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.
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.
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.
