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.
Pronouns are generic by nature. A custom pronoun that applies to one person and only one person isn’t a pronoun, it’s a noun.
I agree with this, it’s why I find the concept of nounself and noun pronouns a bit confusing and unintuitive. Neopronouns, as in, the new gender neutral pronouns Ze/Zir, Xe/Xem/Xyr, Ve/Vis, etc. while they might be new to people aren’t unintuitive, they function the same as any other pronoun, and can be used as drop in replacements for he/him and she/her.
Personalized pronouns like drag, apple, doll, demon, etc. don’t work as well, because they aren’t a generic replacement for using a person’s name, they are more akin to a nickname and thus do not flow well in language as a replacement for pronouns.
That’s not in the dictionary.
Neither is “drag” as a pronoun.
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
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.
Yeah, someone with the name “dragonfucker” using “drag” as a first person pronoun definitely doesn’t have the benefit of the doubt in my book.
And if you list your pronouns, you are in fact asking others to use them. I don’t give a solitary shit what you call me, hence there not being any pronouns next to my name.
And that’s a privilege not everyone has.
And tbh most cis people wouldn’t enjoy being misgendered either.
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.
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.
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.
DroneRights? They absolutely insisted, to the point of creating a community dedicated to chronologging the extent of their victim complex and persecution fetish
The only reason that stopped is because they kept getting banned when they would post to that community from their ban evading alts
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.
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
YDI. You weren’t contributing to the community discussion. You turned the discussion into one about you. That’s not helpful. the moderators were correct for removing you. For no other reason than you were off topic
They shouldn’t have asked if they didn’t want an explanation.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
