Decentralized Assimilation
Yesterday, I vented unconstructively about Mastodon, on Mastodon. I was not specific about the problem at all, though of course the replies provided some illustrative examples immediately.
(hypothetical derailing Mastodon reply: "well actually what you're venting about is not Mastodon, but the Fediverse")
I've used several Mastodon servers before. I don't remember the first one. One was shut down, possibly because it was seized by the Taliban. One has been around for years and has a lot of trans women on it, so naturally it's blocked by automated blocklist aggregators like Oliphant.
(hypothetical derailing Mastodon reply: "what if it's blocked because the trans women did something wrong? I hear there are lots of trans women who do something wrong.")
The server I ended up on now is kind.social. It seems to be well-run. Its title bar encourages me to "be more kind", which is something I can at least aspire to sometimes. But the most important thing about it is: it has enough cis people on it that it's probably not going to be targeted in the decentralized instance wars.
I can actually follow everyone I want to from kind.social. And following people is the thing that brings me to Mastodon even though I dislike its design.
So, when I vented about Mastodon and got called out by the server admin for it, it made me take a step back and consider.
What am I doing on Mastodon now? Assimilating. Blending in with cis society. Mastodon drove me to surround myself with cis people as armor. Which is not something I want to intentionally do, when I really think about it.
I am not, necessarily, known for being kind. I like to think I'm other positive adjectives, like loving and supportive of my friends. And I am known, at times, for being strong and uncompromising in the face of transphobia.
When there's a place (like Google Scholar) that puts up technological barriers to transitioning and I need a lot of people to speak up and get mad about that, Mastodon has been an excellent place to post about it and get people mad. That's not kind at all, I realize. It has often led to people saying they don't like my tone. But it's important.
But I turned out not to be strong enough to keep using trans-led Mastodon servers, because if I did so I would keep being repeatedly disconnected from my friends, the people I am here for. If a trans-led server isn't being fediblocked, it's the one doing the fediblocking, in order to perform purity and demonstrate that it's One Of The Good Ones. Either way disconnects people without them even getting to say goodbye.
I do not have a problem with kind.social. I am not saying it is bad for its server admin to be cis -- what sense would that even make? -- or to encourage kindness in every way including the domain name and title of the server. I don't have a problem with the admin taking a personal interest in the posts on his server's public timeline and trying to cultivate the experience he wants. That's a pretty good thing overall. The fact that it made me introspect and write this post is about me and my experience with Mastodon.
I don't mind trying to Be More Kind. I just wish that what led me on the circuitous path to trying to fit in on that server hadn't been the need to Be Less Trans.