This is an admin post, intended for blahaj lemmy users. Top level posts from members of other instances will be removed.
==
Edit - Hexbear announced plans to deferedate from us.
==
~~After recent events, it feels to me that sentiment has shifted and more people are asking for defederation of hexbear than previously~~
~~I've been doing my best to try and mend bridges and keep us connected, as it's my hope that we can maintain trans solidarity and work with them, despite the friction, however, ultimately, I feel that this is an issue for the blahaj lemmy community to decide, not the admins alone~~
~~So here's what we're going to do~~
~~We're going to leave things as they are for a week. That will give time for things to calm down whilst we see if we can work together. After a week, I'll put up a vote and get a feel for where the community is at in regards to our continued federation with hexbear. That poll will run for a week. If there is a strong will to defederate (a clear majority), then that's what we will do~~
I don’t believe anyone on hexbear is actually cheering for people who would remove us from existence. I’m LGBT+ myself, and a huge part of why I’m against the current capitalist system we live under is that I see it as incredibly harmful for people like me. There are numerous examples, such as anti-trans laws in the US, the extreme anti-trans rhetoric in the UK, the American funding of draconian anti-LGBT+ laws in African countries. I also truly don’t value people in western countries higher than people in the rest of the world, so when I see the death toll from our military interventions and siege warfare in the form of sanctions, it makes my blood boil. 100s of thousands of people were killed by the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan alone; statistically thousands of them were LGBT+. This means the coalition forces killed more queer people than the countries that have actual death penalties for homosexuality.
I don’t love Russia, they’re a capitalist country with terrible laws and a regressive culture, but Ukraine isn’t really any better. They’ve elevated right wing militias which have targeted people like me and banned trans women from leaving the country.
China is behind on LGBT+ rights, but seem to be moving in the right direction. Cuba has the most progressive LGBT+ laws in the world. Vietnam is moving in the right direction pretty rapidly as well.
I hope this helps you understand why at least one of our users thoughts on these issues. I don’t speak for anyone but myself, but I feel certain my views are quite close to the majority of hexbears.
I had not thought about the similarities between sanctions and siege warfare, that is an excellent observation
It’s not an original observation, but it was something that once I was aware of really made me question why sanctions are so normalized.
If you’d like a better explanation from people who are much smarter than me I recommend the podcast Citations Needed. They’ve got an episode that goes into the harm sanctions cause, especially to the most vulnerable people in the target country.
The following link has both the podcast and a transcript if you prefer reading over listening:
https://citationsneeded.medium.com/episode-106-the-sanitization-of-sanctions-56f976af6019
Thank you for the link!