fracture

holy

In March, it was revealed that the Texas Department of Public Safety recorded every time a resident requested to update their gender on their driver’s licenses online. The gathered data also included people who inquired about the process via phone or in person.

Also in March, Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton directed state agencies to ignore court orders on gender changes that conflicted with state law.

not that it should be surprising but it's surprising to have it confirmed

it was my hope that explaining things the way i had would expose OP's contradictory behavior, although i would certainly hear you out if you felt i could have approached it better

i added my 2c because i thought OP might be more amenable if the point about the woman who had been abused was conceded, as well as trying to clear up the understanding about why we gauge people based on how they gender people they don't like

i think you're probably right about them feeling directly empathic about the situation, although i don't think that excuses the way they were behaving. they were pretty clear upfront about defending the woman who had been abused, so i feel like if they had an equally understandable story, they would have been upfront about it as well. of course, that is an assumption on my part, which could be incorrect, but i think questioning why they felt like their behavior was OK was fair

Banning is language control

yyyyyyyyes, you're correct. what i meant in my post was more like, we cannot control what OP thinks or how OP speaks of people personally. like, we literally have no power there. i intended to juxtapose that with what you've mentioned, banning and such, but perhaps i wasn't as clear as i could have been

i hear what you're saying about issuing a warning vs a ban, although they had a direct dialogue with ada about the situation, so not sure how much more of a warning would have been effective. and, you know, sometimes one does want to just silence the opposition; it's not every person or every space's job to be persuasive and understanding; as you say, we are an online safe space for trans people, not the government. i definitely don't disagree with ada's moderation style for LBZ, and i don't disagree with her choice here, either

the things you're explaining are things i've been thinking about, though, so i appreciate you saying them, regardless

so uh, generally, as transgender people and allies, we use one's respect of a transgender person's gender as a gauge of how valid they perceive the self identification of gender

and this includes trans people who have done shitty things, committed crimes, or, as in your case, been abusive

we use this as a gauge because it reflects how much the viewer believes that respect of gender identity is a right vs a privilege. if a trans person commits a crime or wrongs you, and you decide misgendering that person is OK, then it would seem you think treating trans people as their gender is revocable i.e. a privilege, not a right

it's not so much "hurting our feelings" as, indicating to us, that trans rights are not important to you, or that the transgender identity is only worth respecting if you're a "good person", or whatever you judge is such

now, i will say, it's completely understandable that the woman you're talking about has trouble gendering her abuser correctly, for many reasons you have pointed out, and i think it would have been good for her to have been met with more compassion, since this can be a difficult thing even for people coming from less abusive circumstances

however, i would also note that you are misgendering her abuser, and you have no such defense, so why do you feel like it's alright to misgender someone because they're an abuser? you say you're a staunch defender of LGBTQ rights, but for the reasons i explained above, those actions are not reflective of that ideal

defending this abused woman, in this case, makes a lot of sense. but you have no defense for misgendering her abuser, you were not the one abused, so why are you doing it?

obviously, we can't control your language. however, free speech is not a guaranteed right, here in this community, and honestly, i would advocate for you to be banned here, too, since it really seems like you care more about your ability to misgender someone because you think they're bad, rather than recognize that trans people can do bad things, and we can still condemn that (and honestly, insult them and call them bastards or whatever), without having to resort to misgendering them and furthering the normalization of delegitimizing trans people

i long to see the woke sky...

do you game or do other hobbies that keep your hands busy but your ears open? throw up some of those self love affirmation videos off youtube, the ones you're supposed to listen to while sleeping. i can't speak for if they work while you sleep, they'd keep me up, but they work great as essentially background noise and help your mood and self compassion improve over time

this is true but absolutely not something most people believe, saying it is a good way to get most people to think you're full of it if you're trying to persuade them of something else

ace rule