Dismissing the concerns of trans people as outrage or cancel culture (or words to that effect) is belittling and demonstrates a disregard for the issues that affect them. If you can't treat the matter with respect it will be regarded as transphobic trolling and you will be moderated accordingly. We encourage dialogue and learning opportunities that are initiated in good faith, but this requires listening to our trans members rather than shouting them down.
Regarding pronouns: It is not up to you to choose whether or not to respect a trans person's preferred pronouns. We are not interested in allowing any exceptions to this, and misgendering will always result in a severe infraction against the offender's account.
Trans people are individuals: Some trans users will be less affected or less bothered by certain issues than others. Disagreements must remain civil and not result in hostility. Please respect that trans people are individuals with different points of view and do not attempt to police those who do not agree with you. Posts that espouse or excuse bigotry, however, will always result in bans regardless of the author.
Accusations that the ResetEra staff do not care about trans issues will not be tolerated: We have several trans members of staff who are consulted on both site policy and individual reports. All of us are volunteers who contribute our time when we are able, and it will sometimes take time for us to get to a report that needs our attention, especially when there are a lot of reports in the queue. Similarly, just because a moderator has posted in a thread does not necessarily mean that they have read every post in it; if you would like to call attention to a post that you feel violates our guidelines, please use the report system.
Claiming that our staff don't care, or attacking us for doing our jobs, is personally hurtful and makes us less likely to want to donate our time. In the interest of protecting the mental well-being of our volunteers, such posts will receive bans as steep as necessary until they stop. Feedback is always welcome when presented politely and through appropriate channels. You can use the contact form at the bottom of the site or reach out to the Moderator Captains. Thank you for your understanding.
The first part is a good first step as it is actually addressing an issue that has been a long running issue on this site and online in general. Outrage culture, left eating itself, woke culture, and bad faith arguing are all used incorrectly by people and used primarily as a way to dismiss people as not being genuine so that they don't have to actually entertain that they could be wrong. It's incredibly similar to the arguments that people have used in the past that accuse people of virtue signalling which has been actioned quite a bit, which is why it was frustrating to see things regress on this front.
The issue that exists within the pronoun section is the implications that doing something like that carries if it's not explicitly said. People who willfully misgender trans people are telling us that they don't really see trans people as the gender that we are, that we aren't valid. When someone does this explicitly for all trans people, that is abundantly clear. However, there are times where someone will see a trans person doing something criminal and they'll start to fall back into using the wrong pronouns. This shows that they don't see us as valid as much as they see our identities as a courtesy or a polite gesture that can be taken back when needed. We have been told in the past that people who do not see trans women as women, trans men as men, or trans people in general as valid will be perma'd instantly when they reveal this, and I think that willful misgendering should fall into that category as well.
And you're right that trans people are individuals, but you sort of start to counteract that with your very next part. Staff members and regular members are not treated the same way, and it's always been apparent to everyone who posts on this forum to the point that it's a running joke in a lot of circles here. I'm not talking about who makes decisions on reports, but the way that hostility is treated as well as the way that bigotry is actioned. If someone insults another member, they'll get a warning or at most a day ban if they don't have a history. But, if someone comes after the moderation or express frustration they'll more than likely get 5 days to a week at minimum. I don't think that you all should be facing harassment of any kind, but this is one of the easily verifiable things on the site that people have seen.
The way that bigotry is handled by people on Staff is also a bit strange. There was that one transphobic post by a moderator that when posted by anyone else would have been a month ban, but in this case, they were just talked to and allowed to stay on the team. When evidence was presented of how they had said these things throughout their time on GAF before this, it was dismissed and considered resolved. There are also chats that have been shown to people about a moderator on the staff talking in the discord about how Asexuals should not be a part of the LGBT+ community and instead of any challenging or talking through, was essentially told that people could see where they were coming from, to not feel bad, and then dropped.
These things are always going to be treated differently because these people that are on the team are more easily reached, more easily talked to than the people on the forum, but these double standards that people see on top of the regressions that have happened in some topics are going to frustrate people. Of course you guys care about the site, but you often seem to be under the impression that you're the only ones who do and the rest of us are just trying to stick it to you instead of doing what we can from our own end. The users of this site are people too, and you can't expect us to take just as much abuse as you when we have no ways of pushing back against it.
It's not that you all aren't open to listening or feedback, so much as the opinions on people of staff are typically held higher than the rest. Which is somewhat understandable as you're able to have longer and more in-depth conversations as you're in a discord together, but is part of the issue I have with this "Trans people are individuals" line. I get what your point is. There are threads where people are upset about an issue going on and telling someone that they don't care about trans issues without knowing the first thing about the person they're talking to. That isn't good, and that should be taken care of, but when we're able to recognize that trans people are going to differ on some of these minute topics it can't all come down to the weight of whichever trans mod is online at that particular moment to make the call every time. Because I'm dating someone who was on the mod team for almost 2 years and had a lot of conversations with you all, I know that it's rare for more than one trans mod to be around and tackling reports. And I think you all need to be more open to the idea that people aren't reporting what they see as bigotry for no reason.
