Great subject SuperFemme!
I see many times when because of cultural, geographic or differences in communication styles and plain old reading comprehension people get in a frenzy and report posts that were not meant to be offensive, and in fact, if read in the right tone were not offensive at all. Not so much on this website, but I have seen it a couple of times here.
I think it is important that rather than assuming the worst, we try and look at the whys and the what really was said.
Of course, at the point we are misunderstood, we can choose to feel silenced, or we can explain and apologize. For me, navigating these threads does involve a good bit of apologizing and trying to see things from different standpoints.
Atomic, I completely get and hear what you are saying. There is so much pain and anger around how Butches identify and where the Trans community fits in. My belief is that individual people who have or have had very small views of the world say hurtful things and it gets blown up to affect the entire community at large. I admit I am guilty of wanting there to be a place for woman identified Butches, because when my G/F joined B-F and met people in person she was told she was not allowed to be called she and that her name would have to be changed to Sydney or Chris. She chose to remove herself from the issue and stay off the threads which makes me pretty sad. For me, I do think there need to be places where different groups can discuss their own issues...I am particularly enjoying the Femme threads for example.
On the other hand,
When we are together, who cares about ID's unless we are trying to date.
I wish we could get to that point on line.
I wish we could accept each person as who they are and how they see themselves and respect their wishes without trying to change them.