What looks to me to be pretty nasty transphobia was posted in the yarn.social IRC channel.

I’ll go on record unequivocally: transphobia is not OK ever. Transwomen are women, transmen are men, and it’s not in any way funny to pretend otherwise even as a “joke”. It’s hurtful and harmful.

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci @movq@www.uninformativ.de I for ones was just silently confused, I’m not in the IRC, so whatever it was - therefore I didn’t see it. I also think it’s important to add, that no group, event or action, should be considered “protected from humor”.

It’s a feeling, hard to describe, but the Internet went for mostly toxic, with only a few sanitized places, to now almost fully sanitized. It ruined the fun.

The Fediverse fractured, mostly because some percentage of users, had to find a way to silence those offensive to them, for the entirety of their instance. I really don’t want this place, taking the same path.

My silence initially was not an invitation of my position on this. Both my wife and I read through the material, the (not to be linked) twt, and IRC backlog. Making fun (humour) of any protected class is NOT OK. I agree 👌

@abucci@anthony.buc.ci Hmm maybe let’s be a little more gentle 🤗 – @thecanine@twtxt.net I’m not completely sure of your background or what you mean by “protected from humor” when that humor involves or targets a group of people, individuals or events. But…

Let’s use the word “making fun of”:

“Make fun of” an individual can cause emotional harm. At worse it can cause bodily harm in terms of suicide or psychological harm in terms of depressions. Humor can be both a tool for good as well as a weapon for bad.

The same applies to groups of people, no matter their circumstances, beliefs, etc.

In California for example I discovered that even “making fun of myself” (being blind) was even considered illegal so I had to be careful about my own sense of humor when stupid shit would happen to me because of my lack of good eyesight.

Its important to understand and have empathy towards others, that they may not find the same things you do as “funny”, but sometimes quite offensive or even hurtful.