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Thanks, everyone, for your (mostly) thoughtful posts. Except Mr. Awesome. You're banned for 3 days for your inflammatory, low-effort one-liners.
I have read all the comments although I don't have time to respond to each individually. I have a few somewhat disjoint, general thoughts:
One: I'm surprised by the number of people saying the policy I outlined in the original post is anti-trans. To me, when I wrote it, it seemed the opposite. Over the past few months we've gone from "trans pics are pretty much in practice not allowed on the main site, we often silently delete them and sometimes silently ban pics of the women in question altogether" to "trans women get their own subsection of the forum".
Two: From a sexual preference point of view, I like this post by Green_Tea and this post by twopossums (in another thread) as good explanations for why a lot of users find trans posts upsetting in a way different from other pics that aren't to their liking.
Someone implied upthread that with this policy I'm catering to people like Mr. Awesome. No, Mr. Awesome, based on his comments, is a jerk, and I don't care to cater to him. I do care about catering to Green_Tea and twopossums though, and I think their viewpoint makes up a large portion of the userbase.
Three: The layout of the main site makes it so that it's very difficult to avoid pictures belonging to a category you don't like. You will see the thumbnails whether you want to or not. I'm not sure if this is a weakness or a strength, and the idea of being able to exclude images based on tags has been floated upthread as a way to have more customization. I could think about this idea more in a separate thread. On the forum, on the other hand, it's easy to avoid certain topics: you just don't click on that subsection or thread if you're not interested. As a result, the forum is better suited for polarizing content than the main site.
Four: Let's say you have a category of pictures that a lot of users react negatively to; in this case it's trans women but the same reasoning also applies if we were talking about, say, content from the Fantasy subforum. If you insist that people should be shown this on the main site despite the forum layout existing as a better alternative it reads to me like you're volunteering my time and the mods' to clean up the consequent mess in the image comments and reports, and this doesn't endear me to your argument.
Five: I realize that this discussion, like most internet debates, won't change anyone's mind. In my posts I go more for trying to explain my point of view so that you can understand where I'm coming from, rather than to convince you that I'm right. Ultimately it's OK if you don't agree with what I say.
I expect that at some point this thread will start to go in circles with nothing new added to the conversation, at which point I'll lock it. I don't think we're quite there yet, though.
@Chainer, thank you for trying to navigate this topic the best way it can be.
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I'm not sure if some of what I wrote has been misunderstood, so I would like to add some more of my thoughts.
I think it is clear that the admin/mod team are trying their best to come up with the best solution and I'm glad they do so. Ultimately whatever solution they come up with should be respected, and we - the commenters, the userbase - should keep in mind that maybe we can have discussions only about the moral or sexual aspects, but the practical aspects might press heavier on the admin/mod team than we expect. They have a site to run after all.
If you ask me: is it right that the world we live in has to have these discussions at all? Ideally, no, problems like this shouldn't exist. But they do. There are a lot of nuanced topics to be discussed and fights to fight. But we, people, cannot appoint anyone to fight our fights but ourselves.
Would it be ideal to have mods fight off transphobia? In a sense, yes, in another, no. Can we demand from them they do so? I don't think so. There are things that are right, and things that are realistic. Sometimes these overlap, sometimes they don't.
Is the separated forum the best solution? Maybe there could be something better (debatable, as this thread shows), but it is already better than what we had before. And better than before is already good, that's what progress is. And sometime later hopefully there will be something better. We can't be expecting to be at the final solution already.
I think for deciding if there can be something better the best approach would be to see what are the expectations and issues of different groups of people. The topic has to be tackled a different way if the inclusion itself is the issue, or if the issue is poeple seeing pictures they don't want to see, or maybe it's something different still.
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The way I see it some comments have taken a direction that doesn't lead to anything productive, but my whole comment is aimed at noone in particular. I'm just putting my thoughts out here that culminated reading this thread, hoping that maybe people from both sides can see some new points of view, and maybe we could start bouncing ideas around that could lead to some further progress.
Edit: I think the important things are:
including trans women as much as possible
providing the users with means to filter the content of the site
finding out if there are poeple who would have issues with the two bullet points above combined, and what those issues are
Scythian
We’re not talking about medical conditions like ambiguous genitalia or genetic anomalies. These are very rare conditions.
Interesting, this is after you demanded actual journal articles. Now the source material you demanded somehow doesn't count because the conditions are rare? Guess what: being trans is coincidentally rare!
The discussion is about whether the photos of trans women (XY) should appear side by side with biological women (XX).
No it really isn't. Not all people are XX or XY, and not all trans women are XY, that's the point you're choosing to miss.
It sounds like you actually think you can conduct chromosomal and gender testing by looking at a picture, which falls under the category of "delusions of grandeur."
... If trans women appear mixed with biological women on this site, more biological buff women will request their photos removed and more users will complain and eventually abandon GWM.
Slippery slope, anyone? Try this version of your argument: "If [maximally roided] women appear on this site, the more biologically buff women will request their photos removed and more users will complain and eventually abandon GWM." Is that happening?
Also, trans women already appear "mixed" on this site. (I think this is the underlying cause of some freakouts). Your belief that you can identify binary gender or chromosomal makeup simply by looking at a picture has blinded you to this fact. As I mentioned earlier, unless a particular trans woman self identifies, then deciding whether she is "trans" or not is based on rumor or accusation.
Do consider: many trans and intersex people have had puberty suppressed because of their conditions and then have moved on to adult life without the dramatic "Chris Jenner" surgeries and changes, and in the case of trans women, they were never "men" first as you assume.
I personally only want to see photos of biological XX women.
Here's the real thesis of the argument!
I ignore the over roided ones.
This is an important point. How does your capacity to ignore pictures you don't like somehow go away if you suspect a woman is trans?
Now why does this position offend or threaten anyone?
It doesn't offend or threaten me. When attempting to have a good faith discussion, I just feel obligated to call out false arguments, false appeals to science, and delusions of persecution. I actually appreciate your openness to polite discussion.
Chainer: Thank you, I agree with fliphift's observations on balance and would like to add that your balanced view and attempts to approach things fairly is much appreciated. Not many administrators actually welcome such debates.
As Tamarok previously pointed out, rules change and things evolve. There is no single permanent governance solution for a site like this that has to balance the demands of a lot of different users to remain viable.
I still believe that the existing image upload rules would sufficiently cover most of what is allowed on the main site and what is not. I think the special exclusion for "trans" was a surprise fo many. However, I am sure what people think exists under typical social boundaries in the real world has no comparison to what moderators of an images site get to encounter every day.
I imagine early on that you attempted exclusions for "overly roided" FBBs and arrived at the conclusion that boundaries of that designation are so blurry and subjective that it was pretty hard to enforce with uniformity.
I further believee that we will similarly find the entire category of "trans" to be less easily defined than is popularly believed. I've just addressed a few of these main points above (in reply to scythian):
Since no one can conduct chromosomal and gender testing by looking at a picture (although many believe they can), there is an attribution problem;
Trans women who have not self identified already appear "mixed in" on this site (because of point 1 above).
Users already avoid images they don't like.
I disagree with flipshift on adding a tag for trans, since it would not solve any of the above realities, and might even exacerbate the attribution problem.
All that said, I think commenters like me and flipshift are missing the whole point of the evolving rules... essentially, there is now a "don't ask, don't tell" policy in place that preserves the impression that the main site is completely "trans free", basically, to protect the illusions of certain users. Such is the art of management.
> > > there's also the easy workaround of having a separate section for the minority of people on this site who want to see that
What minority? How are you deciding what people want to see or not. This trans bodybuilder for example does very well when she's posted:
She is trans?? Then people need to be notified. There should be a trans tag just in case one of those images slips out of the forum. YOu could not tell he/she is trans.
i mentioned this earlier, and idk hw possible this is in the coding of the site, but what about users being able to parse names from the feed? there's a handful of women i'd be fine NOT seeing posted that are not my personal taste.
i know a lot of this falls on userbase to kind of self moderate but considering how many times people repost shannon courtney photos (for example) from 6 years ago or kristy photos from 20 years ago without bothering to check, it seems like a lost cause lol
She is trans?? Then people need to be notified. There should be a trans tag just in case one of those images slips out of the forum. YOu could not tell he/she is trans.
There are a lot of trans women on the main site. This rule makes it absurd for the mods to parse through everything to try to find who is trans and isn't if they're so hellbent on separating trans from cis models. They've opened themselves up to a ton of problems with this decision.
Since there are a lot of woke folk following this thread, I'd like to know if there is any end to attributes I may claim for myself and then declare myself, especially since many of the trans-nation appear to have retained their OEM parts. (In other words, they still have a penis and testies.)
Would blackface and some FUBU gear give me an African-American identity? Truth be known, I already share the music, automobile and yes, even the redbone female body preferences of many of my 50+ y/o black friends, so it's not a huge stretch.
Do you find that offensive?
Is it because I haven't faced the same obstacles as them because I wasn't born that way? Maybe because with a make-up and clothing change right back (the nappy hair is native Sicilian so I get to keep that). Because I get to keep all the advantages or either white or black ancestry without the negatives?
Sort of like being ogled/admired by men, but I still get to fuck occasionally? Gee, I wonder how born-women feel about that. Maybe that in itself turns me off? And for my trouble I get judged because I don't have any more desire to see pretend women than corny LH art comics? (Not that I honestly care.)
I think, at most, maybe there should be a tag indicating they're transwomen. I've seen lots of women on this website who barely have any feminine features, but they're still allowed because they were born as a woman. Of course, if transwomen were allowed on the main website they should be required to hit a certain level of femininity. Let the users decide who gets to stay and who doesn't, if a particular person or picture doesn't get any votes and received a lot of reports, then obviously they should be removed, but this should be a case by case basis. At the end of the day, it's not my website. I obviously can't dictate who gets to stay and who doesn't, and I won't lose any sleep if you decide to stick to your initial decision.
Haven't read the whole thread but, make a mandatory trans tag and a blacklist feature for it if it isn't too difficult. That could solve the problem. Throw in a model blacklist feature too if it doesn't exist already some would probably appreciate that too.
All we can do is prey that people wouldn't be too toxic in comments of trans photo's. Most of us who are turned off by trans women would just skip and move on, but you know some of us are demons let's be real lmfao
All we can do is prey that people wouldn't be too toxic in comments of trans photo's. Most of us who are turned off by trans women would just skip and move on, but you know some of us are demons let's be real lmfao
Why not just ban these people, instead of throwing our hands up like nothing can possibly be done? There was a guy on here that was constantly just being transphobic regurgitating the same things over and over, and the odd comment would be deleted with no further recourse. I dug up 3 separate instances of him being homophobic on this site as well, and only at that point did the administrator ban him for 3 days. Is this something that's going to curb that behavior? Probably not but we'll see. Moderation team on this site is looking at it completely backwards. If someone makes toxic comments why not issue bans instead of looking at the trans photo as the "cause" of the problem?
Really surprised of this decision and disturbed by it!
Trans women are a women, they should not be segregated to a specific section of the site.
This is used as a fetish and porn site by many, but it is purposefully left very open, unthreatening and has a large diffusion: it is accessed by women (and trans women) who even come here posting their pictures and interacting with the community. An effort should be made, NOT BY THE MODERATORS BUT BY THE COMMUNITY, to keep a positive atmosphere, leaving discrimination and mean/denigratory comments out.
Since green_tea is the (only?) one "on the opposite side of the barricade” that has articulated is thoughts, I would like to point out two parts in his discourse: first, how is one expected to evolve one’s view - seeing trans women as women - as green_tea himself seem to deem auspicabile, if you are not exposed to and confronted with the issue? Second, bringing up the subjectivity of taste shifts the problem, which has nothing to do with personal taste. It is completely fine for someone to find the fact that a woman is trans a “deal breaker” and it would be wrong to stigmatize them for it or to pretend they tried to force themselves to overcome this instinct. But the consequent reaction should be to move to other pictures and fantasies and not to report the one that we do not find appealing. It is only this last step that reveals the transphobia and that should not be conceded.
If for someone a trans woman is not attractive, this person could simply move to the next image. If a person is grossed out by the revelation that a woman they found attractive is trans, can note down the name and skip her pictures in the future. If one is angered by one of the above revelations (that the woman is trans or that he might be attracted by her before knowing that) it is up to that person to sort this out with themselves and themselves alone. Probably finding oneself in a trans-positive environment will ease this process.
I agree that we cannot ask the moderators to fight our fights, but it is ultimately the transphobic people that are making them work more. I think a solution to limit the report floods could be to temporarily ban those that do “false reports” as explained in a to-be-made list of 6 or 10 points.
It's astonishing, and at times hilarious, to read so much nonsense from the two opposing sides.
You're just going around in circles shouting "Catholics are right" and "No, Protestants are right" over and over again.
The solution is really very simple.
It's called compromise.
Claiming an all out monopoly on truth isn't how Life works. Religions, politics, arts all have different forms with their own respective followers and all coexist.
Anything else, like so many of you are doing, is just Taliban-style tactics to win at all costs, at the expense of the shades of grey that human sexuality is.
Now then, you gonna keep on shouting in the hope to be right, or are you all gonna cooperate?
It's astonishing, and at times hilarious, to read so much nonsense from the two opposing sides.
You're just going around in circles shouting "Catholics are right" and "No, Protestants are right" over and over again.
The solution is really very simple.
It's called compromise.
Claiming an all out monopoly on truth isn't how Life works. Religions, politics, arts all have different forms with their own respective followers and all coexist.
Anything else, like so many of you are doing, is just Taliban-style tactics to win at all costs, at the expense of the shades of grey that human sexuality is.
Now then, you gonna keep on shouting in the hope to be right, or are you all gonna cooperate?
The problem is that this isn't a compromise at all. Is there anyone in here that is anti-trans that isn't happy that these images have been banished to a sub-section of the site that's nearly impossible to find? No, there isn't. It's a good as not having the images on the site at all for them. That tells you it was a one-sided decision.
It's astonishing, and at times hilarious, to read so much nonsense from the two opposing sides.
You're just going around in circles shouting "Catholics are right" and "No, Protestants are right" over and over again.
The solution is really very simple.
It's called compromise.
Claiming an all out monopoly on truth isn't how Life works. Religions, politics, arts all have different forms with their own respective followers and all coexist.
Anything else, like so many of you are doing, is just Taliban-style tactics to win at all costs, at the expense of the shades of grey that human sexuality is.
Now then, you gonna keep on shouting in the hope to be right, or are you all gonna cooperate?
Thanks for that nothing burger.
The problem is that this isn't a compromise at all. Is there anyone in here that is anti-trans that isn't happy that these images have been banished to a sub-section of the site that's nearly impossible to find? No, there isn't. It's a good as not having the images on the site at all for them. That tells you it was a one-sided decision.
So basically you're mad because the lines aren't as blurred as you'd hoped? It's astounding to me this is even debated. I'm sure there are plenty of trans forums; is anyone posting photos of cis women that supposedly would be otherwise no different visually? What do those sound like? "This one's hips are too wide!"
Scythian
Interesting, this is after you demanded actual journal articles. Now the source material you demanded somehow doesn't count because the conditions are rare? Guess what: being trans is coincidentally rare!
No it really isn't. Not all people are XX or XY, and not all trans women are XY, that's the point you're choosing to miss.
It sounds like you actually think you can conduct chromosomal and gender testing by looking at a picture, which falls under the category of "delusions of grandeur."
Slippery slope, anyone? Try this version of your argument: "If [maximally roided] women appear on this site, the more biologically buff women will request their photos removed and more users will complain and eventually abandon GWM." Is that happening?
Also, trans women already appear "mixed" on this site. (I think this is the underlying cause of some freakouts). Your belief that you can identify binary gender or chromosomal makeup simply by looking at a picture has blinded you to this fact. As I mentioned earlier, unless a particular trans woman self identifies, then deciding whether she is "trans" or not is based on rumor or accusation.
Do consider: many trans and intersex people have had puberty suppressed because of their conditions and then have moved on to adult life without the dramatic "Chris Jenner" surgeries and changes, and in the case of trans women, they were never "men" first as you assume.
Here's the real thesis of the argument!
This is an important point. How does your capacity to ignore pictures you don't like somehow go away if you suspect a woman is trans?
It doesn't offend or threaten me. When attempting to have a good faith discussion, I just feel obligated to call out false arguments, false appeals to science, and delusions of persecution. I actually appreciate your openness to polite discussion.
I am not dismissing these articles but merely stating that these medical conditions don’t represent the majority of trans people. None of these articles or anything else you’ll find on pubmed will state that biological X? = XX. You spend a lot of effort trying to refute me line by line. And you are inaccurately restating my points. What is your objective? Mine is simple. I prefer and expect to see biological XX women on the Girls With Muscle site. I suspect that you also prefer biological women. So are you just a holy warrior in the culture wars arguing to advance the new era of social enlightenment? There are plenty of forums for trans people so why push into this forum? I’m done with this thread. The moderators provide an equitable solution which is more charitable than I would do. This thread is becoming pointless. Signing off.
@markstewart
To clarify, transwomen on the main site didn't bother me. I did in fact just move on, instead of leaving nasty comments and/or reports. But I meant everything I said about my own personal attraction.
I see Chainer's new policy as a practical move rather than an ideological move. Facts are, many people feel the same way I do about transwomen, but simply cannot or will not be respectful about it. I think it's wrong for people to act that way, but that's currently how the userbase is. The burden to police the aftermath of that is on the moderation of this site, and their resources are limited.
@asianfitnessfan: We’re not talking about medical conditions like ambiguous genitalia or genetic anomalies. These are very rare conditions. The discussion is about whether the photos of trans women (XY) should appear side by side with biological women (XX). The moderators have correctly agreed to separate those photos into their own forum. If trans women appear mixed with biological women on this site, more biological buff women will request their photos removed and more users will complain and eventually abandon GWM. I personally only want to see photos of biological XX women. I ignore the over roided ones. Now why does this position offend or threaten anyone?