asexuals undergoing mitosis
bayesianbandit
joined 2 weeks ago
Right? I feel like this is so obviously not about sex & my life is a clear example to that.
For context, I'm a trans woman who works in tech.
Five and a half years ago I was miserable as hell from relying on external validation. I'd never been happy with my birth sex, but I'd stuck it out for years, duct-taping my happiness together with academic or career achievements, working myself to the bone just to achieve some degree of stability at the cost of my mental health, relationships, happiness, sex life, etc.
For all intents and purposes, I was treated by society as male during that era of my life... albeit of the gay sort of feminine and very depressed variety. I also had a laundry list of accomplishments each year and could not fathom being happy with myself unless I collected them all like pokemon.
Sex changes are like the world's most opposite thing to external validation. I went from being a white cis male to... well look at what society thinks of trans women. There have been many many times in the past half-decade in which I felt like I'd jumped off a cliff, that I might lose my career, that I'd struggle harder to get ahead, that I wouldn't be taken seriously anymore.
And some of that was true—I definitely deal with misogyny and transphobia now in a way I never would've before. I do feel I have to perform 2x better than before in order to achieve the same sorts of recognition... and I have to now for some reason look good doing it (whereas before I could basically ignore my body, wallow in dysphoria/depression, and still be given credit).
But... what have I done career-wise during the past 5 years? I've flatlined. Honestly? I "met expectations" for a half-decade straight. No awards, no accolades, just "did that thing and went home." I was too busy both emotionally and practically with a whole freaking sex change outside of work. And nobody has come to eat me, even though at this phase of my life most coworkers don't even know I was once male. Heck, if anything, I look at a lot of my cis female peers and they're having kids which (unfortunately/unfairly) amounts to practically the same thing.
Before my sex change this would have been unthinkable to me. My entire happiness and sense of identity was pinned to my career. And that was was literally THE duct tape on the joke that was my life. The thing I only way I could manage to keep myself male. Literally the biggest lesson career-wise that my sex change has taught me is that it's okay to have eras in your life where your career just vibes for a bit while you short your shit out.
So... I just don't think this is a male vs. female thing. It's a running away from oneself and trying to cope with your misery via external validation thing. It IS true that when you're read as female you DO have to push ahead. Chances are, similar to how I felt I had to alienate myself for my career in order to get to a place where I could afford a sex change, this woman felt she had to do the same in order to establish herself as a woman in tech. The barrier to entry is higher.
But once you're there and established it's like, girl you can chill now, it's gonna be fine if you're fine, maybe with a bit more stability and a bit less pay.
Thanks, I’ll DM you some concerns I have I think the admin might want to consider first. But maybe!
Thank you for this! It’s helpful to have a rough guide of how things move over.
First off, I’ve definitely been telling them! And I’d suspect they’ll also read it here. I definitely agree that moderating is a really thankless job. It’s also not something I have the temperament for.
Long story short I think we need a landing place for point 1. Whatever server hosts us to start might not need to be the one that hosts us forever.
I’m in the background working on a project relating to point 1 but don’t want to speak too publicly about it given the unsavoury parts of the Internet that stalk trans communities.
If blahaj or some other instance could host us that would be great but also I can think of several reasons they might not want to & I don’t know them so it’s hard to say it’s the right spot long term. If my project works out and brings more helpers to the community maybe that’s not an issue.
Recruiting mods I don’t know. I could do it for a bit but it’s not my strength. Past a certain point in growth it’d need others to take over.
I have quite a bit of knowledge and am happy to seed discussions. There are really no articles to post on this topic. It’s people sharing experiences and asking questions. I think a bot to cross post new threads and then some active users posting their replies on Lemmy then letting OP know “I answered on Lemmy” is a better approach.
For the wiki I really don’t know what’s going on with it. I was seeing people say they were scraping it for backups. A lot of the wiki links to Reddit. I’m personally like in favour of letting other people handle it for now. The loss of community to my mind would be worse than the loss of the wiki (though both are bad).
Of course there is a whole other issue here in terms of how prepared Blahaj would be to handle the incoming heat from certain parts of the Internet that watch our subreddit.
I just have to say, HiddenStill is a legend in our community for having made that subreddit what it is today. Changed tens of thousands of peoples lives while receiving virtually no thanks for it.
It’s been a thankless job, full of hate from unsavoury parts of the Internet, and largely handled by one person who has been ridiculously active for the past 8 years.
I have no idea how they haven’t burnt out yet. And I can fully understand that it must feel overwhelming to then have people look to you and expect to do more while having no idea who to trust on this entirely new platform.
Other people have to step up here and earn some respect before pointing fingers. I’m working on it the best I can but I’m at full capacity myself and new to lemmy.
Some of us are trying to work on it but in the mean time it would be great if people more familiar with Lemmy could help us out by taking initiative.
We’re all running on very little here it’s a trans surgery support sub that’s had one mod doing everything for years & almost none of us from the user base no anything about where to migrate which admins are open to helping etc
I posted a thread in lemmy.blahaj.zone the other day and the consensus was “ask the admin” but also it sounds like she’s on vacation. Some other instances seem to have had discussions with no conclusion
I’ve been in talks with them and I believe you are right. They are not being negative they are in need of people to step up. That whole sub has been a one person crew for years. One person. Years. On that topic.
I would do more but I’m already working full capacity taking the lead on a similar initiative and am new to Lemmy so not familiar with admins or different instance cultures. HiddenStill had really good advice to help me on what I’ve been working on and quite supportive to the extent they can be.
I think we need people to really consider which instances are best to help out with this and how to work to make them hospitable. We also need people preparing for the influx of hate that this mod has been dealing with via Reddit tools and brute force.
As a long time user of the sub I can’t express to you how much this person has done for our community and how thankless it’s been. They’ve changed the lives of so many of us and it’s beyond reasonable they are burnt out.
Long time user of that sub here. I’ve been chatting with them lately and they seem quite reasonable but very burned out.
I don’t think you should interpret this as negativity so much as being all out of spoons and needing people to step up so the burden is not so heavy.
Please we need people to step up. Start communities here and find instances that are welcoming.
One of the biggest points worth considering is the sheer volume of hate from certain segments of the internet that sub gets. Mods on whatever instance need to be willing to tackle that.
For my part I’m currently working full capacity taking the lead on another initiative (also involving Lemmy and the trans community) and I am new to Lemmy so I cannot take the lead on making communities here but am happy to facilitate however I can.
Shit, I fell directly into that category & I still delayed my sex change by 10 years after my first attempt at coming out.
It worked until it didn't. And yes it was hell, I lost years of my life, and wouldn't wish that on anybody. I think about how much I missed every day, but also, younger me wasn't wrong.