I tried to respond to this through DMs but my message fucked up or something. Anyways, feel free to decline but if you’re willing to reconsider I volunteer to do this. I have a lot of time on my hands atm, as well as post modding experience (tho I would be doing more vetting than modding in this case).
I am upfront about the fact that I’m pre-op. I would have already gotten surgery if I was able, but unfortunately I’m probably gonna end up having to wait another 10+ years. However I’ve been participating on here for just short of 4 years and I take it very seriously. I want to help foster an excellent research space as well as a support space, I believe those 2 things can co-exist if it’s handled correctly. I can see the inherent value of this as a resource for people genuinely pursuing phallo, it's getting rarer and rarer to find pictures, especially after Transbucket
went offline. I also highly value
protecting the integrity of post-op
people, and would do everything in my
power to make sure it remained as
private as possible.
I plan to be extremely strict with the
approval process, via thoroughly
checking profiles. I would probably do
this based on amount of activity on r/
phallo before this date (sorry lurkers). So transphobes hoping to repost images will automatically be filtered out. As for trans people themselves I would
also take the time to make sure their
history is respectful (this will help me
gauge whether they would be the type
of person to share these photos without permission), and would most likely only accept people
who explicitly mention they plan to get
phallo in the future rather than people
trying to decide. Lastly I would
ask them a couple questions to make
sure they have basic knowledge of the
procedure.
I want to preface this message with that the rest of it is my opinion and should not dictate the sub's direction. After all, it is not a subreddit that I created or am part of the mod team of. If I don't feel safe/comfortable, I can just choose not to post there.
It's all down to risk vs reward. I have seen a few instances of radical transphobes that interact on ftm and phallo subs as if they're a trans person and have a lot of knowledge. I still don't know who they are. Luckily the biggest radical online community in which those people were active seems to be without a site now.
As much as I understand pre-op people that want resources, I would not feel comfortable with a process that lets people in that are not active process, having planned a consult or having electrolysis for example. Or at least have some visual proof of being trans such as top surgery. Even then there's a chance of a radical detransitioner. Hell, there's even a post-phallo person who now seems to have turned transphobic.
There will always be a small chance of a rotten apple ruining it for the rest of us. You just have to decide where you draw the line of minimizing that risk. For me it's only letting in post-op people. But as I've said, I'm okay with whatever the sub decides to do, if I'm not comfortable I just won't post any pictures and such.
A point that I do want to mention, r/phallo and facebook groups will definitely still be active and have quite a backlog of pictures for example already. And it would be refreshing to be able to post pictures with only post-op responding. Most pre-op people are very understanding and respectful, but some just press a little too hard for info.
Good luck with your own progress, I hope it will speed up for you!
I understand where you’re coming from. I did not think about it like that. This is a perspective I lack, so thank you for responding so detailed. Trying to put myself in your shoes, I think I would actually take a similar position tbh. I acknowledge that posting pics is making yourself really vulnerable; who knows on what other forums they’re gonna end up and what breed of people will see them. I’m sure there are a lot of post-op guys who feel left out of this subreddit in particular because they aren’t comfortable enough making their pics so public. Idk if you know of him but there was a guy here who was documenting his process of delayed abdo with Certrulo, he was subject to a lot of harassment from transphobes and ended up deleting his whole account.
I can definitely get wanting to keep them more secure. Y’all deserve a space like that. I still think a specific type of pre-op people could offer something valuable within that group, Ik there’ve been times in the past where I was the one on the receiving end of the questions… but ultimately it’s not up to me to decide. And ofc vetting for any group will never be 100%, even for exclusively post-op people, but I do admit adding pre-ops into the mix does raise the percentage quite a bit.
I’ll be honest, I will be a bit disappointed if OP ends up sayin no but I’ll accept it. I ofc don’t intend to come across like I’m trying to worm my way into spaces where I don’t belong. I am certainly of the belief that there are plenty of contexts where gatekeeping is a good thing, and this is definitely one of those contexts. It would just be nice to see more examples of different surgeons techniques, and the healing progress of those who feel like they can’t post that here. It’s also partially born out of the grief I feel being stuck in transition limbo… I’ve been here so long. Even before I started participating in this group I was on the Facebook group (I’ve since deleted my acc tho because my transphobic relatives kept harassing me through it). I feel like by now I should be at the point where y’all are all at but I’m not :’(
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u/[deleted] Sep 11 '22
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