Five days ago, drag was banned from [email protected] 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, 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.
You’re not improving language you’re making yourself look foolish and self aggrandizing
Yeah language is something that takes a group effort to change, trying to change it on your own only is bound to cause miscommunication and misinterpretation. After all language is only useful if others speak it, if you fork and modify English with your own changes that no one else agrees to then it doesn’t do anyone any good.
CC: @[email protected]