I made some off-hand comments on a post on 196 and didn’t realize they’d be taken the wrong way. I made a few more comments to help clarify my idea but caught a blanket ban from blahaj.zone with no warning or message.
https://lemmy.world/modlog?page=1&actionType=All&userId=588349
I’m mortified :( It’s never been my goal to make others feel bad online. I had a quibble with the wording on a meme and clumsily worded my idea of “Our differences shouldn’t be minimized because they make us special” was seen as transphobia/TERF rhetoric.
But with no prior warnings or even a message from a mod to ‘cool it’, I got banned from the entire instance. I love these communities (feel free to look at my 2.5 years of comment/post history) and I would like to be able to continue to participate.
So, is there a formalized method of ban appeal beyond messaging mods? Their instance has like 12, so I don’t want to spam them and have it seen as harassment.


Yeah, blahaj, don’t bother. There’s an elevated amount of odd positions that are popular there, and don’t you dare question them.
Note to self: never comment on blahaj
You could just not be shitty and it wouldn’t be a problem to post on blahaj at all.
Was OP being shitty with their comment?
I guess birthing is a hot topic or maybe even a dog whistle in the anti-trans community. Just from OP’s deleted comments, I’d say they weren’t hating.
Yes. Blahaj is not a place to debate whether trans women are real women.
Yes.
Whether it was intentional or not. I mentioned elsewhere that there are cis folks who can’t have children. So that comment was shitty to a wider group than just trans folks. Its also pretty common terf stuff.
It also broke the rules for both the instance and the community.
Thanks for the reply. I see I am going against the grain here, so apologies if this comes through as hard-headed, but I still don’t get the violation.
Was the problem that OP was talking in general about the importance of being able to give birth? It doesn’t seem to diss trans or sterile people, just mentions that it can be important. Or is OP saying it is important, and that’s the problem?
The comment was made in that it suggests trans women are not women. As well as cis women who can’t have children not being women, though unintentionally.
The comment was a specific callout to separate trans women from women in general. Intention is irrelevant, a distinction was made, though despite being about trans women, it was a distinction with no bearing or value on the definition of a woman.
Its a very common talking point for terfs, as well. It is not a new or original attack on trans women, but it is what it boils down to - an attack on trans women.
One that doesnt make sense after a bit of thought is applied either.
I had to google TERF, but I am familiar with the overall notion (I heard about it from gay circles).
So I think I’m missing context. If OP reacted unkindly to someone facing these issues IRL, banhammer was in place. Just talking about these stuff shouldn’t be tabu, because of tolerance.
That being said, if blahaj is a safe zone for the lgbtq+ folk, OP has only themselves to blame. I accidentally commented on a lemmygrad circlejerk thread with ‘well, akshually…’ and I was torn a new butthole. Even though my argument had merit, it wasn’t the right place for it.
Thanks again for the details. Lemmy is wild.
I’d like to point out that in [email protected] they have a rule saying:
which they use to wolfpack onto anyone who even remotely questions their tribal consensus, even if that person is coming from sharing a post that is well aligned with them.
Lemmy is wild indeed.
The blahaj server is dedicated to the gender diverse, and a safe space server.
196 is a safe space community, since before Lemmy (r/196 is over 10yrs old)
It is quite specifically a community that contains people who have dealt with these sort of divisive comments before, and a server that has dealt with those sorts of divisive comments before, and is explicitly not permitted on either the community or the server itself. Detailed out rather thoroughly in the sidebar, including noting comments that challenge someone’s identity.
So yeah, OP only has themselves to blame, though I’ll say the argument that resulted in a ban has zero merit anyway (for reasons previously mentioned).
Exactly.