iNaturalist & Queer People
Hey all!
Next month is Pride month, and #inaturalist asked for some folk to feature. I said yes! However, their staff actions today have me second guessing that.
On their forum, in a thread iNat staff made specifically for #LGBTQ #Naturalists, they allowed someone to say they will continue to purposefully misgender. Misgendering on purpose is transmisic (by definition - harmful to trans people) which blatently goes against the forum rules of "Be Respectful". Sadly, instead of iNat staff stepping in and pointing this out, they have remained radio silent on the issue, instead saying we need to just calm down. Tone policing queer & trans people standing up for themselves against transmisia is obviously problematic in and of itself, and, not standing up for the forum rules at the expense of trans people, is also highly problematic.
Tonight, they chose to simply lock the thread, when this afternoon all the discussion has actually been helping some folk explore their gender identity who were questioning, stopping us from helping these folx.
I am asking people email help@inaturalist.org and ask them to help protect trans & queer people. They are falling into the tolerance paradox, and should know they need to take a stand here! They can do the right thing, it is not too late. This is not a callout, this is a call-in, to do better! They can easily fix this by apologizing and creating a clear policy that this is not acceptable.
iNaturalist, and by extension, California Academy of Sciences, should align with their words, or celebrating Pride Month is worthless. I do not wish to be a face of a group whos words and actions do not align.
Update 9/9/2024: Last year, eventually, after weeks of standing up for ourselves and getting California Academy of Science involved who has actual DEI policies, the original poster saw the error of their ways and corrected it themselves. iNaturalist then re-wrote the rules, which essentially absolves them of any responsibility and allows them to continue saying we cannot question iNaturalist's authority and decisions (which, was to let the misgendering continue for "free speech because we don't take sides"). If we do speak out against iNaturalist's decisions, we can be banned - and one person I know has been banned for continuing to speak out against this terrible policy. In addition, since then, iNaturalist has become it's own entity, separate from CAoS. I cannot help but wonder if this is connected.
This is not a solution. I am glad I decided to refuse to be the queer face for iNaturalist in June 2023.
In addition, it did not go unnoticed by me that they did nothing for Pride this year, 2024. I suppose considering their ineptness last year, ignoring it a safe play for their team. Still, it is disappointing that they didn't learn from their mistakes and take that new knowledge to do better then this year.
I find generally that people do this. They get called on something and then just pretend it didn't happen and never deal with it again.
How do I wish they had gone about Pride 2024? Simple. Apologize for allowing misgendering last year, acknowledge that misgendering is harmful, say they want to promote lgbtq naturalists this year again and have learned how to do better and will continue to welcome feedback to improve equality and equity in the naturalist world.
Being called on your mistakes is not an invite to ignore them. It is an invite to grow, learn, to do better, to be better.
That is what emotionally mature people do. And sure, there are growing pains, because growth is not necessarily linear or easy.
But to refuse to grow is a disservice to yourself and your community. And trust me, we notice. We notice who decides it isn't worth the hassle to learn better, to do better. We see who decides to not grow and mature. We don't forget who decided their biases were more important than our safety. Words become actions, actions become policies, policies can and do hurt & even kill people.
