@The Nexus of Privacy

You're right, I should talk about the Code of Conduct in relationship to the the anti-black incidents. The ones I know of weren't at the event itself, and tbh I'm not even sure they violated the CoC, but it's certainly an interesting discussion. I'll add something about this next time I do a revision.

This definitely needs to be addressed. Inevitably we are going to encounter culture clashes, where different minorities and marginalized groups disagree on things. Minorities often contrast themselves against the majority, but the reality is the even the minorities disagree with each other on certain things.

Personally, I take inspiration from the more progressive urban areas of the Philippines and many of the Filipino expats and overseas workers I know. They are predominantly Catholic, but they don't force you to be Catholic. If you are LGB or trans, people just accept it as part of who you are without judgement and without looking down on you. Ladyboys, as they call themselves locally, are practically a cultural icon. Sure, any culture has its jerks, but at least in certain regions, they are much more accepting than most other cultures or countries. I take inspiration from that.

If we want to reduce conflict and increase loves & acceptance, we have to think beyond our own cultural group or tribe. Otherwise we just stay in "us versus them" mode, which creates more conflict.

Edited: to clarify that are an inspired by regions of the country that are accepting of LGBTQIA+ and not inspired by regions that are not as accepting.

@scott agreed that trans and queer people generally feel more free to be themselves in larger cities (both in the Philipines than here) and that's a good thing. But as somebody who's lived in the Castro -- the queerest part of San Franciso, which is probably one of the queerest cities in the US and home to the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence -- even in enclaves like that there's still plenty of discrimination, harassment, hate, etc.

And it's the same dynamic in the fediverse. There are plenty of trans- and queer-friendly instances and that's great, one of the real strengths and uniqueness of the fediverse. Then again, there's also plenty of hate and harassment out there, from anti-trans instances and people, defederation helps but isn't a complete solution. And (here as elsewhere) there are structural issues, such as the way that almost all of the resources and press attention goes to cis people, and very little to trans people.