reactions of a culture which is at times over reactive and hypocritical.
It is always us getting questioned and we also get silenced, so don't argue like this, you are making a fool of yourself.Having a different opinion on trans and queer politics because of your world view isn’t the same as being transphobic. I think there’s nuances there.
No there are not. Equal rights for everyone is the only acceptable option. Nothing less.
I am anti transphobic and anti hate and discrimination. But, I also see nuances and I don’t want the transphobic accusation to be weaponized just because we all have different views. I’m still contemplation, observing this.
You can read what I think about this gross double standard above. Your kind has been ruling the world and everything is built around your fragile ego to please you everywhere in this world, so give us some space, thank you.I will always stand up to a Mod who thinks their world view is the only way to be. That, anyone who thinks else wise is to be silenced with warnings points.
I never even said that I am literally just following the forum guidelines.
What I was pushing back against is that one Mod thinks something is transphobic, and then gives warning points. But , is that person truly be transphobic and discriminatory? At the time I didn’t think so in that context and didn’t think it fair.
It is in accordance to the forum guidelines to give warning points for shitty behavior. What else would they be for?Queer and trans people don’t run the world and Cis gendered straight people also deserve to share their beliefs in public discussion without being attacked and canceled. We live on a diverse planet. Just because a Christian believes in Christianity doesn’t make him anti Semitic. There’s nuances here.
Bro no, cis people do run the world actually, and that is exactly why queer and trans people need to share their view. The cisgender view is already ingrained so deeply in everything, just look around yourself and question your ignorance.
I know your going to label me as a bad evil person.
No, but I think you are making some ignorant claims.But, I don’t think a man, woman, trans person, non cisgendered person etc who sees reality in a certain way, who disagrees with someone else’s world view is inherently hateful.
But it can still cause emotional damage and there is like nobody speaking up against it, do you see how that is bad, at least a little bit?You may not be ‘seen’ by some people. But, also why are you so weak that you need EVERYONE to see you as you want them to.
Yeh, I am actually so weak that I can withstand people like you questioning my identity. Cis guys every day prove their masculinity to everyone by acting so masculine, and cis girls by acting so feminine, but for you it is easy. You can marry whoever you want, have the body you want, have the kind of relationship you want, walk around safely, walk to bars without getting killed etc.You said a lot in your post that DOES however make me reflect and want to communicate better on the forum.
I am glad, can we talk about that instead? I would be happy to answer any questions you have, I am just really tired of people at this point. I am sorry I have so much anger in me, but my life really is not easy and it does have to do with my identity. And if you approach me from a place of curiosity that I recognize clearly, I will answer anything you want (almost). I am one of those trans girls who is not afraid of talking with others about transitioning etc. so you can ask.
1 hour ago, Thought Art said:Okay, just throw all nuance about human diversity and it’s complexity out the window.
Protection of people is not a thing about complexity and nuance, it is quite clear what it means to protect people. Read some stuff about victim blaming and consent.
25 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:Look outside of your own perspective for a moment and see that neither the "high consciousness" people nor the trans people on this forum necessarily agree with you. You have taken a very contentious issue and made people's existence on here depend on it. I don't think that is how warning points should be used just in principle, let alone that it would eventually decimate the amount of people on here.
As I said, I ban less people than Leo. I maybe banned like 2 people in my entire career as a moderator. The other mods ban way more often than myself. You all are just thinking that I ban a lot, because I give warning points (and then take them away), but I actually mostly ban spammers.
Instead of using warning points to do that, you can concede some ground to the opposing side so that discussion is possible, and maybe you'll persuade some people in the process — you know — what Leo was actually talking about in that blog post. Threatening someone's account with the hope that they might agree with you is power abuse.
Could you do that for me please? It is not my responsibility to speak about my validity like every day you know? You also do not need to do that to remain a valid person. I am not abusing power, just read the guidelines. Also if you give warning points to someone in your moderation options, and you select hate speech, racism etc. the number of recommended points for that offence automatically increases to quite a lot. Just saying that it is not something I made up, it is already in the system. Again, I tried being nice to people, it does not work you all are just speculating and gaslighting me and victim blaming me, stop it.
You know if you all created a safe space for trans people, maybe you would receive more articles like this that are actually pretty awesome and a lot of people could learn from them. They seem to address a lot of the problems with sexuality people commonly face here. I will share one that I like. But if you prefer a political echo chamber of conservative perspectives instead, sure.
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@Ulax Thank you, but also get out with the nonsense about pride blinding me. You don't know what it is like from what I see. Actually go and try change people's minds. I am not going to ever stop being anti-misogynist, anti-racist, anti-queerphobic etc. You are not changing my mind in that. I enjoy the encouragement, but you still have not read the articles about how sexual repression and queerness was violently destroyed in non-Western cultures. You would benefit from studying actual real history that happened instead of the history written by men who literally enslave people.
27 minutes ago, Tyler Robinson said:I completely support you. I empathize with you and I definitely expect Leo to introduce changes in this regard.
Enough of bullshit forum politics lol.
Just because majority of people on a forum don't believe in a particular perspective does not make that perspective wrong.
It's called jumping on the bandwagon to please the collective.
There is definitely a lot of this going on here.
Who cares. Personal value should be respected too, not just what majority thinks.
You're a very important mod here and you need to be heard and understood and there should be a pronoun option. I agree with all the changes you propose for the forum.
I wish the mods weren't so biased against you and you're feeling like a lonewolf.
I can smell some group politics stuff going on. But I'm here to support your opinions and thoughts. Hang in there.
I believe you.
Thank you
Another double standard - I and others have to suck up to people who are unwilling to educate themselves, because they cry when they receive warnings. The main argument for this is that "we are new here" which is not true, we have always been here, but the history about us was destroyed, as expected. You could still argue that it is a new topic for people in the context of their lives and that is why we should suck up. Sure. But what about the argument that these people with discriminatory opinions have ruled the world for as long as we can remember, so maybe we can have some rest by finally them being silenced instead of us? What about that? Or what about them also being labelled as too emotional when they receive 2 warning points instead of us being called too emotional? Being called too emotional is literally so based on identity here. If you are a cishet white male crying because bejapuskas gave you 4 points for justifying nazi race science, bro that is like actual cry baby material, so hormonal and hysterical for having that testosterone in your body. Another double standard. These are not serious arguments, they are just overlooking the other arguments that are there and seeing themselves therefore as superior. Wake up. Also I am still recovering from Leo thinking I do not understand that the world is ignorant of my identity. Maybe he thinks I live under a rock?
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3 hours ago, Ulax said:I think you make some valid points, and some invalid points.
It sounds to me like you are feeling angry because you want equality and respect on this platform. Is that right?
I think guidelines could be enforced better.
I think as a moderator backlash against your actions from users you moderator is to be expected and is part of the job. Your feelings about it are valid, but as a moderator you should find a way to manage your emotions, imo.
That's a fair point. I too have my limits though, I used to be much nicer, did not work.
I think your take on some societies being accepting of things like queerness, non sexual repression is true.
Read the articles and watch the video from the OP.
I think this view 'Non-Western societies simply were way more spiritually AND politically developed than Europeans before colonization, but all of this was destroyed by them' is wrong. I think the spirituality came from stage purple societies in terms of their spiritual advancement. And I don't think its true that they were that politically developed. Also, I think Western Europe and North America are the most politically developed continents overall in the world, and I think its naive to think otherwise. Their spiral development is higher overall than generally any other region in the world.
Watch the videos and read the articles I sent with the original post, you are not seeing the full reality. You are coming from a place of talking about history under the colonizer lens, your education system actually brainwashed you into this.
Overall, I think you're very stage green in this critique. With that, I think your opinions here lacks systemic thinking, which would be a higher consciousness way to approach the issue.
I think I can see how this is a systemic of this forum's guidelines not being enforced enough, but also an issue of systemic racism, colonization etc. What do you think systemic thinking is, how would you approach it?
Also, speaking plainly, I doubt that you understand how to effectively persuade lower stages. If my assumption is right, I also struggle with it. Imo, people aren't persuaded by truth, they are persuaded by what meets their needs. So, a mysognist isn't a mysogynist because they hate women, they are a mysogynist because being one meets their needs at their stage of development. If there was some other belief that met their need then they would be that instead. Maybe it meets their need for significance to be a mysogynist. And when you critique them you threaten the meeting of that need, and so they push back against you and demonise you. Why? Because it meets their need at their stage of development. I also doubt, imo, whether you have the self awareness that you are simply meeting needs all the time. The difference being your needs meeting is more psychological developed than lower stages. I struggle with being self aware of my needs meeting quite often myself.
I tried to persuade lower stages before, it just does not make any difference, trust me. I have so much experience trying to persuade people around me, my parents for example, it just does not make a difference. If I speak to them nicely, open myself emotionally as thye want me as parents, the next day all progress is gone. I tried doing this on this forum too, did not work, hate to break it to you. Maybe you can try persuading people nicely some day without sucking up to them and see if you succeed, maybe you will.
3 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:The "point" that is going too far is for example giving somebody warning points for merely stating what they think a woman or a man is. If it's not said with the intention to troll or offend, I think that is a no-go zone for warning points, and I saw you go into that zone. We should strive to keep the discussions informed by sensitivity, but that particular level of enforcement makes discussions impossible. At that level, discussion is only possible if everybody is already in agreement.
I value protecting my mental health and the mental health of members higher than tolerating low consciousness. It is just a small warning on an internet forum, and I have actually deleted so many of the warnings I have given out to people after they have shown improvement, even though many times that was a mistake and they were just faking showing improvement. Maybe you overlooked that part? I feel like giving this warning pushes my point and if I see the person actually trying to get better, then I do something. It makes me mad that people get warning points for using a mean tone with somebody, but invalidating somebody's identity is not policed.
3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:You're lacking in nuance.
And you are projecting. You are really downplaying my understanding and thinking you know me, when you do not. Do you think I as a trans person who exists as a trans person really do not understand that people are low consciousness? Trust me I do and I have a lot of trauma around that. Maybe you assume I don't? I tried being nice to people in real life and also on here, but it never works unless they are already open minded and show sensitivity and willingness to learn from me.
If someone here is making threats of violence or using hateful slurs, they def get moderated.
Thanks, but verbal violence is also a thing.
But if someone is just stating their philosophical position, that is legitamate, even if you don't like it.
How is it legitimate, if it is based on non-serious philosophy? I don't understand how you giving points to people and locking threads you consider spiritually undeveloped is any less conscious than people saying penis = man, vagina = woman. It just sounds so dumb to me. And maybe you can live in your world of theoretical philosophy and question these labels, but then still go into the real world, benefit from presenting a certain way, being a certain way, but other people live their questioning and that is a completely different commitment to truth and self-understanding and self-expression.
If hate speech is not being used and someone is presenting good-faith arguments, then I consider it fair for this forum.
Often times when you question these good faith arguments, hate speech begins, so I would rather not. But if you want to get into that, please do, I would appreciate you calling out people and wasting your precious time.
This is the point at which I do stand for free speech. This forum cannot just be a political echo-chamber.
It is really sad how much this forum and your Actualized.org downplays these issues. There is so much room for finding life purpose in fighting these oppressive systems, building support systems for oppressed people. Knowing about discrimination and history can help you do any job in the world better, just by knowing these inequalities and thinking about how to create a safe space. The forum I see now is an unsafe space that does not really support truth-seeking. We could instead have a more political forum that empowers oppressed people to find life purpose that is actually targetted at serious issues in the world, I would see that as way more impactful. We need more anti-racist anti-transphobic people in every profession.
It's not necessairly about changing his mind, but about have discussions and people watch and learn.
There are better ways to learn. We can intentionally learn about racial issues and gender instead of throwing around offensive threads, getting triggered in the process etc.
2 hours ago, BeHereNow said:I've been guilty of this, I've even spat my dummy out and left this forum for a time when I perceived some on here for being transphobic. I've done some serious growing up since then and made attempts to be more understanding of others questions and sincere concerns.
But to give you a perceptive of someone who is transgender, it can be anxiety inducing when political pundits, tabloids and governments play around with trans culture war like a soccer ball. We're at this stage where a lot of society is accepting but a good chunk isn't either and if one day society as a whole just decides they don't like this transgender stuff at all, they can honestly get rid of it quite easily, quickly and quietly, we're that small of a demographic. There wouldn't that much pushback either because understandably most people have bigger priorities than the lives of trans people, even if they are allies. It's anxiety inducing because if gender affirming services are made illegal or I'm forced to detransition by the state, it's something that will probably drive me to suicide in the worst case scenario. The best case my life would be unhappier and dysfunctional. It's hard to explain gender dysphoria to a cis person, but living and being socialized as a male is so repulsive to me that it feels harmful to the body and psyche. Imagine if a misandrist government decided the existence of men was illegal and they forced you (Leo) to transition into a woman both socially and medically, even though you know deep down in your soul you are a Man, it would give you severe dysphoria to the point it would cause damage. You would probably feel suicidal too.
There is an argument to say this is an exaggerated fear of my many transgender people, but when you have popular figures like Jordan Peterson, JK Rowling and Matt Walsh nonstop fear mongering about us with a clear agenda to get rid of us of someway, you can see why many people like me can't stomach any debates about transgenderism that can be slightly touchy. We are still in vulnerable position so to speak.
Thank you, this is really well said. I hope you stay safe and if you ever need support regarding transitioning, you can reach out. I'm here.
2 hours ago, LordFall said:@Tyler Robinson I don't understand this point about protection. You cannot be afraid of a perspective or a viewpoint if you're trying to discuss sensitive issues and important things. It will by nature be uncomfortable and hurtful, from every side. Personal attacks and other such forms of violence should be stopped but if anything falls into just being an opinion I don't think it's something we should aim to moderate.
Do you see though how I and the other trans people here are afraid of you cis people's viewpoints, because we can at any time be threatened by some idiot on here? Can you see how it applies to us? We cannot have a good discussion here if this place is handmade for neo-nazis, misogynists, racists etc. It is just not worth our time to be here and argue with you all and THAT is actually what leads to creating the political echo chamber Leo is talking about. This forum already is a fucking political echo chamber of the conservatives.
I propose there being pronoun tags on this forum so at least people do not get misgendered. There should be an option not to mention your pronouns if you do not know what your pronouns are or if you feel uncomfortable. That would actually be very nice. Like as long as I do not get intentionally misgendered or misgendered in a not well-meaning way, I feel way safer discussing with an uneducated person.
Also I think we should still give away warnings, but maybe get rid of them if people actually show improvement? I just think there is really a double standard in what is being policed.
I also think a lot of you should read the articles and watch the video I linked in the original post, since I am still seeing posts coming from a really biased perspective here.
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That does not change anything about there being a double standard that is harmful. People like me are getting killed because of who we are. How long do you want to keep providing a safe space for those who are the perpetrators in this situation? You know, maybe you are trying to find some rationality in this violence, but violence does not have a rationality, so you can keep doing this to infinity. Cis people get questioned too, but it is not at all as serious, they get protection from peers, we don't, especially not on this forum, we are seriously othered.
I did not actually notice the person changing their mind but ok.
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14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:It is not so easy to draw a line between transphobia vs people questioning / having philosophical disagreements on trans topics.
Trans people have a tendency to consider any questioning or philosophical disagreements about gender issues to be transphobia, which is not the case. Then genuine transphobes exploit this loophole. So here we are.
Here's my question to you: Do you consider Joe Rogan a transphobe?
Leo, but it is always only the trans people who are being questioned. The cis gender never gets questioned here, or if I did, I would be labelled a clown, whereas if you question the trans, it is somehow a "serious philosophical debate." There is a clear double standard there. You might say that this did not exist in our society before, so we need to question it, but it did exist in so many societies before, people just are not educated about that, it got destroyed and suppressed. So if you are arguing this, you are being both transphobic and racist, because you are putting a double standard on genders and cultures which are in reality equally valid. There is no philosophical evidence you can provide to prove that some genders or cultures are less valid than others, what does that even mean?
Just for your info, I don't know if you noticed this, but some member here who already had so many warnings from the past started a thread about "Serious discussion on race," where he argued about how black people are less intelligent. This thread kept running for multiple days without being shut down. This forum is not well moderated at all and it is really laughable that you think serious discussions are happening on this forum. It looks like the Nazis discussing.
13 hours ago, Carl-Richard said:There comes a point where your ideology is so far removed from the majority of the forum that it makes no sense to enforce it with warning points. I think you ran into that problem especially with transphobia, and if you as a transperson feel more personally affected by that, that's of course a shame. However, my feeling is that you can go a long way by looking at the format of the engagement and the emotional tone and see that it's not one of bigotry or resentment, but rather intellectual honesty and openness, and that this is something that should factor in into an assessment of a "phobia". Because from what I saw you doing, it came from a more abstract/ideological place than that. But yes, it's also good to have someone who is unapologetic about expressing their sensitivities and representing those who could need a voice, and as you say, we can discuss that here.
So you are going to ignore a perspective or call it too far removed to keep me from posting about it? Even if that perspective is perhaps more truthful than what other members are proposing? You know, I don't see this as a serious commitment to truth, more like serious commitment to censorship and comforting fragile cishet white people who get so sad for receiving warning points for seriously offending someone.
I as a trans person would feel better if I did not have to always be the one giving warning points for this, or putting literally any effort at all. There are other forum members who try, but it is really the minority.
I am sorry to disappoint you, but the tone is not of intellectual honesty. Maybe you just do not see all of the posts that I am seeing, or you see them differently, maybe you have the privilege of not getting as emotionally affected. I am glad you feel safe here. But there are people, and please stop denying this, because I know this, who really are not here for serious philosophy. This guy who argued about black people being less intelligent for example kept pulling out different studies that proved him right while ignoring colonization, environmental factors, impoverishment etc. He really was not trying to change his mind or stay open to others. You might say this person was trying to "argue as best as he could with his strongest arguments," but these Nazi studies and racism cannot be a justifiable way to argue about something, it just cannot.
Thank you for the last sentence you wrote. Unfortunately, most people like that already left. People drove them insane.
13 hours ago, ValiantSalvatore said:I like all of these topics, it's just sometimes impossible to talk about this openly without an expert coming up with factual data and historical data, that is not skewed in anyway and being open about the possibilities. I left the forum basically for 2 years because of discrimination subtley and tracked the accounts and they got banned. I recentely just posted in my journal some discriminating stuff, as it was playing in my mind and one person I presume also got banned for promoting this kind of discrimination. I do believe most of these conversations should be held in a manner of acceptance and openness and not rationality and truth seeking, to simply implore and explain the concepts often.
For example I know and meet sometimes a lot of homosexual people and my aunt is homosexual, so I know the dynamic basically since birth, so I am not the traditional cishet man (cis-gender hetero) . Then considering spiral dynamics and beign fair and accepting I don't sometimes see the level of development appropriate and there are a lot of resentments I don't fully understand, for example I still believe a white homosexual women has more priviledges than a black hetero male in our society, just by sheer observation and knowing my aunt etc. I don't believe she as well as other homosexual men/women are nearly as often discriminated as me as a black person for example in Europe. I for example am beign discriminated by immigrants based on their development seeing me as a "dumb african" when I am German-American and black and white. As a lot of religious cultures are of very early and low development and act morally superior, which I frankly don't like which makes modernity and neutrality as well as rationality again very important. This is missing from the left. Acceptance and rationality basically without the social justice warrior resentment as they are usually the higher stage of development!No, I mean fully, I think that racism here is worse than the queerphobia here. Some of the shit I saw was insane and I really don't want to deny anything you experienced. Also, you can be both black and queer, or biracial and queer, which is also really hard.
When a person is white and benefits from the majority priveledge and a lot of people simply enjoy the energy of homosexual people (me included), it's just sometimes very obvious, how hard I need to modulate myself to a culture I simply don't resonate with. Rock music, a lot of beer, a discriminatory history and then to love it all! Is super-counter intutive and frankly even if I can love it. I find it horrifyingly boring. Then when they modulate to what I resonate with within my culture for example rap music, black history and culture in America, discrimination and even just global history and development.I don't think you need to love it, it is not fair towards you in any way, German culture is based on so many lies and prejudices.
Mostly these topics involve vulnerabillity and resistance (grit), people would need to share stories and even simple things, as people avoiding to touch your hand, as they believe your skin is dirty and stuff like this.I find colorblind racism by far way way way worse, currently, if you are a person of color discrimination is basically 10x applied regardless if homo/hetero/non-binary etc. This also goes for immigration and immigrants, and I never witnessed also so much arrogance from immigrants regardless of which country. It's insane. I would like to know why.
I think it comes from people with privilege, those from the group of majority race, ethnicity, religion etc. of these countries being fragile and irrationally afraid. It is really stupid this double standard. Ukrainian white immigrants being accepted, while Ukrainian Roma being looked down upon. I don't even know, white saviorism comes into play every day on the Slovakia borders.
From what I saw from him I don't think so, he is just intersted in fairness and the "ethics" that govern trans people, as he just loves all people he might say something stupid. It's like saying is Joe Rogan racist? Because he said the n-word and he loves black people imo, it's simply bad timing and all humans are vulnerable. It potentially was to much at the given time. I don't find it funny anymore either. I prefer watching Dave Chapelle or smth.
I think he gives too much platform to people who have backwards gender ideologies, but I know at one point he corrected a person on saying a transphobic slur, which made me happy, that he as a person with privilege who is not as emotionally affected by putting this emotional labor to this is capable of calling somebody out, and I think it worked in that context. Notice how people with privilege, and this goes back to slavery, are expecting people without privilege to do all this activism work for them, to shape themselves so that they are not as offensive, not as visible etc. It is gross, the spirit of slavery is still alive in them.
It would be more interesting how trans people can shape society in a way where it is less discriminatory for them, as well as a lot of cishet men to consider their priviledges and reach out to others. Practically, this won't happen as people conform a lot to a fear morality. Which centeres around stage orange/blue, so their are open and neutral about it, and tolerate it as well as conform ethnocentrism, the appreciation and diversity of it simply is missing. In a more holistic perspective Joe Rogan airs a lot of bullshit that a single trans person can do for example in Olympics to destroy fairness, I mean if you get two humans of different genders, biologically and biochemically to a similar level it might be fair, yet for a biological male to have an advantage in physical strengths, even without beign a scientist it's obvious this is true.I also think it is impossible to restore black culture without restoring gender, because for example this Nigerian Igbo religion has gender queer deities, and so we cannot just ignore gender while fighting racism and colonialism.
I am also one of those people who thinks that like inherently, splitting people into gendered teams and even individuals is unfair. Trans girls are not unfair because they are biologically male or because they are trans. It is essentially because they are physically stronger. Therefore I think we should just have competitions and sports based purely on competence - there can be a weak, not so sportsy trans girl like me, who does mostly yoga and dancing, and maybe I could compete with the weaker men and medium strength cis women. I don't think it is gender discrimination against trans women if gender becomes not a thing at all and it is just about competence. It would also include the non-binary genders more. It is funny how transphobia, fragility and fear is clouding everyone's mind in a way that they never think about this, even though it is not even that profound of a thought, making people compete based on competence rather than gender.
I dunno aired my opinion, for example I don't like to feel grouped in this minority spectrum of beign a symbol for diversity because of my phenotypical expression, yet there is nothing I can do about it. It's annyoing. We could share examples of discriminations even smaller ones to make it more evident, to simply reduce bias.You can share it here, I already shared some of my experiences. I will do my best to moderate if anyone who comes to this thread tries o invalidate your experiences.
To add a little more without these conversation stigmas, and bigotry would not be revealed, as well as solutions should be the orientation of these discussions at best multiple. I am no saint, double-standards should definitely be discussed. I also believe the forum is moderated very well, although there are some nuances, where I'd love more transparency. I witnssed a lot of double-standards, so yeah that could definitely be a good talking point/juxtaposition.I actually do not believe this forum is moderated well, I have just seen too much shit to still believe this. What double standards have you seen?
Having multiple judges is great also.13 hours ago, aurum said:I agree the forum needs to be vigilant against bigotry. I was a moderator here for a while and basically you just have to use your best judgment what is or isn’t okay. There’s no training for something like this, and even if there was, it would still be a challenge.
Where do you draw the line between a disagreement and a rule violation? That is the question.
You can look at my response to Leo, there is my answer. I think it is pretty clear.
Specifically, it seems like your biggest critique is on LGBTQA+ issues. And that the mod team + Leo has not been vigilant enough on checking homophobia, transphobia etc.
I actually think racism is more wide-spread here, but both are bad. They should not be here at all ideally. As I mentioned in my response to Leo, I don't actually believe that, there have been actual neo-nazi rhetorics going on here without being moderated for days.
Personally, I think the forum is generally well moderated. Which doesn’t mean you won’t have issues of bigotry at times. But on the whole, I feel it does pretty well. Misogyny is probably the most common form of bigotry I see.
It happens every day, not at times.
There is an additional challenge here, which is that the entire point of Actualized.org is questioning reality, assumptions, bias and self-deception. It is meant to be non-ideological. No one’s ideology gets a pass. And that includes SJW Green type of thinking.
But in this case, what you call SJW is actually calling out more serious bullshit ideologies like eugenics. Can you not see that?
If you’re not willing to question SJW narratives at least somewhat, that you should tell you that you’re no longer serving the truth. You’re serving something else.
I think I do my best to like find nuances in the SJW ideology which I do not agree with, check my other responses for what I mean.
It’s easy to feel good about being non-ideological until it’s your ideology’s turn on the chopping block.
Do you question your ideology?
But of course, we also need to distinguish between questioning and bigotry. Especially since bigotry can cloak itself under the guise of questioning. This is a real challenge.
Again, I think it is quite clear and unless somebody with privilege is denying or deciding to overlook an aspect of discrimination that is happening here, it is really easy to see. Definitely the users themselves see themselves as non-ideological seekers of truth, but they are just using obsolete racist studies.
Bigotry itself is also an ideology that needs to be questioned. If you question your bigotry deep enough, you will cease to be a bigot because it’s based on self-deception and bias. Which is what Actualized.org is suppose to help with.
I don't think equality of people is an ideology. I don't think it should be questioned. I am not proposing that we become race-blind here, it's just that what you are saying is really serious and people die every day, because they have this ideology that some people matter less, just because they do not look like you.
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Hello there,
Maybe you remember me as the way too annoying moderator who policed all the disgustingly racist, sexist, queerphobic etc. opinions on this forum. That's me.
All this time I thought that my actions were in alignment with this forum's values - the forum guidelines clearly say that any kind of discrimination based on any aspect of one's identity is prohibited. Yet, when trying to police people and give out warning points as assigned to me by the guidelines of this forum for inappropriate behavior, I experienced a severe backlash as a moderator because of the members' fragility and absolute inability to reflect and see beyond their view points.
It started with a lot of people posting about Incel and Jordan Peterson even after it was banned by Leo. (forum guidelines are also written by Leo, but for some reason, those are not taken as seriously as these verbal statements) A lot of girls on this forum felt bad about the Incels and honestly, they were quite disgusting with all the rape apologist speech, victim blaming etc. Truly gross. I thought I could do something and for a moment it even seemed that things have gotten better. But did they really?
All this escalated into bunch of people getting triggered, posting things such as justifications of eugenics, racism, transphobia, primitive views on non-Western societies etc. All of this should be warning points worthy, but for some reason, forum members backlash against this, despite it being clearly stated in the rules that they are supposed to read before joining this forum. Even moderators often times think that certain things people say are not serious enough when they really are. And to be honest, even Leo.
Leo's development towards glorifying this political neutrality, not trying to ever change anything, letting the Incel majority to do so much damage, making this forum inhabitable for anyone with a more heart centered approach to personal development. Leo did once mansplain to me why a certain transphobic thing was not transphobic, even though he himself is not trans I don't think.
And there we have all his videos about how gender is a construct, which should be progressive and changing our mindset towards a more accepting one, but they really don't. Viewers mostly just accept the kind of out-of-world spiritual talk, meditate on it, but they do not actually integrate any of this serious philosophy into their behavior.
Today, I checked Leo's blog, where he posted a video about regretting not trying to change people's mind, because as the video argued, doing that is basically surrendering to authoritarianism of a certain group. (white cishet men) I am glad he finally realized this, after existing as a self-proclaimed wise guru for so many years and claiming he has nothing to learn from reading books anymore. Don't get me wrong, Leo did teach me a lot of stuff, but this is absurd to say from somebody who says they value self-reflection. There is always more to learn, the universe is infinite.
There was however one thing that I did not agree with in that video, and that is the claim that all societies around the world have always been non-accepting in terms of queerness and other things. That is simply not true. The Native Americans, Black people in Africa, Middle Easterners and many others have had queerness, sexual non-repression, deep spirituality, psychedelics etc. deeply rooted in their culture. You can check this out if you are interested:
https://www.gaytimes.co.uk/life/india-has-always-been-queer-af-we-even-have-a-gay-taj-mahal/
Non-Western societies simply were way more spiritually AND politically developed than Europeans before colonization, but all of this was destroyed by them. Now, on this forum, people often say that Europeans are politically, even though maybe not spiritually, more developed, to claim being more higher up in the Spiral Dynamics development. But even that is just self-deception and racial bias.
Unless there is a massive change of this forum's dynamic, I am not willing to participate in these harmful discussions. It is not worth my energy to persuade people who are here to idealize Leo, procrastinate high school work, never change their mind or spread discriminatory fascist views. It is just not worth and it is draining and it is painful.
To honor one thing about this forum, it has been quite good in accepting non-offending pedophiles and people with severe intrusive thoughts, as I have many times seen in the serious mental health issues section of this forum. But it is necessary to add that the tolerance of mental illness was in my experience mostly seen in cisgender men who claimed to have mental health issues, while women were blamed for having them, and also all other things and basically just existing here.
Let me know what you all think about this and if you think same, different, whatever you have to add.
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The OP was restricted from using the forum for 5 days. If they do something similar again, they are out of here. Their behavior has been problematic ever since 2016.
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@marinaaniram Society makes you believe so much shit about relationships, it is called *amatonormativity*, search up that term, it is really interesting. Like for example "the one who loves less wins in love", for god's sake, find someone who you love equally as they love you, isn't that common sense? If you do not love somebody and just stay with them, because you are winning by them not leaving you, by giving you lower quality love, you're by definition settling for the worse.
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@Mindful Bum I am sorry, I did not mean to defend Leo's position entirely, just the bit about him not trying to treat people with mental illnesses, because I actually consider that a good thing to do, that is if he just is not trained. I kinda have some mental illnesses myself, I am also queer, so like I often come into contact with people who just do not know how to respond to me. And that is just a sad reality. Of course, saying you would never be friends with somebody seems like he maybe does not really have an idea of what it means, I am not trying to defend that. Just saying, if you are seeking help, spend yourself the potential pain and trauma and seek it in resources where people are trained. Teach yourself to seek help from people who actually understand your situation, and that does not even have to be professionals, as some of them also suck. I am just saying, build boundaries around who you open up to - that sometimes means your favorite teacher is gonna keep hruting you and you might have to drop them.
I am not trying to defend offences against people with mental illnesses, those really are unexcusable, everyone can read up about how not to hurt others, that should be common decency. I am just saying it is not everybody's responsibility to help everybody, we are limited humans, we need to have different of focus. Even if Leo says his content is holistic, and encompasses everything, which I don't think he entirely does, he possibly cannot.
Of course he can make his videos more friendly to oppressed groups and he should, it just better to do that, but that does not mean he has to offer treatment etc., especially if he does not have training or interest to do that.
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@Leo Gura Maybe Leo if you are serious about what you said in your video, being more kind and understanding, you could maybe read some prose from oppressed authors. They can give you insights into lives of people who are struggling with things you do not struggle with and open your mind, or just make you understand it more. They also tend to have a lot of the emotional significance you were talking about. I liked this comic book called Gender Queer: A Memoir, read it in one sitting, it shows a lot of intersectionality, it was banned in a lot of places, because it really shows a different point of view on reality.
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I see becoming more accepting as kind and sensitive as equalizing the validity, and I don't mean like equalizing fascism and nazism with self-help etc., but just deconstructing authority, because it brings about more diversity. If there is one leader, they can be a leader but they are still limited by the human condition and only have one perspective, whereas there are so many other perspectives that one can see.
Like even if Leo is not a therapist trained to help the mentally ill, we can work on making this forum a less stigmatized place and give the people who face issues here more platform to address this. It's not just some wokeism, it's actually like hard problem solving, caring for somebody like that. It really does help to be in an non-stigmatized place, when everywhere else is so dark.
I guess equalizing all perspectives and then through that seeing that some perspectives are just way too harmful. From my experience, even if you are not a part of some group, their ideas can influence you and shape you in your own authentic way and make you realize so many things about yourself that you perhaps assumed because you have only surrounded yourself with one type of people from birth.
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I think it is fair for Leo to not focus on this, if he does not have the training. That is just preventing collateral damage, it is really easy to harm someone if you are not trained to help them and I mean that.
I see that you guys have complaints here, which is totally understandable. How do you think we could make this forum a more inviting space for those with mental illnesses?
In my opinion, some mental illnesses get demonized more than others here, what do you think? Do you see a similarity or a pattern there?
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I agree that following what you want is better than bullshitting yourself. But that can be different for everyone, it can be dangerous to draw conclusions on what "the majority" wants.
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Most people dont even really have much chance to gain a lot of power because they are simply born into a family that is not royal or elite. Then it becomes the issue too that the only base for their power is inheritance.
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@Average Investor Just something I observed in myself is that like sometimes being too agreeable in relation to knowing what you want means that like you intuitively know what you want but you either dont trust it, or you dont believe it because theres some judgement about yourself instilled in your mind, or maybe youre fully aware of it but you dont follow through because maybe you think you dont deserve it or how you said, maybe you think you moved too far. But moving too far I think can be prevented by realizing this. Good luck bro.
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@Realms of Wonder No worries
It was challenging and I had to try to understand it. There are also different types of asexual and aromantic people, just like there are allosexual and alloromantic (those who experience romantic and sexual attraction in the way people usually imagine it), everyone sees it differently. So I had to go through a lot of nuances.
In his case, he was assigned girl at birth and indentified that way for a long time, after which he started questioning sexuality and romance. This later translated into also becoming non-binary trans, because he could no longer identify with how society put his identity into different boxes just because of his body parts that he himself does not consider important. (he never wants to become pregnant or have sex etc. so they are kind of useless)
I really resonated with this because as a perfectionist, I always try to push myself to be of greater use to this world. And this new person seemed like their life was beyond all this sex and dating I spent so much time and energy into without achieving much satisfaction. Of course later I realized they also suffer from societal pressure to do things they dont wanna do, like parents feeling entitled to push them to have kids etc. which can be quite painful.
Anyways, I also explored many different types of attractions which helped me question my sexuality, like not just romantic and sexual, but also sensual, aesthetic etc.
Perhaps the biggest misconception about asexuals is that they are repressed like stage blue people and that is why they are discriminated against. But actually, from my experience, they just question norma and societal pressure way more and many of them are much less repressed than allosexuals, who just engage in "vanilla sex" and dont try any other things, for example non-sexual kinky stuff, which can mean that they become so limited in which parts of their bodies are sensitive and they essentaly remain stuck. Or alloromantic people who dont question romance and just fall into weird patterns, while not trying to redefine what human connection is for themselves.
But essentially I dont know what it is like to be them, its like as if a person who cannot see is being explained what it is like to see. My friend told me growing up, they essentially didnt lose their childhood hobbies. They didnt give them up to chase crushes. Which also resulted in discrimination and divide.
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