Draft! Work in Progress! Feedback welcome!
Join the discussion onhttps://fedipact.online/, created by trans enby girl lesbian gender terrorist vantablack As always, it’s interesting times in the fediverse. As Rochko said, it grows in waves. Millions of people created Mastodon accounts late last year in the wake of Twitter’s acquisition by a transphobic, racist, techbro. Some of them liked it enough that they stayed around; quite a few of them are queer, trans, and non-binary – including George Takei, who with over 386,000 followers may well be the most-followed person in the fediverse!
We’re in the middle of another wave right now, with fed-up redditors looking for alternatives in the wake of Reddit’s decision to shutting down third-party apps and ham-fisted response to the protests checking out kbin (an interesting hybrid between Reddit and Twitter) and the aforementioned Lemmy – including people from big trans subreddits which are a critical source of support and knowledge for so many people.
And we’re going to continue to see new waves, because as always, queer, trans, and non-binary people are under siege on other social network. Twitter’s now saying “cis is a slur” and threatening to turn off blocking functionality. Facebook’s parent company Meta is introducing a Twitter competitor then again Anti-Trans Hate Is Absolutely Rampant on Facebook, Transgender Facebook is content dominated by right-wing sources, and Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta’s Nudity Policies Discriminate Against Trans People (as they have for years) … so people will keep looking for alternatives.
Speaking of Meta’s Twitter competitor, it’s reportedly going to be compatible with Mastodon, which is another reason it’s such interesting times in the fediverse. As Anti-Meta Fedi Pact creator vantablack says in Why Block Meta?,
try being trans and on facebook, having a list of common suicide methods sent to you by a bigot, and reporting it. they’ll do goddamn nothing. a real, personal, and depressingly common example
Opinions are mixed in the fediverse about how to react to Meta’s potential arrival, but it’s not surprising a lot of trans, queer, and non-binary people don’t want them here. Of course, we’re not the only ones who doesn’t want Meta here; hundreds of instances have already signed the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact vantablack created just a week ago.
That said, and even though opinions also differ within queer communities as to how best to respond, it’s very much in keeping with the fediverse’s history that many of the initial signers of the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact are from trans-, queer-, and LGBTQIA2S+-focused instances. In FediPact is an Organized Effort to Block Meta’s ActivityPub Platform vantablack says
I will do everything I can to stop them from burning down the beautiful community we’ve spent over seven years cultivating here.
And she’s clearly not the only one who sees it that way. We’re here, we’re queer, fuck Facebook (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) has more
So we’ll see where things go for the fediverse from here. In chaos there is opportunity! discusses a positive outcome, where resistance Meta’s arrival catalyzes needed changes in the fediverse. If that happens, we may well see another burst of queer-led community innovation, this time more diverse in other dimensions as well. Perhaps the marginalized people who make key contributions will also get some recognition and more access to jobs and funding. Hey, it’s Pride, might as well be optimistic.
In any case, let’s take a moment to appreciate how much of an impact queer, trans, and non-binary have had in creating the fediverse as it is today – and look forward to continuing to shape the future.
Happy Pride!
Notes
1 “Instances” is the term used for different sites that run Mastodon or compativle software. Danielle Navarro’s Everything I know about Mastodon is a detailed introduction to Mastodon; while aimed at data scientists, it’s useful for everybody.
2 Both of the latest attempts to streamline onboarding result in new queer and trans people looking checking out Mastodon signing up by default on the flagship node mastodon.social instead of any of the many thriving LGBTQ+-focused instances. It’s almost like they don’t want queer and trans people to find their community!
3 Margaret KIBI’s Fringe Mastodev – Part III: Joining GlitchSoc, from 2018, has more. If you’re thinking that mainline Mastodon’s refusal to support this valuable anti-harassment functionality doesn’t align with the stated values of being a platform with less harassment than Twitter … you’re not the only one. Does Mastodon really prioritize stopping harassment? has several other examples.
