Let's talk about why we come here.

You could discuss Maggie Gallagher's latest idiotic statement anywhere, right? You could go to work and talk about Neil Patrick Harris's adopted kids and how cute you think his husband is. You could discuss the girl that you had a crush on until she found out you were a lesbian and would no longer talk to you with the neighbors. Maybe you could go on r/funny and tell them about how when you came out as bi, your mom said you were probably really just gay or mad at women/men.

But you don't. You come here, and the reason you come here is because you want your experiences to be heard and discussed with other people who have a cursory knowledge of homo/bi/pan sexuality and still see you as just anyone else. You know that if you go somewhere else, you're likely to wade through a lot of excrement before you can discuss anything useful if you don't give up first, and that the wading will leave you feeling exhausted and dirty. It might even be worse than that. Maybe your neighbors run the homeowner's association and, since hearing that you're gay, want to propose insidious guidelines to force you out. Perhaps somebody at work would decide that you might look at them in the bathroom and has told Human Resources about your "sexual harassment" or maybe everyone you know is mostly nice but just sometimes can't resist knocking the conversation off the rails with "doesn't butt sex hurt?" or "who's the butch and who's the bitch?" Of course some of us have been very lucky to have relatively open-minded people in our surroundings, and with only a few months or weeks of patient gaysplaining, they no longer say stupid things, but they will still never fully understand what it's like to be 14 years old and wonder why they have crushes on their friends instead of the opposite sex the way they were taught it was supposed to happen, or what it's like just to want a family like everyone else and know that even the most basic aspects of achieving this, like finding a home together, will be riddled with sometimes insurmountable hurdles.

As a community, we take it for granted that the people here will understand these things and not make idiotic evolutionary or religious arguments about why we should consider that maybe the status quo is good for us.

When rmuser and I instated the new guidelines, it was because we could no longer ignore the fact that the longstanding policy of community self-moderation had been effective only in creating this environment for LGBs. Dozens upon dozens of trans people who badly wanted to feel like a part of our community had appealed to us. For a long time, we simply insisted they downvote and for a long time, it worked. However, as the community grew to over 36,000, this tactic lost effectiveness and the trans members of our community felt even more overwhelmed by yet another environment that had promised trans inclusiveness and delivered nothing but another cisnormative burden at their feet.

Consider how you would have felt if threads during the DADT repeal had been filled with appeals to consider the feelings of soldiers who don't wish to serve with gays or how you'd feel if threads about the Boy Scouts of America were filled with "won't somebody please think of the straight children?" Most of us would have no problem identifying such sentiments as concern trolling. However, when it happened to trans women in the Girl Scouts posts, many readers were quick to defend exactly these things with the mantra "but it's just a different opinion!" Frankly, rmuser and I were disgusted to see the same minimizing, patronizing language that NOM, Exodus, and Fox News hide behind when they're being unapologetic homophobes by our own and against our own.

The red flair was an attempt to moderate and sidestep the inevitable influx of alt accounts. It was meant to let our readers know that this person meant harm without silencing anyone. We hate to silence people, and we really hate chasing down dozens of alt accounts. We flaired 3 people out of 36,000 (that's 1 in 12,000). One was talked to and agreed not to do it again. His flair was removed. There are now two people flaired (1 in 18,000). They seem to be everywhere because they are two heavy commenters, but they are still only two. We had hoped that was all we would have to do because this is a well-meaning community which, we hope, wants to extend the same comfortable environment to our trans members, but we suppose time will tell.

We know some don't like it, but we're sticking to our guns. We will likely err on the side of allowing too much, and we know we will probably not achieve a completely safe space, but reporting will help us sort them out. We will not back down. This community will be moderated.

Thank you.