This was entirely predictable.

I am older, and have seen things like this happen before.

On the FAQ post, I posted that this would encourage trolling, and it has, and reduced mods to playing whack-a-mole with comments and posts all through SE.

The CoC itself is oppressive, and the enforcement, even before it was established, has been draconian.

Cue the predictable backlash.

There are many LGBTQ+ people who are against the CoC, but don't want to speak up for fear of repercussions, quite frankly, with what happened to Monica, who can blame anyone for wanting to back off.

As it stands, I have already deleted 2 of my SE accounts, and will be deleting all of the rest over the course of the next week or so, depending on my free time.

I agree with you 100%.

THE NEW CoC has put big freaking targets on LGBTQ+ people on SE

I don't feel safe either, which is why I am deleting all of my accounts.

I have been angry with this site in the past, I have argued, I have fought, but never have I felt unsafe....

until now.

I am a trans person, and I just signed up after watching this kludge unfold.

This is a mess of epic proportions, and of course it's going to hurt the people it's trying to protect. But that's what happens when you try to propose new rules by shooting a bazooka into the mouth of the community.

The people responsible for this CoC have the finesse of a golem. Of course people are going to notice, and they're not going to be the right type of people to notice. I mean, I'm trans, and I'm laughing at how ridiculous this is. Your hearts are in the right place, but you rolled it out completely wrong.

And to the person (oops I broke the CoC, better ban me!) who previously posted something like "Stop violence against trans people!" (currently as of this edit, the accepted answer)....trans people will always be victims of violence. Because people in general are victims of violence. Even if you are not trans, there will be other reasons for them to perpetuate violence against you. Case in point: I got doxxed by kiwifarms before. Being trans, sure, yeah - but also because I put out a really shitty game. Even if I was cis, they would still probably doxx me because of that damned game. It's not like being cis protects you from violence - there are 20 trans deaths so far this year, but how does that compare to the number of cis deaths?

@eyeballfrog has provided actual statistics:

@Blue They come out to roughly 2 per 100k for cis women and trans people and 7 per 100k for cis men. – eyeballfrog 53 mins ago

Since comments have been deleted again, source data comes from here, here, here, and here. From the population numbers and murder counts, the murder rates can be calculated.

Stack Exchange Inc. made the same mistake too many politicians do, enacting a law so they will feel good and the hell with the consequences in the long run.

Please, let it be a lesson for next time. Think before you do something.

Are you doing it to feel good or to do good?

Here it is obvious to everyone. It was the former, and had you asked (and not fired with shame those who told you you are doing a grave mistake), we could have avoided this completely idiotic and unnecessary saga.

See also Cobra effect.

I completely get you here and feel your pain.

The (now deleted) first draft of the official FAQ didn't really do a great job of introducing the concept of non-binary gender identity:

The vast majority of people go by the pronouns sets “he/him” or “she/her.” A small but increasing number of people use “they/them” pronouns or another pronouns set -- sometimes simply because they don’t want to go by pronouns with a gender association (just as some folks go by “Ms.” whether or not they are married, because they don’t think their marital status should be a relevant issue), and sometimes people use pronouns that aren’t associated with one of those two most common (binary) genders because they are nonbinary (i.e. people who are neither exclusively a man nor exclusively a woman -- e.g. genderqueer, agender, bigender, fluid, third/additional gender in a cultural tradition, etc.). (source - mypronouns.org)

This is the sum total of leading education in the FAQ. To my mind, it's muddled and confusing to the audience and there's no attempt to break this down into a form that people can readily consume and understand; this doesn't really help people grasp and respect the concept. Users are reacting against the "compelled speech" using ridicule without realizing the consequences and impact.

Moderators didn't have the opportunity to read the FAQ before it went out. It was drafted by people who are already biased intimately toward understanding the points that it's conveying. Instead of being aimed at an unknowing audience, it's written by the writers, from their own perspective and understanding.

The net effect of the CoC amendment has ended up being divisive rather than inclusive, and I personally think that sucks.

Within the confines of the moderator chatroom, we've been discussing and processing non-binary gender identification issues almost constantly for the past five weeks or so. But for many people out here in the open, this is new. And we're shoving people into the deep end of understanding this with little in the way of support and understanding.

When SE knew that respect for non-binary gender identification was on the agenda, it (in hindsight) would have been useful to create a blog post or Meta introducing this idea and allowing time for the users to discuss and process the upcoming request for respect. But this didn't happen. We had a lot of confusion, misunderstanding, and conspiracies before the amendment landed.

SE should have rolled this out better. Users should have been offered some education and support in understanding the needs of our non-binary gendered colleagues here on the network and how we can respect them as much as we respect everyone else here. Instead, we have reactions against SE that have steamrollered over the feelings of the very people that we're trying so hard to feel included and supported.

This is my own personal feeling on this. And it really has pained me to see the consequences of what's happened.

I am sorry that you have to face this. Everyone here deserves respect, everyone.

This is the greatest tragedy of the whole situation.

I agree with @Don Thermidor_Lobster Mobster: This was predictable, and could have been avoided. When the first actions were taken anyway, and the outrage began, they could have been corrected and this could have been attenuated. Even now, this can be fixed. The solution is simple:

• Restore Monica.

  1. Return her diamond on all sites.
  2. Issue a sincere public apology for the hurt she's been through.
  3. Issue a statement to the Register clarifying that she is not a bigot.
  4. If you really believe that she needs to be fired for something, put her through a formal process afterwards. Everything will need to be completely transparent, and you'll have to bend over backwards to show that you are being fair and giving her the benefit of the doubt, because otherwise no one will believe the proceedings were anything other than a kangaroo court. But restore her first.

• Walk back the coercive speech aspects of the new CoC / FAQ.

  1. The CoC itself is fine, it mostly clarifies and extends the 'be nice' policy and makes explicit that it applies equally to trans people.
  2. Much of the FAQ (e.g., #'s 1-8) is fine as well. But amend or delete the parts that entail coercion (e.g., #'s 9-11).
  3. If you like, you can use this: A Pronominal Proposal.
  4. Specifically, give different sites some flexibility to find what works within their culture and meets the needs of ensuring trans people are not made to feel unwelcome. By default, start every interaction by presuming good intent. Allow individuals the flexibility to find a way to interact that both people can feel comfortable with. Trans people are reasonable and are not fragile little buttercups in need of someone else to do this for them, they just need to know that the community will have their back.

These quick and simple steps will reduce the conflagration by an order of magnitude. Yes, the transphobes will continue to fight, and the all purpose trolls who don't really care one way or the other about trans issues will still try to make trouble, because they just want to watch the world burn, but there won't be enough fuel to sustain the fire. Ninety percent of the people here have sincere issues with Monica's treatment and coercive speech, but no ill will towards trans people. With real improvement, things will calm down.

Enough damage has been done. It's time for SE to defuse the situation.

NOTE: I'm responding here because this is marked as duplicate from this question surveying the LGBT community if they still feel safe on SE.

Harsh opinion ahead. Bring on the downvotes.

I'm a very openly gay man having been very active on this site for the better part of a decade (since I was in my teens). Since this post is about anecdotes, I figured I'd give mine.

I have never once felt unsafe, including throughout this whole CoC fiasco, on any part of the Stack Exchange network. Not even a little.

The only anti-gay sentiments I've ever seen on the site were when the logo changed to a rainbow rendition after the US legalized gay marriage. They were few and far between, most coming from a very vocal minority.

Please stop grouping the bulk of the LGBT+ netizens into your generalizations as if we're all some helpless group of everlasting victims perpetually berated by online bullies we're somehow incapable of ignoring.

I do not doubt there has been some malice towards minority groups on this site. Or any site. This stuff happens everywhere, on the internet and off. It doesn't make it right. It isn't an excuse. But it's not experienced so incredibly often that it's something worth starting a brigade over.

Since I was a kid, I've been taught throughout school about online safety and privacy. Maybe that was a luxury, I can't say. However - and this goes for everyone - the internet is not, and will never be, "safe" or free from dissent, anger, malice, or threat. You will never fix this. You will never avoid this. The only way to prevent it happening to you is to take preventative measures yourself. This is the harsh, uncomfortable reality of the internet.

If you do not want to be doxxed, do not put information about yourself on the internet.

If you do not want to be harassed, do not give harassers a medium to contact you.

If you do not want to see uncomfortable, offensive or obscene content, do not visit parts of the internet that allow or provoke it - or, much more simply, do not use the internet at all.

Just figured I'd speak out for those in the LGBT community that do not agree with the continual victimhood that seems to be rampant among those that wish to label all of us as such.

This is just a tiny drop in a large ocean, but:

As a cis-gender person, I'm not removing my pronouns from my profile. I encourage other cis-gender folks who feel comfortable doing so to also include pronouns, to prevent it from being an easy way to single out transgender and non-binary folks.

Whenever attention is brought to something, first you'll hear the vocal minority shout the loudest.

From what I can see (based on the lack of response from SE Staff since the CoC changes were announced), it looks like they are waiting for this to just blow over, which is what - in all likelihood - will happen.

There are plenty of people who are in support of this change in principle, and in my opinion there wouldn't have been this sort of backlash had it been worded in a way that was more about teaching the community about why exactly the changes were being made, and reassurance that we wouldn't be penalised for trying our best.

People are taking issue with how it's worded, and it is rallying those who are on the extreme end of that negativity.

The issue when you focus on any part of yourself and say "This is what I am", is that there is always a group of people who won't accept that, because they focus on that part of themselves and they are like "We aren't the same".

In my opinion, the issue with calling diversity, diversity is because at it's core, it divides us. Unity is what we should be calling it. We want to recognise each other's differences, accept them and let them unite us, and I'm sorry for the actions of those that are allowing our differences divide us.

I'm honestly scared to express my identity as non-binary. I've expressed that I think SE and a portion of the community are equally responsibly for the LGBTQ+ community's current situation. All I can say is that we have to let our feelings be known and we have to continue to fight back against the bigotry.

Allow me to answer from the other side of things.

I do not (to the best of my ability) conflate a person with a policy or a principle. With the exception of this recent hub-bub, you will not find me opining overmuch on trans or gay issues. I oppose a socio-cultural agenda focusing on these things, but it's certainly no justification for me or anybody else to become rude to a person, and certainly not to become abusive, much less threatening.

I respectfully submit 1) that words do not hurt people, 2) that thoughts are best left un-policed, and 3) that attempting to define things as "hate speech" is incompatible with 1) and 2). It leads to coercive measures such as those included in this recent fracas.

There are a great many things to debate and a great many tools by which we may educate ourselves and each other. Banning speech and coercing speech contribute to neither.

There are already not only reasonable and laudable policies against threats and abuse, there are in fact laws against threats, and via anti-stalking laws and such, against a great swath of online abuse.

It is not my purpose to litigate any of those actual points here, but solely to make the case that speech codes are bad, thought policing is bad, and that SE has really made a mess of this not only in the execution, but in the intermediate goal. Nobody has a right to not be offended, as this weighs too heavily upon the rights of others to speak.

I sorry. I'm sorry for this whole stupid mess. I like SE. I like getting to the content and cutting out the noise. How much time and effort we've all spent here, slinging mud, screaming at the top of our lungs, building nothing but malice and animosity for each other ... it's done nothing good and has betrayed why we were all here in the first place.

We're a community, relishing in what we do best. Some of us killing it on SO, others taking names on a smaller specialty site, and all of us trying our best are making the Internet better. Creed, color, nation, orientation ... it doesn't matter what you are or what you want to be. We were doing it right.

Then we all devolved three weeks ago and thought bashing our heads in with sticks was the best way to make the Internet better. None of us are safe here any more. In addition to the real physical threats some of us may face from a vicious doxxing, we're all psychologically torturing ourselves here. That's why I'm out. I put in a request a few hours ago to delete my MSE account. I suggest others find their own way to disengage from this meta, at least for a while. Get back to your SE home site and relive those days when you knew you were positively contributing.

Maybe we'll all meet back here one day, without any clubs or rocks in our hands, but open minds with one singular focus: bringing good ideas to the top of the page.