Five days ago, drag was banned from !politicalmemes@lemmy.world for using neopronouns. A comment explaining drag’s pronouns, and a comment saying “drag” isn’t a nickname, were removed with the reason “trolling”. Drag understands why someone would think that using different pronouns than most people is trolling - transphobia. However, drag is confused how on earth not liking a nickname is a violation of any rules anywhere.
Context of the removed comments:
Drag would like to pre-empt any further accusations of trolling by asking a question: If drag were a right wing troll, and you chose to freely accept drag’s pronouns, wouldn’t that completely neuter the trolling attempt? Trolling is about trying to make others upset. You don’t have to get upset when someone uses unusual pronouns. If you aren’t transphobic, then it’s impossible to troll you that way. And drag promises: drag wants you to not be transphobic. Drag is not trying to upset anyone. If you do what drag wants you to do, then you get what you want too. This is a non-issue, there’s only a problem if you want there to be.
EDIT: DRAG DID NOT TELL ANYBODY TO USE DRAG’S PREFERRED PRONOUNS.
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That’s not in the dictionary.
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And that’s a privilege not everyone has.
And tbh most cis people wouldn’t enjoy being misgendered either.
Part of what might make people think you’re trolling is that you seem to use “drag” as a first person neopronoun but conjugate your verbs as if it were third person.
To someone who hasn’t seen this before, interpreting it as if you use a nickname to talk about yourself in third person would be the only thing that makes grammatical sense.
Edit: this reminds me a bit of https://www.xkcd.com/169/ - you don’t come across as smug, but you’re definitely not communicating well
Exactly this: The word “Drag” is being used to refer to a third-person in these sentences, I had to double check that it was actually the troll themselves posting this.
No, people are very used to conjugating pronouns in a way that doesn’t match their grammatical preconceptions. Take the pronoun “they”. A lot of people complain about they/them because they say it can’t be used in the singular. What they mean is, they find it difficult to conjugate properly.
“I need to talk to Sam before they go to the store”
“I need to talk to Sam before they goes to the store”
The second sentence here is conjugated the same way as he or she, but it sounds wrong to us. In order to use they/them pronouns on the regular, we all had to learn that conjugation doesn’t depend on the grammatical form of the reference, but instead on the specific pronoun. “They” is conjugated differently not because it’s a plural, but because it’s “they”.
People who have a problem with the conjugation of drag’s pronouns simply failed to think carefully about this fact. They’re having the singular they debate all over again, because they didn’t change their understanding of pronouns after they had this debate the first time. Well drag doesn’t want to have that debate all over again. Drag doesn’t think drag’s existence should lead to any sort of debate. Drag thinks people should just accept new ideas without having to be argued into accepting them. But for some reason, a lot of people see drag, and they want to be argued with.
First/second person neopronouns are not like singular they because they haven’t been used for centuries already. Always using plural forms with “they” is something that English speakers learn before formally learning what a plural is (that’s why “I need to talk to Sam before they goes to the store” sounds wrong even to someone in primary school), but idiosyncratic redefinitions of grammar will always sound wrong to people who aren’t used to them.
If your goal is to communicate effectively, you should avoid insisting on what can be easily (mis)interpreted as performative. If it isn’t, then complaining about being misunderstood is trolling.
Drag has neither insisted anyone use drag’s pronouns, nor complained about being misunderstood. It seems like the scenario you’re describing as a problem hasn’t happened. Is this intended to be a warning for the future?
“Drag is not using third person” may not be intended to be a complaint, but wouldn’t you say that someone who parses the sentence as you using third person misunderstands it?
They’re going to learn better eventually. It’s just a matter of how many chances they get to be respectful before they decide to stop being stubborn and mean. Drag believes that anyone will improve if they’re given enough chances. Drag is telling them the truth without judgement, and waiting to see what they choose to do with it. A lot of people have already chosen to accept the truth and stop being angry over nothing. As time goes on, the share of people who are choosing not to pick pointless fights will rise. And then the people who are still mad will get downvoted and reported and moderated, and they’ll have to give up on being stubborn. Drag is choosing patience because drag can see that future down the road. Drag doesn’t need to complain in order for that future to happen.
The problem with that approach is that is is the truth from your perspective only, and nobody is going to learn better if your “explanations” just amount to “you’re wrong”. From most people’s perspective, this is indistinguishable from trolling and I don’t think comments like this or this are going to convince them otherwise - someone who deliberately uses language in a very uncommon way should probably not justify it with a dictionary.
Drag believes very strongly in language. That’s why drag changes language; drag cares about it and wants to improve it. It’s like the hot rodders who love their cars and are always improving them. Or the programmers who contribute to the open source projects they love. Drag thinks drag knows a lot about language, and drag sure likes spending long hours thinking about how language works. You might say linguistics is a hobby to drag. And drag isn’t the kind of hobbyist who only studies and never tinkers.
YDI. Replacing ungendered pronouns and insisting on their usage by others to refer to you is, at best, being annoying for its own sake. Like that fellow who insisted that their gender was ‘droneself’, or Phlubbadubba suddenly taking up Old English.
Phlubbadubba is based and drag always thought you were based in the past when reading your comments. Maybe you misunderstood? Drag never insisted that gamermahn should use drag’s preferred pronouns. Gamermahn specifically asked, as you can see in the screenshot, and drag only replied to answer that question. The only reason there was any conflict is because Gamermahn asked a question about drag’s pronouns and then proceeded to argue with the answer. Drag didn’t do anything to antagonise them, they came into that situation looking for a fight. And drag didn’t give them one, drag calmly answered their question and used please when asking not to be called by a nickname.
They didn’t insist anyone use it, they only explained it. This doesn’t merit removing comments, let alone a ban.
No, they absolutely insist. Constantly.
No drag doesn’t.
What is this then? https://lemmy.nz/post/15901069/11844110
That’s drag insisting someone not use a different set of gendered pronouns. If they’d edited the comment to they/them, drag wouldn’t have complained. They decided to misgender drag on purpose and got their comments removed.
You implied you have proof of drag insisting others use drag’s neopronouns. Where’s that proof?
saying “i don’t want/like this” is not “absolutely insisting constantly” and if that’s SERIOUSLY the best you have for examples i think you know exactly what i mean.
it costs you nothing to not be an asshole, you’re going through a lot of effort seemingly just to make someone feel bad.
I remember that person, I’m basically convinced they were a troll, they’re basically taking advantage of the fact that decent and well meaning people try their best to follow pronoun preferences, and are asking them to do something extremely difficult and lashing out and abusing those people when they make a mistake.
Honestly I have great hostility towards people who do this shit, because they are utilizing pronoun preferences as a form of bad-faith trolling so they can accuse people of being transphobes. I’ve had a lot of moments where I made myself feel really bad about encounters like this and felt like an awful person only to figure out later either from going back on the history of the interaction, or from talking with my other trans friends that I wasn’t wrong or the asshole, they were.
I have a friend who does legitimately use noun pronouns (demon/demonself), however they also use they/them and ze/zir and they don’t flip out when people don’t use demon/demonself pronouns, they also don’t yell at people for getting their pronouns wrong on accident. They usually just correct people, if it was on purpose they have gotten mad, they told me about a time when some transphobic right-winger insisted they were a “boy with boobs” and they did yell at that person, but they wouldn’t yell at a random person IRL or online for saying miss/ma’am/sir because that isn’t a reasonable or respectful reaction to something that was or likely was a mistake.
Trolling is about trying to make others upset.
This is wrong. Trolling is about attention. Making others upset is an easy way to get attention but it’s not the only one. Gimmick accounts are another, for example.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/troll
to antagonize (others) online by deliberately posting inflammatory, irrelevant, or offensive comments or other disruptive content
Drag isn’t hip to the newest versions of the slang
PTB but seriously this is not a transphobic reaction.
A ban is too much. They can just ignore others, if their made up words confuse them. People make up words all the time. It’s how language evolves. If someone ends up unable to communicate because of that, the situation will fix itself.
Drag is quite confused why your comment is being downvoted (+2/-2 at time of comment). Apparently users on the anarchist instance think people inventing new words is too politically radical, and we need grammar police to control people’s use of language instead.
You do realize that anyone viewing this post can upvote or downvote on the comments right? It isn’t limited solely to users of db0.
I hope this doesn’t come across as offensive (I appreciate that pronouns are something personal to the individual), but if I’m understanding correctly, drag is shorthand for dragon right? What about using the full word ‘dragon’ instead?
Drag wants a one syllable pronoun. Two syllable pronouns take too long to say. And that also goes for subvocalisation while reading.
Also, drag’s pronouns don’t mean dragon. Drag’s identity is dragon rider, not dragon. Drag wants a pronoun that’s associated with dragons, but not exactly dragons. Just like drag.
No one cares. Trying to bully people into this nonsense by calling them transphobic seems like the real power trip
Drag doesn’t care if the mod who did this uses drag’s pronouns. Drag cares that drag was banned from a large community for no other reason than using the pronouns to refer to dragself. Drag never bullied anyone. Why do you think that drag asking to be allowed to exist in public is bullying? The comment you’re replying to is literally drag explaining that drag uses one syllable pronouns to save you time. Drag can’t win! No matter how simple drag makes drag’s pronouns, no matter how polite, drag’s existence somehow offends people. Drag just doesn’t get it.
Trans rights are human rights and it takes almost zero effort to simply use someone’s preferred pronouns, even if you don’t understand the reason for it.
From https://www.hrc.org/resources/understanding-neopronouns
Why is it important to refer to someone by the pronouns they use?
You should always use someone’s correct pronouns, even when they are not around, unless they specifically request that you not do so for reasons such as safety or privacy. When someone chooses to use neopronouns, they are expressing their authentic selves, and deserve our respect. The experience of being misgendered – having someone use the incorrect pronouns to refer to you – can be uncomfortable and hurtful. The experience of accidentally misgendering someone can be difficult for both parties. Neopronouns are a wonderful expression of our society’s diversity and using the correct pronouns for someone is a great way to show your allyship.
Some people may also use multiple sets of pronouns (ex. she/they, he/she, they/fae) at all times or in certain situations. Those who use multiple sets of pronouns often feel it is necessary to express different aspects of their gender identity. When you meet someone who uses multiple pronoun sets, you may kindly ask their preferences for when and how to use each of their pronouns.
Thank you very much for posting this. Drag would also like to add that drag is perfectly fine with not having drag’s pronouns used by others. Drag only made this post because of the ban, drag doesn’t want misgendering to be the topic of this thread.
A bunch of people in this thread decided to feel pressured to use drag’s pronouns all on their own. Maybe that’s their consciences talking, drag doesn’t know. But they’ve decided to make it drag’s problem and drag doesn’t want that. Drag just wants to be unbanned from the place with the funny politics.
No problem. And I might just take this opportunity to ping @marcie@lemmy.ml who unfairly accused me of being “transphobic” simply for gently steering trans folks away from the Hexbear troll farm. Will she ever correct the ban reason to be “tankiephobic”? I honestly doubt it, but I guess there are PTBs everywhere right?
I don’t disagree with what you’re saying at all, the experience of being misgendered is incredibly hurtful, and even though I don’t have a pronoun preference I do know trans people who have pronoun and gender preferences and they’ve shared their experiences being misgendered, and it sucks.
I have also had experiences myself that could be akin to misgendering, on account of the circumstances and intent surrounding them (extremely forceful and abusive, Example). They were extremely unpleasant and I would never want to go through that or put someone through anything like that. Which is why I work very hard to make sure I use correct pronouns and I feel very bad if I make a mistake. I am not a “cis person” as some very pejoratively and angrily call me, when I talk about these things I’m very well informed about this stuff.
Which is why there might be some disagreement with this next part. There are people who actively and in bad faith try to use this compassion or fear of offending/hurting others against them so they can get their way or just to be an asshole. There was a user called DroneRights who did this a lot, would lash out at people and even made a community where they would harass people who went against them, including mods who banned them for their abusive and trollish behavior. There was also a user who I don’t remember their name but I remember they would go by Me/My/Myself pronouns, and would scream transphobia if people didn’t use those pronouns which almost no one did because no one really could even figure out how to do it practically, and they wouldn’t explain and just called people who asked how to do that “Cissies” and talked about how cis people don’t understand (might have been someone on Reddit too).
Again, I’m not disagreeing with you and I do think that respect of pronouns is extremely important. However I do recognize that there are indeed people who take advantage of this and try to raise the bar so high people can’t realistically meet it then scream transphobia (possibly even racism) when people fail to meet it. A lot of people see what dragonrider is doing as exactly that, as an attempt to raise the bar so high it is unreasonable, and you can’t really blame them for thinking that. Yes people who use noun/nounself pronouns exist, however first person neopronouns are basically non-existent because they render communication a mess, and even noun pronoun users (i.e. demon/demonself) typically also use other pronouns like they/them or ze/zir because there are cases where noun pronouns just aren’t practical or are worse than just not using pronouns at all.
I think that it is important to recognize the types of people in this category to avoid being used or abused by their tactics, while still trying your best to respect their wishes. But if they show the signs that they are just trying to troll you with pronouns, that’s the point to admit defeat to yourself and acknowledge they didn’t want respect, they wanted to be hurt so they can scream transphobia at you. Honestly the best thing to do which is what I do mostly is to ignore these people, since they often make me feel bad about myself and my actions only to find out later in retrospect or from my trans friends that I didn’t do anything wrong and this situation is just impossible to win in.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
I have also had experiences myself that could be akin to misgendering, on account of the circumstances and intent surrounding them
That particular type of toxicity in egg culture is no different than suggesting to a lesbian that she just hasn’t taken the right dick yet. I will never understand what makes the people who partake in that behavior feel justified in their abuse. I’m sorry you had to go through that.
I am not a “cis person” as some very pejoratively and angrily call me
This also baffles me. Though I don’t see them as more than a vocal and offensive subgroup of the greater community, those who use “cis” and “cissy” in an abusive manner are reinforcing the acceptability of using slurs.
All that said, on to the most directly pertinent parts:
they would go by Me/My/Myself pronouns, and would scream transphobia if people didn’t use those pronouns
even noun pronoun users (i.e. demon/demonself) typically also use other pronouns like they/them or ze/zir because there are cases where noun pronouns just aren’t practical or are worse than just not using pronouns at all.
I do think that respect of pronouns is extremely important.
This is where we get to my own hard line. I respect people’s right to individual expression, but I do not feel compelled by that respect to play along with fantasies. I respect the right to choose one’s own gender identity on the gender spectrum, but I reject outright the idea that said spectrum includes anything and everything that one’s imagination may conjure.
In line with this, I firmly assert that first person “I/me”, “we/us”, second person “you”, and third person “they/ them” are implicitly genderless pronouns. As such, they are fair game to be used with impunity as one cannot be misgendered if no gender is implied by the pronouns used to reference them. Repudiation of good faith attempts to avoid gendering someone altogether suggests that one has no interest in finding any neutral ground, and may even seek to either weaponize compassion or undermine the identity of others.
In dragonfucker’s case, I’m not sure I’ve seen them outright reject gender agnostic second or third person pronouns. I believe there was a comment suggesting that they didn’t accept “they/them”, but that might have been another user accusing them of that. I also have not seen them reject “you”, so I am of the assumption that they’re acting in at least semi good faith.
That said, there is almost certainly some degree of dragonfucker purposefully acting disruptive and then crying foul when the disruptive behavior is addressed. I won’t guess at the motive, or outright condemn disruption as a valid way of making certain points. But I equally won’t defend throwing rocks and hiding one’s hands. If you aim to disrupt, expect to experience consequences. Otherwise, what is the point of disruption?
Edit: Before anyone brings it up, I am aware of the school of thought that regards “we” as belonging to “personal gender”. In my opinion, animacy/inanimacy are not germane to the discussion in this thread; if one can be conversed with, one is not inanimate.
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My issue with the person in this thread (who will probably even object to me calling them a person) is that they expect people to also not use nongendered pronouns with them.
They threw a massive fit because I used (and will continue to use) not only they/them as a pronoun that applies to everyone, but also “you.”
And even if I agree with someone that I will only use a pronoun like “zir” with them instead of they or he or she or whatever… I draw the line at “you.” I can call a leaky faucet “you” as I’m trying to fix it. It doesn’t give the faucet a gender.
Yeah once you start messing with first person and second person pronouns it just starts to break language. It can make sentences awkward and confusing and can even cause confusion of whether or not they are talking about different people with their own pronoun. I’ve seen dragonfucker refer to other people as “drag” even though they might deny it in this thread, makes it really confusing.
As an example of where it really doesn’t work I was once asked by someone (not dragonfucker) to refer to them with me/my pronouns. I couldn’t do it because I didn’t even know how that would work and they flipped out at me and said I was a transphobe and a cissy. However me/my doesn’t work as a pronoun.
“Ze went to the store and bought Zirself some juice.” ✅
- Works well
- has correct sentence structure
- you can tell “Ze” refers to someone else
“Me went to the store and bought myself some juice.” ❌
- Is clunky and awkward
- Isn’t grammatically functional
- Not clear that “Me” refers to someone esle
As you can see, it doesn’t really work, and I think that was the point of the person who insisted I use Me/My pronouns with them. They wanted to make me feel bad, and/or possibly scared of consequences. Thankfully though I can recognize this as a type of trolling, and so can most people. Which is why dragonfucker is getting banned on a growing number of communites.
By the way obligatory link to arbitrary Lemmy community ban tutorial allows you to ban anyone you want from any community you want. Can help with bad faith people who haven’t posted in your community yet or are avoiding doing so directly to avoid the ban. This takes care of it.
Well considering the motherfucker got banned from World News for intentionally misgendering my daughter as part of the harassment and tripled down on it in this thread, I’m thinking it’s more about being a massive fucking hypocrite troll.
you do not speak for everyone. plenty of folks have SOME amount of compassion, what you’re doing is more akin to bullying.
y’know generally opening comments with “No one cares.” is like, bully shit? at the very least it’s petulant and childish.
There are two, gender neutral ways of referring to yourself when using the English language: “I” and “Me”, depending on where in the sentence they appear. You’re “preferred pronouns” have nothing to do with referring to yourself in the third person, which just comes off as stupid trolling.
Drag isn’t referring to dragself in the third person.
“I am not referring to myself in the third person”
Vs.
“I isn’t referring to myself in the third person”,
Vs.
“<pronoun> isn’t referring to *self in the third person”.
You are very clearly referring to yourself in the third person, based on how you’re conjugating your verbs.
Verbs aren’t conjugated based on grammatical person, they’re conjugated based on the pronoun. You’ve made a false assumption. You should have realised that the pronoun determines conjugation based on the way we conjugate they/them pronouns. Did you notice it’s different to how we conjugate he and she?
Ok, so you just don’t understand how language works. I’ll let that be your problem to deal with.
Seems like an overraction tbh.
A comment explaining drag’s pronouns
It should be drags surely, we don’t use an apostrophe for possessive pronouns.
YDI, you came to a community and weren’t contributing to the discussion and immediately decided to pivot the discussion to yourself. In addition your persistent and off-topic discussion about neopronouns could be viewed as trolling by others. It’s very similar to what another user DroneRights was doing a while back, though though their posts and comments were much more hostile and aggressive towards others. Yours are less aggressive but still give off the same vibes.
Maybe it was a bit extreme for them to permaban you for that but after dealing with DroneRights I can’t say I blame them.
Drag didn’t change the topic to dragself. Someone else decided to interrogate drag about drag’s pronouns. Would you have preferred drag ignore them? Denigrate the question and tell them to go away, because drag doesn’t want to discuss that topic? That’s how drag felt, but drag chose to be polite, and now you’re mad at drag for that.
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I saw that, you weren’t fast enough.
It’s really confusing because you seem to be using “drag” both for yourself and other people as well,
No, drag isn’t doing that. Drag’s pronouns are drag; drag doesn’t know of anyone else who uses the same pronouns.
“Denigrate the question and tell them to go away, because drag doesn’t want to discuss that topic?” seems like you’re using drag to refer to someone else who doesn’t want to discuss that topic but maybe I’m wrong, it’s really confusing because you’e using first person and second person at the same time. Wouldn’t surprise me if you also are using them in place of generics for others as well.
(i.e. @FlyingSquid@lemmy.world claimed in the thread that you’ve been harassing him about this stuff)
Nope. Flying Squid told drag in a conversation that he prefers to they/them other people, and drag agreed to help. If Flying Squid regrets that decision, he’s never told drag. It’s extremely sus that he’s complaining to other people about it when he’s always told drag he supports they/them-ing other people. Drag doesn’t actually agree with the practice, but agreed to help him anyway. This smells like some false flag nonsense.
Let’s ask him directly, I’m sure he’d have something different to say considering he claimed you were harassing him over claiming that they/them are acceptable generic gender neutral pronouns for people who you don’t know the preferred pronouns of. Also no offense but he has more credibility than you do, as I explained “dragonfucker”.
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It’s actually not that hard to respect what a nonbinary person prefers be it neopronouns, binary pronouns, or agender pronouns.
It’s also not hard to accept that ‘they’ and ‘you’ applies to everyone regardless of gender. And non-humans. And inanimate objects.
If ‘you’ is good enough for both my mother and a toaster, it’s good enough for them. There is no disrespect.
And if someone wants respect, following me around to various communities and harassing me when I call a little cartoon boy ‘he’ is not a way to earn it.
They harassed me over calling Caillou ‘he.’ As in the cartoon toddler. Seriously.
I told them that “they/them” and “you” are universal pronouns and that they are acceptable to use with anyone
Anyone includes cartoon toddlers. Seems like you’re just making up problems because you like drama.
I am not the one making things up. Not only are you still intentionally misreading what I am saying, you are also just outright lying about me “making up problems.”
https://lemmy.world/comment/13091755
I assume this will begin a whole new round of harassment.
