cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3635039

Various thoughts:

  • Around 20 people weren’t properly covered by the gender categories, obviously we’re trying to be as inclusive as possible and a different approach will be tried next time

  • There were about 600 respondents, which gives us a accurate sampling of the active userbase. If you multiply any number by 3, you’ll get a fairly accurate representation of the full userbase each week. This means there are around 800-900 people who don’t identify fully as cis each week on this site.

  • Nearly 300 trans/gender diverse/questioning people unanimously agree that hexbear is an inclusive space

  • There was so much data on gender that I was really struggling to find a way to convey the data that wasnt a pie chart, graph, or an incomprehensible kalaeidoscope. If you have an idea on how to beautify the data, you can download the raw data here: https://pad.artemislena.eu/file/#/2/file/xzy4pck8on+oZp9yGRUIezR+/ - I further anonymized this data by removing time of response and any specific comments, I don’t think it would be easy for anyone to figure out who is who.

  • There were a couple of text responses that really needed further elaboration, I noted hexbear’s rules next to these comments

  • I’ll probably be doing a demographics survey sometime in the future, including basic fairly anonymous stuff like “what region were you born in” “where do the languages you speak originate” “would you describe yourself as a POC” “what age range are you in”.

  • The percentage of people answering they were cisgender increased by 8% than the previous survey. This could be for a myriad of reasons, such as cis people being afraid trans people will hunt them down in the public thread and assassinate them. Anonymity may have made them feel safer to respond. Regardless, way more people responded this time, which signifies that people felt safer responding to the cryptpad or it was easier to do. The leading question was a bit more inclusive than last time, but I think I’ll include both questions (are you transgender / gender diverse and are you cisgender) to see how people respond.

  • We have a lot of people that aren’t binary trans on this site.

  • Some of the questions were pretty funky and we got a lot of fuzzy responses on them as a result. In particular “After you realized you were trans/gender diverse, how long did it take for you to begin to act on it?” and “At what age did you begin transition?” caused a lot of friction, I think I will ask more vague questions in the future that lead to a path of more specific questions to capture better data, and to save people time. Questions like “Do you feel your gender transition had a defined starting point?” and some further ones.

  • Around 20 people each week on this site are cis she/hers, which is very low and roughly the same as last time. I feel like if hexbear ever starts hosting other federated stuff (like a federated tiktok or something) and can hook into it natively with lemmy, we’d see a better ratio.

  • I tried to be very sure any data with >2 people on it was clearly legible, I think some people might find it fun that there are others with their same fairly specific classifications per this survey lurking around on the site.

  • Overall I feel like the survey was a success despite some bumps.

  • You can find the other surveys/links here: https://hexbear.net/post/3016455

  • I made these graphs on company time bridget-pride-stay-mad

nerd

  • Smorty [she/her]
    17·
    2 months ago

    Isn’t hexbear like, one of the “transphobe” ones?..

    I’m sorry if this is incorrect and i just insulted all of hexbear :(

    EDIT: okay, I understand now that hexbear has dramatically changed and that they are actually a lot more strict on the rules than blahaj zone. People keep commenting the same thing on this and I keep being pinged…

    • lapisEnglish
      24·
      2 months ago

      Isn’t hexbear like, one of the “transphobe” ones?

      the opposite, actually! Hexbear is rabidly supportive of trans people, and defederated from Blahaj Lemmy over its comparatively lax handling of transphobia.

    • Alsephina@lemmy.mlEnglish
      15·
      2 months ago

      They ban anyone and anything with a hint of transphobia, to the point of defederating blahaj for not being hard on transphobes enough.

      When the site was first created there was a big problem with stupidpols, and under the guidance of TransComrade69 underwent a purge of all transphobes on the site, including even people who were consistently downvoting posts/comments by trans users. This TC69 Thought, so to speak, continues to this day.

      On the Hexbear thread there’s talk of doing a purge of mysogynists next, seeing how there aren’t many cis women on the site judging by this poll.

      • 🏳️‍⚧️MiaCD🏳️‍⚧️
        13·
        2 months ago

        as far as I remember, blahaj wanted to defederate cuz of users complaining about hexbears being annoying with the imperialist kind of communism but then hexbear defederated first

        edit: also, I don’t see how blahaj could be seen as not hard enough on transphobes :p

        • Alsephina@lemmy.mlEnglish
          12·
          2 months ago

          /c/196 isn’t very well moderated at all… It’s the biggest community on there

          Also “imperialist kind of communism” lmao

          • AdaA
            6·
            2 months ago

            I personally monitor the reports that hit blahaj.zone. If you have an example of transphobia that was reported but allowed to stand by me or a 196 mod, I want to know about it.

            • Sop
              1·
              2 months ago

              My complaint with transphobia/misogyny on this site is mostly that I come across posts that are clearly one of the two (or both) that have been up for days. Meaning that no one reported it (if reports do get handled like you say) and that the mods of the community clearly didn’t have a problem with it when they came across it. I report it when I see it but I don’t come here often due to the transmisogyny and if the post has been up for days then the harm has already been done…

              • AdaA
                3·
                2 months ago

                I ban transphobes when I see them, even if the post has been up for a while before I see it. As you say, there is zero point in just deleting a post after it’s been up for days, because the damage has been done. The post gets removed, and the person gets banned.

                That being said, the source of the the transphobia the federates to us is external instances, so it’s not a problem with “this site”. It’s a problem with other instances, ran by cis folk, who don’t see or understand dog whistles and the harm of “just asking questions” type transphobia. And for posts like that, a DM to me is useful, because it can get the account generating the content removed.

                • Sop
                  1·
                  2 months ago

                  For me the posts that are problematic are always in 196 and I do think that it’s the responsibility of the mods of that community to keep it safe for (trans) women.

                  Do I really have to be the one to keep track of all the problematic posts if I want to convince you that it’s a systemic issue?

                  The main issue (but not the only one) for me is the fetishisation of trans women that is a recurring theme in that community. I’ve mentioned this before but apparently the only part that people picked up from that was that I a problem with ‘lewd memes’. I think that there is a real problem if all lewd memes are focused on the objectification of (trans) women, when most of the traffic is people (mostly cis men) from other instances who do not know how to be normal around trans people. It creates an unsafe environment for the sometimes very young trans women there who are encouraged to objectify their own bodies in unhealthy ways. Lewd posting is fine if it’s in a safe space, but 196 (and honestly almost all public spaces on the internet) really isn’t safe for the demographic that deals with the most sexual violence on and offline.

                  I don’t mean to sound too critical because I do appreciate this site and there is a reason I keep coming back. But also I think that this problem needs to be taken much more seriously.

                  • AdaAEnglish
                    3·
                    2 months ago

                    No one, including the trans fem users of this instance or of 196 are reporting the issues you’re describing, and I haven’t encountered them myself (though I rarely use 196). So yes, if it’s happening, I do need help identifying the cis folk objectifying trans folk.

                    I can’t solve a problem I can’t see.

                    If the issue isn’t explicitly the cis folk responding, but more the trans folk themselves choosing to put themselves out there, then that’s not really something that can be addressed. I’m not going to decide for them what’s appropriate for them to do with their own bodies and lives.

          • 🏳️‍⚧️MiaCD🏳️‍⚧️
            3·
            2 months ago

            well, thats what I remember everyone complaining about :p

            also, doesnt seem like just one big community on a different instance not being moderated enough would be enough to defederate from the whole instance, specially since I remember hexbear wanting to stay federated to not divide the leftists+queers or something like that

            • AdaA
              5·
              2 months ago

              specially since I remember hexbear wanting to stay federated to not divide the leftists+queers or something like that

              No, that was me. I wanted to stay federated with hexbear because trans solidarity is more important to me than political ideology. It didn’t work, but I tried to make it work.

        • lapisEnglish
          5·
          2 months ago

          also, I don’t see how blahaj could be seen as not hard enough on transphobes :p

          iirc the 196 comm had at least one transmed/truscum mod at the time of defederation, plus admins for Blahaj Zone refused to condemn an admin from another instance who said some transphobic shit, including accusing a Hexbear user of pretending to be trans for internet sympathy points or some bizarre shit.

          • AdaA
            4·
            2 months ago

            Who was this trans med? Trans med folk are explicitly not welcome, and never have been, and no mention of trans med mods was reported to me, despite me being in direct communication with a hexbear admin.

            Trans meds are banned, and I don’t care who they are or what they moderate. My stance on that pre-dates lemmy itself.

            I have also defederated from and publicly called out instances and admins for transphobia and harassment, and have zero hesitation to do so again, so that second accusation is a strange one…

            • lapisEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              honestly, it was a year ago and I don’t remember specifics, I just remember there was transphobia from mods and screenshots to back it up.

              I also remember the admins here “forgave” an admin named snow or something (from programming.dev, I think?) for his transphobic responses to a hexbear user, and users here even talked about how hexbear users must be faking transness because they don’t act the same way liberal (conservative) trans people do.

              • AdaA
                3·
                2 months ago

                I also remember the admins here “forgave” an admin named snow or something (from programming.dev, I think?) for his transphobic responses to a hexbear user

                That’s a really interesting spin on the issue. The admin in question posted transphobic comments regarding a hexbear user, and called blahaj.zone the “good” kind of trans folk.

                As a response to that, we made a public announcement that we were defederating from programming.dev unless the matter was addressed, and ultimately, it was addressed, so we didn’t defderate.

                Which is to say, an admin on an instance that wasn’t ours, directed transphobia against another instance that wasn’t ours, without really involving us, and we made plans to defederate as a result.

                It amazes me, that somehow, blahaj.zone is in the wrong for “forgiving” programming.dev when hexbear not only “forgave” the admin in question, but never planned on taking action regarding the issue in the first place. hexbear did the same and programming.dev is currently listed on their white list of federated instances

        • Deinonych[they/them]@lemmy.ml
          5·
          2 months ago

          edit: also, I don’t see how blahaj could be seen as not hard enough on transphobes :p

          Afaik hexbear’s main problem was with an alleged lack of moderation on c/196 regarding chasers

          • AdaA
            5·
            2 months ago

            A “problem” that arose only after I rejected an appeal from hexbear to ask the 196 mods to remove the anti tanky aspects from their rules and logo. Prior to that refusal, the “lack of moderation” didn’t seem to bother the hexbear community, who were actively seeking to participate in 196 according to conversations with a hexbear admin

            • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.mlM
              1·
              2 months ago

              Ive seen people not liking how horny 196 gets sometimes

              I’m not a fan of it, I sub to blahaj because it’s a trans instance, but I got sick of having weirdly horny shit in my feed randomly so I unsubbed from 196

    • AdaA
      15·
      2 months ago

      No they’re not. Hexbear defederated blahaj.zone because we were considering defederating them because of their habit of co-ordinated dogpiling and harassment. A hexbear admin approached me asking me if we could make it work, because lots of hexbear users were keen to use 196 (our largest community), but the explicitly anti tanky leaning of the 196 mod team was a barrier for hexbear participation in that community. Ultimately, because I wasn’t willing to over-ride the 196 mods and tell them how to run their community, the hexbear community turned on blahaj.zone, and defederated us.

      The message from the hexbear admin was “We want to use 196, but it’s anti tanky” but somehow, that morphed in to a hexbear community opinion of “196 mods are transphobic, and the blahaj admins won’t do anything about it”.

      The truth is, hexbear and blahaj.zone both prioritise the needs of trans folk more than any other instances you will find on lemmy. But hexbear is driven by a political ideology, and blahaj.zone is not (though we have communities that are). And that difference in ideological perspective drives all of the rest of the noise and tension between our instances.

        • Diva (she/her)@lemmy.mlM
          1·
          2 months ago

          It was actually the people who were extremely assmad about tankies who were the ones who were the barrier to federation, rather than the “tankies”, from my understanding

    • Deinonych[they/them]@lemmy.ml
      12·
      2 months ago

      Hexbear used to have a lot of transphobes around 3 to 4 years ago, but now (as can be seen by the survey) it is one of the most accepting places for queer and queer adjacent identities.

    • Pili@lemmy.ml
      10·
      2 months ago

      I don’t know where you got that idea. As far as I know, Hexbear is the biggest safe space for literally anyone who isn’t a fascist.

      They enforce strong policies against any kind of discrimination, be it about race, gender, sexual orientation, they even have mandatory CW for any content showing meat.