Their behaviour is weird and self-contradictory and drag is sick of it!
People constantly ask drag why drag uses neopronouns. And then when drag answers, they get mad about the answer. What gives!?
This person here seems nice, no shade on them, but look at the downvote numbers. Three other people upvoted their accepting comment, saying drag should be dragself. But it looks as though those same three people downvoted drag for explaining drag’s pronouns. So they hate drag for being drag, but they like platitudes and symbolic gestures of acceptance. It doesn’t make any sense.
Drag is wondering whether drag should even explain drag’s pronouns to anyone anymore. Last week, drag got banned from [email protected] for explaining drag’s pronouns. Someone asked, and drag answered their question. Drag didn’t agree with the situation and made a thread on yepowertrippinbastards - https://lemmy.nz/post/15935996 - and most of the people in the thread accused drag of changing the subject to dragself and demanding others use drag’s pronouns. Other people clog up the thread with demanding drag explain themselves, and it’s drag’s fault they asked.
Maybe drag should just ignore people who ask drag to explain drag’s pronouns, or tell them no. But surely the transphobes will get mad at that, too.
Drag thinks maybe the reason they get mad when drag evades, and mad when drag complies, is because they just want a socially acceptable excuse to be mad at drag. They want to manufacture conflict so they can attack the trans person and pretend it’s not about drag’s transness.
Just take your L and let it go. You’ve lost every credibility when you deliberately misgendered Flyingsquids Daughter.
And to the title: phobias are by definition irrational, so nothing new really.
Drag didn’t do that.
I mean, c’mon dragon rider, you have to realize that the inconsistent way you use drag as pronoun makes it confusing as hell, even to the best intentioned
And the choice of it as a pronoun is a hard sell to begin with. Neopronouns are pig dubious value, and a ton of people will point out that it makes it harder for trans people to be taken seriously against an already douche filled world. With it also being part of your screen name, the entire thing looks like a troll attempt.
Hell, I’m not certain you aren’t trolling, and I enjoy seeing you around, making people think.
Truth? If you stuck to replacing gendered pronouns, you wouldn’t run into the confusion. Replacing I with drag really, really doesn’t work grammatically since drag is part of dragon rider. I, my, mine, they just aren’t the same as gendered pronouns, and when you’re wanting people to ignore a lifetime of speaking english with the rules of grammar as they are and replace self referential pronouns with a random word that’s only for you, I’m surprised you haven’t ended up banned across lemmy.
Seriously, you seem cool as fuck. But choosing to apply drag to I, me, mine, and then using drag’s, which is a third person possessive, it just isn’t ever going to end. You’ll always have someone confused as the best case scenario. You could be the most awesome person on the planet, and the dissonance of being expected to adapt to inconsistent rules using an awkward word is offputting enough to make it not worth the effort of communication with you. If I had to try and remember to insert drag for every “you” in this, I would have quit entirely. It just isn’t realistic to expect the majority of people to automatically obey your arbitrary rules.
What you’re experiencing isn’t transphobia, period. It’s the dissonance of choosing a random word as a pronoun and expecting people to know what you’re saying.
You don’t seem mad about the answer. You seem confused, but not angry. Drag is complaining about the people who actually get angry at drag for using drag’s pronouns. The people who see someone ask about the pronouns, and drag answer, and then yell at drag for changing the subject. Drag thinks that’s confusing. Drag doesn’t understand how someone can refuse so strongly to be happy with anything.
Also, drag’s pronouns are very consistent. Most people change the rules for their pronouns based on grammatical person, possessives, whether they’re the subject or the object… They have so many pronouns! At least twelve!
Drag only has two pronouns, and they don’t change inflection based on person or subject/object, and they always conjugate the same way. Drag’s pronouns are four times simpler than most people’s. They’re not inconsistent or complicated, they’re just unfamiliar. They’re way easier to learn than most people’s pronouns, but they do require that they be learned. You didn’t complain about learning other people’s pronouns, even though it took you years, because you were a toddler. You’re all grown up now, and much smarter, so this is easy. But it does take effort.
And drag doesn’t really mind if you don’t want to do that effort either. If you want to use normal pronouns for drag, go ahead. Drag won’t get mad. But if you want to discuss the grammar, then you do have to put in effort. Drag promises that it’s much, much less effort than you put in when you were a toddler. But you do have to choose to try.
My homie, I’m going to quote here
drag’s pronouns are very consistent
That sentence is drag as a possesive noun. The 's means that the “pronouns” word right after the 's is possessed by drag.
You don’t say, in English, I’s pronouns, or mine’s pronouns, or my’s pronouns. You would only say my pronouns. My is the singular possessive of the self.
Like, I have mad respect for you, you make people think, and you handle the bullshit with grace. If you’re going to make it work, you kinda have to choose between following english grammar and structure in a way that communicates clearly, or expect confusion followed by anger. When you try to explain your choices to people, you fall back on incorrect grammar. It makes it look like you’re fucking with people rather than explaining.
Now, if you want to do that, that’s cool. You can make that choice freely. I’m not trying to change your mind, or get you to do things the way everyone else does. But that’s why you get anger.
Again, I dig you. I’ve enjoyed seeing you around lemmy. This isn’t an attack. I’m just trying to explain what other people have said already, but in a slightly different way, since you seem to not see where the anger is coming from. It could be a language barrier, I dunno.
My is the singular possessive of the self.
That’s right, most people change their pronouns when they’re expressing ownership. But drag’s pronoun is consistent and doesn’t change for that case. Drag doesn’t have a special possessive pronoun, drag just uses the same one as usual.
I think the two of you are talking about different ideas of consistency. Drag’s idea of consistency is that “drag” as a pronoun stays more or less consistent, never really conjugating. The alternative view is that drag’s pronouns are inconsistent with ~how the rest of English uses pronouns~. The fact that drag’s pronouns are, technically, simpler makes them read inconsistently from the rest of the English pronouns, and that causes confusion such as seeing the first person “drag’s” as talking in the third person.
The pronouns are internally consistent, but not externally, so to say.
You can feel free to handle your pronouns however you want. That’s your choice, and I have no beef with that. You said you’re essentially venting with this post, so my interpretation that you were seeking some degree of understanding as to why people react poorly to your choice was incorrect, so there’s really little else I can say.
Sorry to have wasted your time.
The only thing I can say at this point is that you’re going to continue to have problems with people while you continue using grammar that’s so far off of the way everyone else does. It comes across as a troll attempt rather than a genuine thing.
And the choice of it as a pronoun is a hard sell to begin with. Neopronouns are pig dubious value, and a ton of people will point out that it makes it harder for trans people to be taken seriously against an already douche filled world.
trans people don’t need to change their pronouns because it makes cis people uncomfortable
What you’re experiencing isn’t transphobia, period. It’s the dissonance of choosing a random word as a pronoun and expecting people to know what you’re saying.
I don’t think you get to be the one who decides if drag is experiencing transphobia, drag should be the one to
Well, no, transphobia is a specific thing with a fairly well defined set of limits. You can’t apply it willy nilly. Well, you can, but it not only won’t achieve anything, and it waters down the term.
Go through their history, look at the comments. Any venom towards dragonrider is because of the dissonance of the terminology, not because they’re trans. Which, have they even said they’re trans before now? I haven’t checked every single post and comment. This is the first time I’ve seen them mention it.
Neo pronouns aren’t just a cis thing with it being confusing. Trans people get confused about it too, and some directly object to it being lumped into trans rights at all because the struggle for acceptance of established pronouns is already fraught with difficulty, and outright danger. IDGAF, though I’m not wasting my time adjusting my keyboard settings to capitalize it, or translating every single pronoun to drag. More power to anyone. But dragonrider asked something, and I gave the best response I could to it.
They genuinely seem confused why people get angry with them, and the post seemed to be wanting discussion about that. The truth is that people think drag is trolling because it’s inconsistently applied, and doesn’t follow grammatical structures. Regardless of what anyone thinks, you can’t just redraw the grammar of an entire language and think people are going to play along.
Seriously, have you not seen drag around lemmy? The heat they’re taking is directly because of the confusion around the weird choice and the explanation not matching what they write. Nobody is all “oh, you’re trans, you suck, go away”.
Which, have they even said they’re trans before now?
https://lemmy.nz/post/15737101
the post seemed to be wanting discussion about that
Mostly wanted to vent. People are horrible.
What strikes drag about all of these comments is that they’re not just mean, they’re… dumb. People insisting their false memories of drag demanding they use drag’s pronouns are correct. People choosing not to use their heads. People inventing fake reasons for the ban (like saying drag changed the subject to drag’s pronouns) so they can still believe that attacking the trans person was justified. It never happened, but they confidently state it and get tons of upvotes. They want to believe it and so do most of the lurkers in the thread. Whatever they can fool themselves with to think that the trans person is mean and bad. Inventing a fake fight so they can make it real with their “retaliation”, whether it be a man, a he/him, calling drag a narcissist…
i dont recall commenting if drag was experiencing transphobia or not, only that you shouldnt be the one to decide if drag is.
anybody who wants to use a set of pronouns, no matter what they are, are able to, if you spend your entire life insisting that is how you want to be referred to, then that is in no way trolling, and i dont see that from drag like you are implying. nobody is interested in using force to make you comply with pronouns, you can choose not to, but i think you should just choose not to interact with people you cant have a conversation with without getting in a semantic argument about the english language.
I mean, when they’re expressing frustration at people responding in anger, and there’s a significant portion of that anger that stems from poor grammar, I would say it’s totally on topic to talk about the semantics of words, particularly when the post is inaccurately pointing towards a cause for the anger that isn’t accurate, based on things people have said in the open.
I wouldn’t worry too much about getting three down votes. Honestly, those are rookie numbers, and I’m sure as a fellow queer person you’ll get many more for just existing. Which is incredibly sad, but that’s life for you.
Some instances actually specifically disallow downvotes for similar reasons. My home instance doesn’t allow them because brigading has been a problem in the past.
At the end of the day, you can’t ever know exactly why somebody’s downvoted. The question you have to ask then, is “does it matter?”
I’m not saying that to diminish your feelings. It hurts when people are hurtful. But downvoting someone for being different is the refuge of hateful people who are otherwise impotent at effecting change in their own life. It’s sad, miserable, and frankly pathetic.
Consider it another way: if transphobes are seeking to make you feel bad by giving you a thumbs down, then not giving a fuck becomes an act of defiance and a source of strength. Haters gonna hate.
As to your specific question wondering if maybe you should ignore people asking about your pronouns: that’s up to you. You don’t owe anyone an explanation of your identity - particularly not if someone is asking in bad faith.
If someone asks you and you want to tell them “no,” again that’s up to you. But I can practically guarantee you’re going to get downvoted when you could have ignored them.
For what it’s worth, if anybody can’t figure out your pronouns from the context of how you talk, that’s kind of on them.
Drag conjugates verbs as if drag is talking about dragself in the third person.
For example:
People constantly ask drag why drag uses neopronouns.
If “drag” were being used as a first person pronoun there, it should read:
People constantly ask drag why drag use neopronouns.
Also, using an apostrophe to indicate possession, as in:
But it looks as though those same three people downvoted drag for explaining drag’s pronouns.
Reads like a third person perspective where “drag” is being used as a proper noun. “My”, “your”, “her”, “his”, and “their” don’t have apostrophes.
I’m not trying to criticize drag, just giving a possible explanation why there is confusion about drag’s pronouns.
When you talk about a they/them pronoun user, do you conjugate the verbs as if you were talking about them in the plural? When nonbinary people were first becoming socially accepted, a lot of people complained about that. “He is Greg”, “They are Sam”. People complained that the conjugation makes it sound like Sam is more than one person. They said they/them can’t be singular, because of the conjugation.
We moved past that drama when we realised that conjugation doesn’t indicate plurality. It doesn’t indicate grammatical person either.
Fantastic point. I knew there was something wrong with this argument but I couldn’t place it
I am very old and equally confused. Drag is OP’s name? And drag prefers to have no pronouns, instead only being called by name? Is there a term for this preference? I’ve heard the word “neopronouns” before but I thought that referred to anything outside of he/she/they.
Edit: Nevermind, found this write up that explains it. https://pflag.org/resource/what-do-you-do-when-someone-doesnt-use-any-pronouns/
It really doesn’t seem that complicated of a preference to abide by.
Drag’s name is Dragon Rider, and drag uses pronouns. Only two, though, instead of the twelve that most people use. Drag/dragself.
You sound like a reasonable person who will listen to drag’s explanation and understand it. You’re not at all like the people drag is complaining about. Those people get mad at drag for explaining it and choose not to understand.
Thanks, that makes more sense now. I’ve found over the years that some people feel embarrassed and offended when they don’t understand something, and it causes them to lash out in a childlike way. I imagine that a lot of the bigotry Drag is experiencing comes from that kind of immaturity. Sometimes we/drag just have to accept that these people’s child-like minds will never be able to comprehend even the simplest concepts that are laid before them. In online spaces, the block functionality can be a great tool to stop these people in their tracks.
While it’s understandable to want to educate others, at the end of the day it’s really not our/drag’s job to drag people kicking and screaming into enlightenment. That being said, if someone is harassing or misgendering drag in a space where drag can’t simply block that person, it would be appropriate to take necessary action to stop this from happening.
I think people should just… call people what they wanna be called. Is it really that hard? Literally who gives a flying fuck what someone wants to be called? More power to drag, drag seems very cool
See that’s a sensible, coherent worldview. That’s how normal people think. Drag tries to empathise with transphobes, and it doesn’t work. They get mad when you give them what they want. They get mad when you don’t. They’re just stuck in angry mode and there’s nothing that can calm them down. It’s exhausting trying to see things from their point of view.
Something I want to point out that I haven’t seen others mention- drag doesn’t seem to realize that person wasn’t being genuine when they said “[drag] do [drag], mate.” They were being mean and dismissive :(
If it would help, I can share a picture of the facial expression they may have said it with if the exchange were made in-person
Yeah… Drag was giving the benefit of the doubt…
Maybe drag could prepare a stock response…
Drag has a rule about talking about drag’s pronouns on threads that aren’t about those. Drag will only talk about drag’s pronouns if somebody says “I want to change the subject to drag’s pronouns”. Drag isn’t going to change the subject to drag’s pronouns, somebody else has to, and clearly state they are doing so.
