"Dear confessions thread, today, I killed all the socialists with my bare hands."
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ERA Anonymous Confessions 2019 v3.0 - One version higher than the GiftBot
- Thread starter neoak
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Thanks for this perspective, Ketkat! That was pretty informative :)
I'm a cis male, so I do find approaching these topics a little tricky in a way that I don't espouse a perspective that's putting down someone who just wants to be recognized for how they see themself.
Your statement of how both groups can co-exist is an interesting one and has got me reconsidering my stance on this debate
Great response, and I agree that this bigoted shit should not be given a, platform, even in this thread
This asshole should be fucking arrested. I just found out my sister was videotaped showering (long story) without her consent and it is traumatising to her. The asshole was arrested today.
I've heard many stories about this type of "Too good to be true setup", The bride gets pregnant, then starts bringing over family (Who will be expected to live in the husbands house) to help with the baby but end up staying. So on and so forth. It's illegal for one thing and he wont get to keep that money, it's some form of money laundering.
Wasn't there a guy on GAF that had a similar marriage to that confession? Maybe my memory is faulty.
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I think that as cis people the best thing we can do is just listen to what the various people in the trans/NB community are saying and offer support and defense where needed. I fully empathize with what the confessor is going through but don't think they're the last word on what being trans is. People with different experiences of gender are still valid.
I haven't even read this whole response yet because I'm too irritated and this start hits the nail on the head.
Can we actually get a beat on why the mods are actively ignoring and sidestepping trans views and sentiment, and those of allies, in this place, because it's become incredibly apparent.
Every single thread on trans issues is derailed from page 2 and the entire rest of the thread is perpetually locked into trans people having to defend their level of irritation to the rest of the forum. Every page, every thread. It's just taken as fact that this is how these play out now.
People telling trans people they're "too sensitive" are given a warning at best as they run in to dismiss concerns in the exact same way at page 9 as someone did on page 2. Being called robots, loners, people that hate fun, people looking to be upset, outrage, harrassers, abusers, people that want Natalie Wynn dead. All in the past week and a half and we're what? Supposed to break our backs every thread politely writing the same thing that we did the last page just so we can perhaps get back to the real discussion instead of validating our irritations to the rest of the forum so they're seen as acceptable or ok?
It's got to the point where even allies have stepped back and gone "uh what the fuck?" posting that it's got to the stage where something needs to be done:
Which is great. Like legitimately makes you feel great – and you have mods come in and acknowledge that it's an issue. Fantastic. Except then when people ask for it to be stickied, to be given some prominence so this can actually start to be combatted, and they vanish off the face of the Earth. Subsequently so does the thread, because people are all to happy to jump in to tell us to shut up but won't step foot in one asking how we can improve the situation.
So you get trans people, like me right now and many before me, who just give up. Who cannot be bothered to have every single trans thread either be post the same arguments every page or be told to shut up. What is the point?
I spent time writing paragraphs the last day and a half combatting it across two of the current threads. Changed the perpsective of some members and they apologise for coming in hot to dismiss us. The next page the exact same dismissals are there again. As said before this is just taken as fact as how trans threads play out. One page of trans people discussing the concern and the next 10 being told to hush by cis people and then having to validate our own hurt to them in order for it to be deemed acceptable for the forum.
Then after all of that you come in here and some absolute bullshit is being signal boosted, emboldening those same people that run into these threads, giving them more ammunition to push the same thing they've always done.
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Disclaimer: cishet dude here.
I 100% understand your frustrations and agree that the way trans issues are handled on this forum is fucked, and that trans people should be fucking listened to, but I'm not totally sure what you're specifically annoyed with here. If you read the reactions to the original confession, the vast majority of them are empathetic both towards the frustrations and pain of the original confessor and towards the NB folks that make it possible that the confessor is in the wrong. Seems to me the conversation around this confession has been mostly polite and understanding, very unlike what you describe and what is evident in other threads.
On the other hand, I'm very aware that I am probably missing a bunch of layers to this conversation (blind spots, privilege, what have you) and may be misunderstanding your point.
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I'm not really sure how to make it more clear. The last paragraph should make it obvious how this ties into the overall frustration and the whole "why are you mad about this one incident" angle while ignoring the context that's right there is legitimately one of the irritations that's baked into each one of those threads even if I'm sure it's unintentional on your part.
- Mods are ghosts in half of the trans threads and do nothing to stop every single one of them derailing into trans people having to validate their hurt to the forum.
- Allies create a thread concerned at this and mods post agreeing. It's asked to be stuck by various members so it's given prominence and the mods vanish.
- Trash views like those in the threads in point one are signal boosted here giving further ammunition to the people in point one.
- Ketkat, again, has to take the time to dismantle the argument (as some trans person has to do every page of every one of those threads) and make sure the accurate information is there so others aren't adopting truscum talking points verbatim
- Ketkat appeals to why this is even being signal boosted.
- Mods ignore and continue to post around her.
I think that's the emotionless succinct version Ramathevoice
The thread you linked, along with the Contrapoints and Lindsay Ellis threads, have all been profoundly disappointing and dispiriting for the reasons you've listed here. Far too many Era posters would rather post shitty drive-by hot takes and, if they choose to respond, get defensive, double down, refuse to give ground, rather than what they should do when confronted with a sensitive, complicated subject they don't understand, which is to sit and listen, and moderation does nothing to stop or discourage that constant flood of toxic drive-bys.
Preach. I might have stepped past the smile-and-nod line with that post but it's really the straw that broke the camels back. I posted last night how irritating it was getting writing reams, changing some minds and then having the clock reset the very next page while the 'this is an issue' thread barely stays afloat.
So you go to bed irritated by it and then wake up to see this. Ketkat having to do the same exact thing because some truscum bullshit is being signal boosted. Her actually appealing to why it's there in the first place and the mods just posting nonchalantly around it, blanking it. Right after the threads we've had, after the sentiment that's ripe at the moment.
Edit: Oh cool, it's now been removed. I'm loathe to feel bad about the posts above since it really shouldn't need to hit breaking point before we see some degree of official acknowledgement of these problems, especially when opportunities to do so with have been handed out in abundance recently.
We have era members with experience in this. Can't remember the names.
Stay close to your kidneys.
Yeah, that is the general idea (and highly illegal) but two points stand up in the confessor post: 1) he seems to believe he really would get a wife, not an arranged marriage. 2) the first part of paying $50k to get a beautiful wife. The last one may be related to not everyone that wants to immigrate to US would have the money to pay for an arranged marriage so they would pay with sex? That is even more disgusting and more like human trafficking.
Thanks for the clarification. I indeed didn't have all the context and I sympathize.
Seems like I missed some discourse
EDIT: And a confession, too
But judging from some of the excerpts I'm seeing here I'm guessing I'm not exactly missing much except a giant screed against nonbinary people
EDIT: And a confession, too
But judging from some of the excerpts I'm seeing here I'm guessing I'm not exactly missing much except a giant screed against nonbinary people
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Day Five Summary Links
User Banned (1 Week): Dismissive Commentary on a Sensitive Topic Over Multiple Posts
OK, I'm really not trying to start anything here, but this is rubbing me the wrong way. Somebody will need to explain to me how this confession could be defined as bigoted in any realistic way. And intolerant? How? The confessor explained her point of view very well, and was respectful to others. I understand the perspective she was putting forward didn't necessarily correspond to the general consensus here, but it was honest, heartfelt, and wasn't malicious in any way. And you know what? Life is complex, and people weren't molded the same way as everybody else like some heartless clones. Nobody is experiencing issues the same way, especially not these kind of issues. She chose to open her heart. Why did it need to be censored?
Just because you try to word bigotry in a polite way does not change the fact that it was bigotry. It was a massive essay about how some nonbinary people are not valid because they don't fit the mold that she does.
The fact that this person chose to do this anonymously should tell you that they know what they're saying isn't acceptable to say here and did literally nothing except attack people both on this board and off.
If you're saying that someone can only exist within the gender binary, or has to vocalize dysphoria in order to gain solidarity with transgender communities, then they're being bigoted/intolerant toward a large spectrum of trans people. It's also incorrect in the face of a lot of communities that don't have a strict gender binary compared to most of what is considered "western culture".
It's just the fetishization of suffering. We want to move away from communities suffering, and while it is good to remember why these communities formed (solidarity in the face of shared oppression over similar vectors a major part of it), achieving social progress means moving away from having suffering define communities, in expectation that there should be less of it everywhere.
Maybe I read it wrong (and unfortunately I cannot go back to it), but I didn't read anything in her essay suggesting that what others are experiencing is invalid or wrong. She was trying to express what she was personally experiencing, and tried to explain why while being conscious that it didn't correspond to the status quo circulating here.
So maybe she's wrong about thinking what she said. Sure, ok. But her confession certainly wasn't malicious, it was her own experience that she wanted to share. She didn't send it to hurt anybody. So why not argue with all the empathy that this situation requires instead of censuring her confession, and responding to it like she was some kind of pariah?
Because as mentioned we've had this exact discussion very patiently in multiple other threads. People suffering dysphoria absolutely deserve sympathy and respect but just because someone is feeling bad does not give them justification to say things that attack the legitimacy of their fellow human beings, certainly not the way it happened in this case. There were some significantly incorrect and harmful statements the poster made, and good intent does not excuse that fact.
I'm surprised that a couple of these confessions went through but mine didn't. I think this is all fun and great but does make me question the process.
The thread is young yet. I think it's only like 3-4 submissions a day that get posted irrespective of the number that come in.
They aren't always posted in the order they're received, iirc
At least that's how it was previous years
That person directly talked about how these nonbinary people were just children appropriating being trans as well as directly saying that by not transitioning the same way as us or making an effort to pass that they were no different from cis men. The entire thing was invalidating towards nb people, and if this person was looking to actually have those views challenged, that was not the way. It was written as if this was some hard truth we need to hear when it really isn't true in the slightest.
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I'm not sure they would be fronting that kind of cash per-person for human trafficking. *if* (and if I could put more asterisks around If respectably, I would), the offer for money is legit, it sounds at worst like it's a green card sham marriage from a Vietnamese family of means who wants to cut around immigration restrictions. Human trafficking probably wouldn't try to bring victims in on a green card path, as the point is often to keep them isolated and in fear of deportation.
That's actually kind of a cute irony, and it's a shame that you've left it as a secret to your current SO. My wife (started dating 11 years ago and married for 3) found me on social media, and it wasn't with the expectation of dating, let alone marriage.
Funny how things turn out.
At last a confession making me a bit sad that we, as a human species, are probably gonna be near extinct in a hundred year or so.
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This is lovely, I'm glad there are wholesome confessions in between all of the stepsis stuff and depression.
Woo boy this thread is off to a start dug through the confessions and gawdamn some of y'all are wild. Facebook stalking leading to romance is sort of cute but also sort of dystopic in a weird way.
The thread might be gone soon, but in the spirit of the times I thought it important to let you know there's a thread on etcetera right now where OP did cocaine for the first time in their parents' house (and was unimpressed).
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