Kori shouldn't be controversial

I am quite thoroughly disappointed, partly apalled and perhaps slightly scared. In relation to KDE’s 30 Year anniversary they unveiled a new mascot, their name is Kori. Kori keeps the dragon aesthetic, but has plenty of little changes added to make them feel distinct and fill them with personality.

However, it has been a pattern of late to make mascots non-binary, which is both a good gesture essentially tagging the community as a place that will tolerate queer folk, and kind of just makes inherent sense to not associate the mascot with either so that everyone can associate with them.

The reactions… were less than kind:

Gross and reprehensible

Am so disappointed am switching to gnome

slightly disappointed

Very disappointed

Ugh. Looks like it’s time to switch desktop environments again.

Noo! not KDE too! This is terrible.

I didn’t need more reasons not to use KDE, but it is good to have a selection.

I guess I’m all done using KDE.

… excuse me but what the FUCK!?!?

Okay, obviously every community has groups, I was well aware of some specific devteams or communities that were very conservative or connected to problematic groups outside of their work. But this discourse was out in the open in the mainstream channels.

I thought the fight for being allowed to exist in peace was much further along than it actually is. KDE labeled itself a good place to be, and got severely punished for that act. This is probably why Google Maps include a little label on some establishments stating they’re “queer friendly”. One doesn’t need to be all for the movement to have some base level of decency queer folk hope for so they can be sure that if they get attacked the rest of the general public would actually come to defend them. But it still seems that we can’t do that, and if at some point somebody criticizes the pride events, or these self labels, this is exactly why we still need them.