The InclusiveWeb https://notes.neatnik.net/2024/06/the-inclusiveweb
Every time I receive a request to delete an omg.lol account, I’m donating to the Trans Lifeline. 
@adam I'm saddened by the folks leaving omg.lol but I'm not going anywhere. I sent the developer a message of support w/out knowing the whole story because he has always been nice to me and I am a supportive person. I also sent Melanie a public note of support tonight once the whole story came out for the same reason. I'm not on anyone's team, I'm cool with pronouns and I am all about forgiveness because I've had some ugly fuck-ups in my time. I got enough love to go around.
@adam really unfortunate ☹️
I will never understand why we can't just let people be.
If it brings light in this sometimes dark world, I'm all for it.
Being a good human should be higher on the list than any thing else.
@adam I have this account for 18 years, I just added another year. Please keep being your authentic self and I hope that someone who needs a place to call home sees this post and joins to replace the folks who want to leave.
@adam Respect on taking a stand there and making the web more inclusive.
The developer did later publicly apologise and express remorse—whether that was good enough is subjective—on their Mastodon and their blog. Someone who is coming across your post for the first time will take away the impression that the developer has stuck to their original opinions, which unless I’m mistaken is not the case.
@adam re: “coming across your post for the first time”
I meant to actually say:
“coming across this incident through your post”
@adam I was very pleasantly surprised to see you pop up and explicitly state that they were an omg.lol member and then defend them. I like that you stood by your user base, and went into battle for them unprompted.
I will also note, I was uncomfortable about the comments from the developer and where that conversation was going and had made me really question continued use of their products when you see two very clear different approaches to community building by yourself and them.
@rameez Have they changed their opinions? They’ve apologized, yes. They’ve expressed lots of regret for the problematic post, sure. But where is the reassurance that they acknowledge trans people as people?
They’ve had unlimited opportunities to clarify their views but have only talked about their regret for what they said, and have offered nothing about the underlying beliefs.
And that’s fine. People can believe whatever they want. But some beliefs will never foster inclusion.
@adam Good point on clarifying beliefs and reassurances.
Regarding opportunities to clarify, I think they should be given some more time to process the events, the underlying cause and their thoughts. When events like this unfold publicly, there is a tendency to shut down and crawl into a shell. I hope the right lessons are learnt from this. Time will tell.
It’s been a couple of weeks since I called out another developer for their disingenuous cries of being “cancelled” after a trans person learned that the dev is anti-LGBTQ+ and left that dev’s blogging service.
Three people left omg.lol as a result. One of them even moved *to* the anti-LGBTQ+ dev’s service. 😲
Anyway, as promised, I’ve made a donation to Trans Lifeline for a year of omg.lol for each cancellation, plus transaction fees.
I feel bad that even in our fun corner of the internet—the IndieWeb—there are people who can’t accept others for who they are or who they love.
I’ll continue to call out bad actors when I see them acting badly. I won’t honor their requests to “do it quietly” and send emails that can be ignored and hidden. Sorry, you don’t get to hide your hate and intolerance and only show one side of yourself to the public.
I don’t identify as LGBTQ+, but I am an ally. And being an ally means standing up for the people you’re allied with. I will stand every single time and for as long as I am able.
To the three people who left omg.lol because I lived by my principles and acted as an ally, I hope you will one day be able to cultivate an imagination that allows you to explore what it’s like to be thought of as less of a person simply because of who you are. And I hope that someday you can be an ally, too.
@adam I love how you stand up for LGBTQ+ friends. You are a true ally. Let's hear who those three people who left omg.lol are.
@adam Your latest posts seem to have escalated this beyond what it actually is. Accusing someone of "hate and intolerance" isn't warranted from where this started, especially given their apology and attempt to make it right. The donations are great and I have a lot of respect for what you've built, but it's not sitting well with me that you've painted the situation in such stark contrast.
@manton I’ve never met a single person who can’t deal with a pronouns field who *doesn’t* harbor some degree of hate or intolerance for LGBTQ+ people. Not one. I’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of people about this lately, and no one else has, either.
The apology has been taken down, but I recall something along the lines of “I’m sorry for saying the wrong thing,” and not really acknowledging the underlying issue in any meaningful way.
@adam I'm not talking about the other people you've met. Hate is a strong word to accuse someone of, and I think you've cast this in more extreme terms than the situation deserves. That's all. In the spirit of that Tantek post you quoted (which I also love and linked to a few months ago) I don't think everything needs to be a fight.
@manton I don’t disagree. I think it’s worth pointing out that when I used the word “hate” in the earlier post, I wasn’t literally talking about the specific person that you were talking about. I was referring to “bad actors” in general (which I mentioned in the sentence immediately before the word). But I can see how it looked, even though I was sincerely trying to be more general.
That said, I should still be more careful about that word, and I appreciate the feedback.
@adam @manton the apology wasn't an apology in the first place anyways. it was a "boohoo I was bullied as a kid and I tend to say things without thinking and I'm sorry"
he never went back on any of his problematic statements other than saying "I shouldn't have said that (aloud)" and showed literally 0 compassion or understanding for WHY what he said was problematic. and yeah, everything he wrote related to this has been deleted, he'd rather hide than show remorse.
@adam As a dad of a trans kid, I was so disappointed to see that unfold a couple of weeks ago, and am deeply appreciative of how you stand up in your spaces. Thanks.
I exchanged emails with the other developer and suggested he adopt a set of policies for his site as a proactive and affirming action. This was deemed “reactive” and I was told if I had to leave his site that was understood.
Now we know what "opinionated" developing is code for.
I don't think everything needs to be a fight.
Maybe but you would think standing up for trans rights during Pride Month ought to be a fight. But instead the indieweb is fighting against imagined fears about AI or Apple's App Store policies. I find discussions like these extremely frustrating. In my opinion, these only serve to emphasize Indieweb's lack of diversity & inclusion and penchant with low-priority issues especially in times where the country might re-elect a fascist who is a convicted felon and sexual assault offender.
@ddanielson That's the only thing we can do, right? We can't change someone's mind by force but we can choose whom we associate with.
@ddanielson Well, if you were asked to leave rather than them be more inclusive then the decision was easy