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.

Posted on Μάιος 27, 2023 1247 ΠΜ by sunguramy sunguramy