since the text is too small to be readable, nobody can tell; but in any case, privacy matters regardless of the classification. If drag cared they could’ve asked Ada beforehand if it would be okay.
good thing it wasn’t (source: i was the third party recipient of those shared DMs; they were fully irrelevant to admin/mod action, abusive or otherwise)
Careful not to mythologize the characters of people who have just hurt others.
With 100+ comments already this is probably a message delivered too late, but if you are reading this be aware that comments here that digress away from simply keeping history into ogling and ridiculing serve only to feed the needs of a user who already has alt accounts drifting in as we speak.
I’m really amazed how they don’t try very hard to conceal their alts as alts. Change what they refer to themselves as in the third person, and everything else is exactly the same. Low effort.
Drag can’t control how drag’s friends talk. If drag were writing their posts for them, drag would be a lot more careful. Unfortunately, drag doesn’t use disguised alts, and drag’s friends write their own comments themselves. And drag is friends with other queer neurodivergent people who have personalities and values similar to drag’s.
If you want to get to know someone, the best way is to treat them like a person. And drag would think getting to know somebody is the best way to find out who they are; drag, or someone else. Drag doesn’t think anybody has actually tried to find the truth.
Lemmy is supicious that drag’s friends don’t use Lemmy very often, and mostly just comment whenever drag is upset. Would you want to use Lemmy if your main experience with it was your friend crying because someone misgendered them? When you think of drag’s friends as people, their actions make a lot more sense.
Its been a while since I saw the posts, but it was not subtle at all; immediate reactionary posts from the same instance all badmouthing someone drag was arguing with, using the same phrasing and sentence structure drag uses.
These immediate reactionary posts, were they directed at various different people? Drag has been in drama and conflict with a lot of people on Lemmy. So if drag made the posts, it would make sense for them to be directed at all the people drag has had a lot of conflict with: spujb, Flying Squid, Pug Jesus…
Or, was the alt-account harassment all directed at a single user, and all at a time when that user had something to gain from playing the victim? Because if that’s the case, it seems like maybe that particular user is somehow linked to the cause of the harassment.
They and I had a talk about that. I asked what their neo-pronouns would be if they followed the three basic courtesy rules, and they responded saying I could stick to they/them. They and anyone else are free to correct me if I relapse into he/him.
They also said that they are not a person, but instead, a “dragon rider” which would indicate one who rides dragons. So… Is a dragon’s rider a dragon that rides dragons? A race of non-human things that ride dragons? Neither of these?
Also, take a stroll through their comment history. They are very inconsistent over the months since their account was created.
It’s almost as if they were making it up as they went along.
That’s effectively impossible as a part of the nature of the fediverse. You could try banning alts on site but it’s really not that hard to have a dozen alts waiting across host of instances.
Correction bans only work for people who respect the paradigm of “not being allowed to sign up again when banned” and “not being allowed to lie on registration application” if it’s present on the server.
Normal people don’t get permabanned from servers left, right, and center.
If you could force users to use an app like Reddit does you could get device data. Though short of that not really. Browser fingerprinting and tracking cookie placement (What Reddit uses in their web session) is described that way by lay people (and people trying to fear monger or dissuade ban evasion) but Browsers like Tor or Mullvad defeat that very easily by not saving the data and randomizing the fingerprinting data.
Most Lemmy users wouldn’t use a locked down black box app similar to the Reddit app though. It would be a red flag for many of them. An instance which requires that would not be popular.
legit you cannot convince me this wasn’t trolling, and the fact so many people haven’t been able to tell, for so long, is deeply funny but also somewhat depressing. I blocked them almost as soon as I encountered them. It reeks of bait turned up to 11, like an edgy 16 year old just heard about the concept of making your own pronouns and went “ok how can I make this as stupid as humanly possible to fuck with people?”.
Already said it in [email protected] but I’ll say it again so others can see it here.
It seems drag was banned from the site for sharing people’s DMs, though I’m sure that’s not the whole story, drag has a history of being banned for way more than just the thing on the label. Looking at the comments on drag’s home instance where it hasn’t been removed, it seems drag was sharing those DMs in attempt to libel Ada for not taking the action drag wanted. That’s on top of the fact that she did not give drag permission to share them. It’s an asshole move for sure, and I have to say if I were in Ada’s shoes I’d do the same.
Drag didn’t know Ada didn’t message spujb. Drag was making it clear to spujb and anyone reading the thread that drag wasn’t lying. Drag is sorry to Ada and won’t do it again. Drag tried to tell her earlier today, but drag couldn’t
Ada was also already wary of drag after the respecting pronouns rule announcement, because a number of blahaj users rightfully pointed out drag is still likely a troll. Fluff around and find out basically.
It ultimately isn’t surprising. Drag has been very sus from the beginning, drag exhibited a lot of behaviors that made me leery. Though at the time I didn’t say anything since it was only a hunch and most people were just voicing transphobic complaints about pronouns.
Either you have issues with reading comprehension or you are an alt of drag. When people say someone is being sus or has been sus they generally mean they as a person are behaving in ways that make others suspicious.
I think Blåhaj handled this person well over all. Even if Drag wad just 100% troll, drag wasn’t being fed in Blåhaj and had to go elsewhere. But also there was always the chance that drag is just someone on a journey or with things to sort out. Some people have completely given up on being any gender and treat it like a joke in an almost nihilistic way. But clearly there’s a line between that and an actual troll.
Either way, I wouldn’t say that it’s standard heterosexual cisgender behaviour to go as far as Drag did just for the lulz. So maybe one of these days, Drag will have an awakening and remember how no one in the community either fed drag or shunned drag when drag was confused and behaving badly.
If Drag was trolling, the troll was exposing how shallow non-binary acceptance is for your average “progressive.”
“Not feeding the troll” in that case is treating their request with a minimal level of respect, and that was simply too much inconvenience for 90% of Lemmy.world and a very potent reminder of why trans and enby folks need their own spaces.
Including some people in this thread with an axe to grind and no self awareness to stop it.
DragonRider’s pronouns are “Drag” not “they”, just because someone is a dick doesn’t mean you don’t respect pronouns. Gender isn’t a reward for good behavior.
I personally don’t think they were a troll but I am also not sure I agree with banning people for not remembering or wanting to use their unusual pronouns.
But I am not well-educated on the topic of neopronouns so if someone feels like educating me or suggesting some readings I am open to it.
Absolute bullshit. I called drag out and ONLY drag. I made no mention of neopronouns or even said anything remotely dismissive of pronouns as I am a huge supporter of all of it.
Yet I was banned because I called drag a shit tier troll that was making a mockery of the trans community.
Community banned as I recall. And even removing the comments because I called them a troll and accused them of mocking the trans community was bullshit in light of the recent acknowledgment that they are- in fact, a troll.
They went to where they knew they could take advantage of the rules that protect the trans community- and then weaponized it to create drama and get shit removed.
That last part is transphobic. No trans person represents the trans community and setting higher standards for trans people than cis people is transphobic. You can call them out for being a troll, but using someone’s gender identity in an insult is always transphobic.
Was it dismissing or just not understanding? To be honest my recollection is a bit fuzzy.
I’m a little afraid to be having this conversation lest I be accused of prejudice against trans or nonbinary folks, a prejudice I try my best to fight against. But I don’t even understand the connection there since we already have well-established systems of pronouns for such people.
Personally, I truly can’t fathom why neopronouns are necessary and while I don’t want to disrespect anyone, they are so uncomfortable to use that it just makes me not want to address someone who uses them… especially when they are implicitly linked to having sex with non-human mythological creatures.
But maybe I am just ignorant. Drag was my first introduction to this concept. I’d like to learn more about this.
Willing to have a casual explanation of it? An in depth one isn’t on topic for this community. And yes, this is the condensed version, I could write a small pamphlet on this.
If so, read on. If not, throw me a DM and I’ll try and give a more detailed version of my take after having changed my mind on the subject as a whole.
Neopronouns are not truly necessary. There’s other ways to achieve the same goal
However, respecting them is, and it’s important to recognize that the concept behind them is an important one.
The kind of neopronoun drag used aren’t the only kind of neopronoun. I can’t recall the name for that type, but it is an individualized version that has a different kind of merit.
The core of neopronouns is redefining gender and language. It’s reframing how we think about and deal with agender, gender fluid, non binary, and other labels that represent people for whom the traditional masc/fem/neutral pronouns don’t really fit. Now, yes, the singular neutral they/them does partially achieve that. But it isn’t necessarily perfect because it’s the same as just saying “other”.
Standard neopronouns like xe/xem/xyr attempt to rectify that, in part, by providing a general use new (neo means new) words that are inherently without gender, and are also internally consistent (hence why xyr replaces the plural they/them rather than leaving that in place).
What dragon rider’s pronouns do (and here I’ll switch to just calling the person drag because arthritis) is a furtherance of that basic idea. The concept of individual, single word pronouns takes the concept of reframing gender in language to its logical extreme.
Now, here we have to address the elephant in the room. Otherkin. Otherkin are the folks you think about when you see a lot of individual pronouns. They also want their pronouns to be different from the norm, though they don’t all want individual ones. They do tend to want pronouns that reflect their belief that they are different by being kin to their other. That’s a simplification, but that’s a tangent on a tangent already
Drag, afaik, isn’t otherkin.
The connection to drag is that the individualized pronouns look similar, and it’s where most people draw the line. Now, I have my opinion about that side of things, but for this purpose let’s set the assumption that their belief is valid.
That’s where we get back to drag. Drag, in choosing their user name, set up a fight from the beginning. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but choosing dragon (rider), and dragon fucker as user names, it was inevitable.
But drag is not actually their user name, nor what you would call a name at all. It isn’t directly linked to them wanting to fuck dragons, which aren’t real. It’s a knock on effect.
Pretend, instead, that their user name is southsamurai, and they wanted the individual pronoun “sam”. Still some confusion, obviously, but it isn’t a fight from the beginning.
So, if my pronouns are sam/sam, I’m requesting an individual pronoun. I’m saying, up front, that by requesting that, that I have a sense of myself that doesn’t work with standard gendered pronouns, nor with the commonly used neopronouns. I’m saying, please interact with me as an individual, not as a generic person.
That’s why it matters. Now, I’m not saying anyone has to agree to use them. I’ve had many a discussion about that, and not just with drag. It’s a big ask. It’s asking everyone you meet to upend their brain and restructure their language pathways entirely, so that they can fluidly switch between known individual pronouns, and generic ones, without making errors.
But, even if you aren’t willing or able to do that, I have come to agree that the point of individualized pronouns is important, and that standard neopronouns need to be adapted to, because language does matter. Our thinking is shaped by those language pathways. Language is how we exchange ideas, and (except for people that don’t think in words at all) it’s how we process our thoughts.
There are languages with no gendered pronouns, and some with long lists of them because there’s more than two recognized genders, or because the pronoun used is grammar based regarding when and where it’s used.
So, in English, our entire mind is influenced by having only three standard options: masculine, feminine, and neutral. It’s inflexible because of that. And, you can see evidence of that via the rejection of the singular they/them, despite it having been a part of the language for much longer than trans issues have been in the public awareness.
Again, you might disagree about that. That’s fine, I’m not trying to convince you, just trying to explain why I changed my mind from “that’s silly” regarding all neopronouns, to having the opinion that they matter.
I now think that they matter because it’s an effective way to shake up the way we think about gender and language. I think that’s important because we all suffer limitations based on the limited English pronoun structures. In order to improve that, a shakeup is needed.
Drag is the reason I changed my opinion, and that’s despite still having objections to individual pronouns as being more trouble than they’re worth at this point in time. That’s also despite my impression and opinion on the otherkin side of things being a hindrance to everyone else.
I like your explanation and also would say that Drag did a great job of forcing me to consider this section of grammar. I very much dislike “individual pronouns”, similar to the other commenter, but specifically because they cause unnecessary frustration and discord in my already discordant neurodivergent brain (the point of pronouns is that there are ideas and contexts that absolutely require generic forms of nouns - breaking that section of language is very frustrating, especially as one who tries to show everyone the respect that any person deserves). However, like the other commenter, I do not see any way to engage conversationally and respectfully, without using them when requested.
So, even though it is internally aggravating, if I choose to engage, showing the basic decency of at least making a best effort of addressing one how they request is the least one can do, supposing that the individual is not specifically requesting to be addressed in a manner to elevate themselves over others (whether in good or bad faith, ex. “King”, “Master”, etc - save that for scenes, if that’s your kind of thing).
Now, neopronouns and the like, I’m all about those because they don’t break my brain and, as a bonus, many of them are novel to me.
Some folk require understanding before they offer acceptance. Those folk will frame it as “just not understanding”. I frame that as lack of acceptance. Acceptance isn’t contingent on understanding. You or I not understanding an aspect of someone elses identity has nothing to do with the validity of their identity.
If you wish to ask someone questions about their pronouns and identity, you’re welcome to do so, but remember they don’t owe you an answer, and whether they offer you an answer or not, and whether you understand their perspective or not, either way, gatekeeping and invalidating their identity is not on.
they are so uncomfortable to use that it just makes me not want to address someone who uses them
That was the other option I offered folk. If someone has stated their pronouns, either use them, or if you can’t bring yourself to use them, don’t engage with the person.
If the person is trolling, report them. But even if they’re trolling, the above statement still stands. Respect their pronouns or don’t engage with them as you report them.
How can one accept or reject a thing without understanding what it is they are accepting? Is not immediately changing the way one speaks without a reason or even an explicit request equivalent to denying someone’s identity? I don’t think my discomfort with neopronouns is because I reject anyone’s identity. I don’t even understand what such a person’s identity is. Unlike established pronouns, neopronouns do not have any meaning at all to me because I’ve never heard them before and no one has defined them. What do they signify? I assume something different for each one, so what is it? I’ve always been careful with my language, so using words without a clear understanding of their meaning makes me uncomfortable.
Language is a very meaningful topic for people. Both for the speaker and the spoken to. We have all been acculturated to speak in a certain way, and to understand the meanings of such speech in a certain way. I don’t think asking people to change the way they speak is as trivial as you seem to imply. Nor is declining to change the way one speaks the same as saying “I reject your identity”, unless such a meaning is intended.
And of course I understand that someone may not want to have this (or any) conversation. But I also feel that you can’t expect people to change without them understanding why they need to change. Most people hate change, it’s just human nature. So if you choose not to educate people, you’ll have to accept that they remain ignorant until such time as someone takes on that burden.
I’m trans. Cis people literally can never truly understand my experience or why the things that are important to me are important. Acceptance can’t be contingent on understanding they can never have.
Neopronouns are the same. You can work on your own understanding to reduce your discomfort but your discomfort should be your problem, not something you get to force on to others
I can’t remember the exact details but I believe at least a few people were banned for suggesting that drag was a troll and refusing to use their preferred neopronouns.
People weren’t banned for criticizing them, they were banned for encouraging others to misgender people if they don’t like them. I don’t think anyone was banned for not using “personal” neo pronouns.
And drag was banned from BZ for telling people to KYS, then they went and made a new account on a different instance and have continued pissing people off, now the new acount is being banned from stuff because they’ve continued the kind of behavior that got them banned in the first place.
they were banned for encouraging others to misgender people if they don’t like them
(My God what the fuck am I thinking wading into this.)
“Dragon” isn’t a gender. Refusing to identify someone as the gender they identified with, because you thought they were trolling, is fucked up yes. That’s why blahaj made the rule, and it’s a good rule. Refusing to identify someone as a dragon because you think they’re trolling is A-ok. Deliberately conflating those two issues, so that you pretend someone is “misgendering” if they exercise a small amount of common sense and refuse to go along with someone being a dragon, is I think exactly the trick this particular troll was trying to play, and it worked like fireworks. I think in terms of creating conflict between two reasonable points of view on this topic that would get people on both sides all amped up about it, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
Drag’s gender isn’t dragon fucker. That’s drag’s sexuality. Drag’s gender is dragon rider. One is about who drag is, one is about who drag likes to fuck.
At the same time, the thing is so ridiculous that it doesn’t really interfere with any sincerely held belief, I think. The drama is what the troll wants.
This is the usual series of events for the drag drama:
Drag: does something that any Lemmy user does: Commenting, posting, etc. Something innocuous
Someone: Hey. I’m not calling you that/Why are you called that?
Drag: explains
Someone: Fucking troll
Does that really seem like someone starting fights on purpose? It’s people going out of their way to pick a fight with drag, and drag retaliating. Drag doesn’t start these things most of the time
Blahaj said you have to respect everyone’s pronouns, even if you think they are trolling, because it’s not up for debate and you don’t get to set conditions before you start calling someone by the right appelations. Fair enough.
A user figured out that meant they could identify as a dragon, tell everyone their pronouns were “drag,” and get people banned from blahaj for not saying “drag,” or trying to tell this person that drag weren’t actually a dragon. Blahaj, in the mode of overly well-intentioned leftists throughout all history, bought into it hard and obediently virtue-signaled by banning anyone who pointed out that drag was taking the piss. Presumably, drag laughed dragself out of dragr chair every time it happened. Drag also tended to display other fun behavior like encouraging other users to commit suicide, if I remember right.
Apparently, blahaj has finally figured it out. I eagerly await whatever overcorrection or other type of continuingly-counterproductive drama is going to ensue now. Presumably, some new user will emerge with some other type of bizarre edge case in the “official correct morality” that everyone is required to agree on, to instigate everyone to get into slap fights over.
See also Grail, who insisted their pronouns must be capitalized.
Respecting people’s gender is not carte blanche to make up rules. Like, I can’t say my pronouns have italicized vowels during local business hours, and must use thee / thou / thine if you’re disagreeing with me. That’s simply not what pronouns are for. It’s not why they matter.
Taking a ‘shut up and do it anyway’ approach to moderation is simpler, and perhaps understandable. But you have to acknowledge that’s what you’re doing. When you genuinely believe there is no limit, that gender is both super fucking important and so meaningless that it can be anything, people are going to try politely talking you through some immediately obvious problems.
Yeah it was kind of obvious it was the attack helicopter meme from the start. The whole thing was a bit silly in the sense that pronouns which don’t reflect human reality aren’t really any kind of moral hazard for ones that do imo.
At the same time, I kind of feel like gate keeping pronouns actually gives the trolls power in a way. Imagine someone at the office does this and then everyone actually calls them a Christmas tree or whatever. The lack of concern about this new nickname in the broader population would definitely piss them off, since they are the one who cares about that stuff.
I think, also, what gives the trolls power is everyone getting upset about it. If it was 50% of the office saying “Is ChristmasTreeSelf coming to the party?” and 50% saying “Bro I’m not saying that it is stupid”, but neither one really treating it as any different than any other Tuesday, then it’s fine. But because people have this deeply held impassion about the whole issue (which exists for a valid reason of course), it means they feel like they need to set these super-rigid rules about what is “allowed” and “not allowed” out of those outcomes, and then other people get upset about having things they are thinking inside their head that they will get banned if they say out loud, and it just becomes a situation of upset-ness instead of anything like positive communication between people. And then there are people who like to be performatively upset because someone violated the rules and now they’re all excited to correct them, which just compounds the problem which was already an upset situation.
It is okay if people think different from you. I feel like a lot of modern society involves people needing the debate to continue until their own particular viewpoint is “proven right” and becomes the law of the land, so they won’t have to deal with any enemy viewpoints anywhere within the kingdom without someone coming in to correct them, forcibly if necessary, which isn’t really how it works.
You clearly have a bone to pick, but it should be noted that Drag was a well-known user long before the post clarifying Blahaj’s stance on neopronouns was posted, at least by a couple of months.
Troll. The word is troll, not user. Drag has never been here in good faith, and good fucking riddance. They make the trans community look lesser for their association
Ada, drag is sorry for sharing the screenshots. Drag didn’t think they were anything serious. Drag won’t share any screenshots without permission again.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Rules
Any drama must be posted as an observer, you cannot post drama that you are involved with.
When posting screenshots of drama, you must obscure the identity of all the participants.
The poster must have a credible post and comment history before submitting a piece of history. This is to avoid sock-puppetry and witch hunts.
The usual instance-wide rules also apply.
Chronicle the life and tale of the fediverse (+ matrix)
Largely a sublemmy about capturing drama, from fediverse spanning drama to just lemmy drama.
Includes lore like how a instance got it’s name, how an instance got defederated, how an admin got doxxed, fedihistory etc
(New) This sub’s intentions is to an archive/newspaper, as in preferably don’t get into fights with each other or the ppl featured in the drama
Sharing DMs is a dick move.
Not exactly something that requires top secret classification, yeah?
since the text is too small to be readable, nobody can tell; but in any case, privacy matters regardless of the classification. If drag cared they could’ve asked Ada beforehand if it would be okay.
But I guess courtesy is a one-way to drag.
Drag is sorry to Ada for sharing the screenshot of her saying she’d talk to spujb. Drag won’t do it again.
Strangers on the Internet don’t owe you jack just because you send them a DM.
Not if it is exposing admin/mod abuse.
good thing it wasn’t (source: i was the third party recipient of those shared DMs; they were fully irrelevant to admin/mod action, abusive or otherwise)
We have dms?
Careful not to mythologize the characters of people who have just hurt others.
With 100+ comments already this is probably a message delivered too late, but if you are reading this be aware that comments here that digress away from simply keeping history into ogling and ridiculing serve only to feed the needs of a user who already has alt accounts drifting in as we speak.
I’m really amazed how they don’t try very hard to conceal their alts as alts. Change what they refer to themselves as in the third person, and everything else is exactly the same. Low effort.
Drag can’t control how drag’s friends talk. If drag were writing their posts for them, drag would be a lot more careful. Unfortunately, drag doesn’t use disguised alts, and drag’s friends write their own comments themselves. And drag is friends with other queer neurodivergent people who have personalities and values similar to drag’s.
If that is actually true, then I apologise for the assumption.
If you want to get to know someone, the best way is to treat them like a person. And drag would think getting to know somebody is the best way to find out who they are; drag, or someone else. Drag doesn’t think anybody has actually tried to find the truth.
Lemmy is supicious that drag’s friends don’t use Lemmy very often, and mostly just comment whenever drag is upset. Would you want to use Lemmy if your main experience with it was your friend crying because someone misgendered them? When you think of drag’s friends as people, their actions make a lot more sense.
If they follow the rules, they are always welcome in Casual Conversation.
I do not understand the same reasons to judge them that everyone else seems to. They have never seemed antagonistic.
There are/were some instances of harassment with multiple accounts from them IIRC
How would anyone know it’s them?
Its been a while since I saw the posts, but it was not subtle at all; immediate reactionary posts from the same instance all badmouthing someone drag was arguing with, using the same phrasing and sentence structure drag uses.
These immediate reactionary posts, were they directed at various different people? Drag has been in drama and conflict with a lot of people on Lemmy. So if drag made the posts, it would make sense for them to be directed at all the people drag has had a lot of conflict with: spujb, Flying Squid, Pug Jesus…
Or, was the alt-account harassment all directed at a single user, and all at a time when that user had something to gain from playing the victim? Because if that’s the case, it seems like maybe that particular user is somehow linked to the cause of the harassment.
According to “drag,” you’ve already misgendered them four times. They’d report you for this.
That’s really weird, because this is what Leni’s comment looks like on drag’s screen:
They and I had a talk about that. I asked what their neo-pronouns would be if they followed the three basic courtesy rules, and they responded saying I could stick to they/them. They and anyone else are free to correct me if I relapse into he/him.
They also said that they are not a person, but instead, a “dragon rider” which would indicate one who rides dragons. So… Is a dragon’s rider a dragon that rides dragons? A race of non-human things that ride dragons? Neither of these?
Also, take a stroll through their comment history. They are very inconsistent over the months since their account was created.
It’s almost as if they were making it up as they went along.
Inconsistent with their gender/pronouns or inconsistent with who they are?
To be honest, when I first met them, my first impression was they might be otherkin, though I didn’t have those exact words to say.
Inconsistent with their trolling.
Why is that troll not banned from ALL of lemmy? I don’t get it.
Oh, and for the record; this post and all the comments in it including mine- are exactly why they do what they do.
They feed on the drama. Ban them, and this ends.
That’s effectively impossible as a part of the nature of the fediverse. You could try banning alts on site but it’s really not that hard to have a dozen alts waiting across host of instances.
And when those alts call themselves “drag” what do you think will happen?
Mods will ban them, they will make a new account and carry on.
Bans only work for normal people.
Correction bans only work for people who respect the paradigm of “not being allowed to sign up again when banned” and “not being allowed to lie on registration application” if it’s present on the server.
Normal people don’t get permabanned from servers left, right, and center.
Reeks of big brother, but I wonder if there’s a way to device ban.
If you could force users to use an app like Reddit does you could get device data. Though short of that not really. Browser fingerprinting and tracking cookie placement (What Reddit uses in their web session) is described that way by lay people (and people trying to fear monger or dissuade ban evasion) but Browsers like Tor or Mullvad defeat that very easily by not saving the data and randomizing the fingerprinting data.
Most Lemmy users wouldn’t use a locked down black box app similar to the Reddit app though. It would be a red flag for many of them. An instance which requires that would not be popular.
That tracks. And is a good thing actually. Thanks for taking the time to write this up. Appreciate it!
clown down.
legit you cannot convince me this wasn’t trolling, and the fact so many people haven’t been able to tell, for so long, is deeply funny but also somewhat depressing. I blocked them almost as soon as I encountered them. It reeks of bait turned up to 11, like an edgy 16 year old just heard about the concept of making your own pronouns and went “ok how can I make this as stupid as humanly possible to fuck with people?”.
Already said it in [email protected] but I’ll say it again so others can see it here.
It seems drag was banned from the site for sharing people’s DMs, though I’m sure that’s not the whole story, drag has a history of being banned for way more than just the thing on the label. Looking at the comments on drag’s home instance where it hasn’t been removed, it seems drag was sharing those DMs in attempt to libel Ada for not taking the action drag wanted. That’s on top of the fact that she did not give drag permission to share them. It’s an asshole move for sure, and I have to say if I were in Ada’s shoes I’d do the same.
Drag didn’t know Ada didn’t message spujb. Drag was making it clear to spujb and anyone reading the thread that drag wasn’t lying. Drag is sorry to Ada and won’t do it again. Drag tried to tell her earlier today, but drag couldn’t
Ada was also already wary of drag after the respecting pronouns rule announcement, because a number of blahaj users rightfully pointed out drag is still likely a troll. Fluff around and find out basically.
It ultimately isn’t surprising. Drag has been very sus from the beginning, drag exhibited a lot of behaviors that made me leery. Though at the time I didn’t say anything since it was only a hunch and most people were just voicing transphobic complaints about pronouns.
What made drag feel suspicious?
Either you have issues with reading comprehension or you are an alt of drag. When people say someone is being sus or has been sus they generally mean they as a person are behaving in ways that make others suspicious.
Finally, the anti-trans troll falls out of favor.
Ironic considering how much flack blahaj got for defending that user.
I think Blåhaj handled this person well over all. Even if Drag wad just 100% troll, drag wasn’t being fed in Blåhaj and had to go elsewhere. But also there was always the chance that drag is just someone on a journey or with things to sort out. Some people have completely given up on being any gender and treat it like a joke in an almost nihilistic way. But clearly there’s a line between that and an actual troll.
Either way, I wouldn’t say that it’s standard heterosexual cisgender behaviour to go as far as Drag did just for the lulz. So maybe one of these days, Drag will have an awakening and remember how no one in the community either fed drag or shunned drag when drag was confused and behaving badly.
If Drag was trolling, the troll was exposing how shallow non-binary acceptance is for your average “progressive.”
“Not feeding the troll” in that case is treating their request with a minimal level of respect, and that was simply too much inconvenience for 90% of Lemmy.world and a very potent reminder of why trans and enby folks need their own spaces.
Including some people in this thread with an axe to grind and no self awareness to stop it.
DragonRider’s pronouns are “Drag” not “they”, just because someone is a dick doesn’t mean you don’t respect pronouns. Gender isn’t a reward for good behavior.
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I personally don’t think they were a troll but I am also not sure I agree with banning people for not remembering or wanting to use their unusual pronouns.
But I am not well-educated on the topic of neopronouns so if someone feels like educating me or suggesting some readings I am open to it.
No one was banned for not rembering drags pronouns or for accidentally getting them wrong.
People were banned for dismissing the validity of neopronouns or for deliberately and repeatedly getting pronouns wrong.
Absolute bullshit. I called drag out and ONLY drag. I made no mention of neopronouns or even said anything remotely dismissive of pronouns as I am a huge supporter of all of it.
Yet I was banned because I called drag a shit tier troll that was making a mockery of the trans community.
Your comments were removed. You aren’t instance banned
Community banned as I recall. And even removing the comments because I called them a troll and accused them of mocking the trans community was bullshit in light of the recent acknowledgment that they are- in fact, a troll.
They went to where they knew they could take advantage of the rules that protect the trans community- and then weaponized it to create drama and get shit removed.
I’m an instance admin. I don’t issue community bans. I issue instance bans. If someone community banned you, it wasn’t me.
That last part is transphobic. No trans person represents the trans community and setting higher standards for trans people than cis people is transphobic. You can call them out for being a troll, but using someone’s gender identity in an insult is always transphobic.
Was it dismissing or just not understanding? To be honest my recollection is a bit fuzzy.
I’m a little afraid to be having this conversation lest I be accused of prejudice against trans or nonbinary folks, a prejudice I try my best to fight against. But I don’t even understand the connection there since we already have well-established systems of pronouns for such people.
Personally, I truly can’t fathom why neopronouns are necessary and while I don’t want to disrespect anyone, they are so uncomfortable to use that it just makes me not want to address someone who uses them… especially when they are implicitly linked to having sex with non-human mythological creatures.
But maybe I am just ignorant. Drag was my first introduction to this concept. I’d like to learn more about this.
Willing to have a casual explanation of it? An in depth one isn’t on topic for this community. And yes, this is the condensed version, I could write a small pamphlet on this.
If so, read on. If not, throw me a DM and I’ll try and give a more detailed version of my take after having changed my mind on the subject as a whole.
Neopronouns are not truly necessary. There’s other ways to achieve the same goal
However, respecting them is, and it’s important to recognize that the concept behind them is an important one.
The kind of neopronoun drag used aren’t the only kind of neopronoun. I can’t recall the name for that type, but it is an individualized version that has a different kind of merit.
The core of neopronouns is redefining gender and language. It’s reframing how we think about and deal with agender, gender fluid, non binary, and other labels that represent people for whom the traditional masc/fem/neutral pronouns don’t really fit. Now, yes, the singular neutral they/them does partially achieve that. But it isn’t necessarily perfect because it’s the same as just saying “other”.
Standard neopronouns like xe/xem/xyr attempt to rectify that, in part, by providing a general use new (neo means new) words that are inherently without gender, and are also internally consistent (hence why xyr replaces the plural they/them rather than leaving that in place).
What dragon rider’s pronouns do (and here I’ll switch to just calling the person drag because arthritis) is a furtherance of that basic idea. The concept of individual, single word pronouns takes the concept of reframing gender in language to its logical extreme.
Now, here we have to address the elephant in the room. Otherkin. Otherkin are the folks you think about when you see a lot of individual pronouns. They also want their pronouns to be different from the norm, though they don’t all want individual ones. They do tend to want pronouns that reflect their belief that they are different by being kin to their other. That’s a simplification, but that’s a tangent on a tangent already
Drag, afaik, isn’t otherkin.
The connection to drag is that the individualized pronouns look similar, and it’s where most people draw the line. Now, I have my opinion about that side of things, but for this purpose let’s set the assumption that their belief is valid.
That’s where we get back to drag. Drag, in choosing their user name, set up a fight from the beginning. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but choosing dragon (rider), and dragon fucker as user names, it was inevitable.
But drag is not actually their user name, nor what you would call a name at all. It isn’t directly linked to them wanting to fuck dragons, which aren’t real. It’s a knock on effect.
Pretend, instead, that their user name is southsamurai, and they wanted the individual pronoun “sam”. Still some confusion, obviously, but it isn’t a fight from the beginning.
So, if my pronouns are sam/sam, I’m requesting an individual pronoun. I’m saying, up front, that by requesting that, that I have a sense of myself that doesn’t work with standard gendered pronouns, nor with the commonly used neopronouns. I’m saying, please interact with me as an individual, not as a generic person.
That’s why it matters. Now, I’m not saying anyone has to agree to use them. I’ve had many a discussion about that, and not just with drag. It’s a big ask. It’s asking everyone you meet to upend their brain and restructure their language pathways entirely, so that they can fluidly switch between known individual pronouns, and generic ones, without making errors.
But, even if you aren’t willing or able to do that, I have come to agree that the point of individualized pronouns is important, and that standard neopronouns need to be adapted to, because language does matter. Our thinking is shaped by those language pathways. Language is how we exchange ideas, and (except for people that don’t think in words at all) it’s how we process our thoughts.
There are languages with no gendered pronouns, and some with long lists of them because there’s more than two recognized genders, or because the pronoun used is grammar based regarding when and where it’s used.
So, in English, our entire mind is influenced by having only three standard options: masculine, feminine, and neutral. It’s inflexible because of that. And, you can see evidence of that via the rejection of the singular they/them, despite it having been a part of the language for much longer than trans issues have been in the public awareness.
Again, you might disagree about that. That’s fine, I’m not trying to convince you, just trying to explain why I changed my mind from “that’s silly” regarding all neopronouns, to having the opinion that they matter.
I now think that they matter because it’s an effective way to shake up the way we think about gender and language. I think that’s important because we all suffer limitations based on the limited English pronoun structures. In order to improve that, a shakeup is needed.
Drag is the reason I changed my opinion, and that’s despite still having objections to individual pronouns as being more trouble than they’re worth at this point in time. That’s also despite my impression and opinion on the otherkin side of things being a hindrance to everyone else.
I like your explanation and also would say that Drag did a great job of forcing me to consider this section of grammar. I very much dislike “individual pronouns”, similar to the other commenter, but specifically because they cause unnecessary frustration and discord in my already discordant neurodivergent brain (the point of pronouns is that there are ideas and contexts that absolutely require generic forms of nouns - breaking that section of language is very frustrating, especially as one who tries to show everyone the respect that any person deserves). However, like the other commenter, I do not see any way to engage conversationally and respectfully, without using them when requested.
So, even though it is internally aggravating, if I choose to engage, showing the basic decency of at least making a best effort of addressing one how they request is the least one can do, supposing that the individual is not specifically requesting to be addressed in a manner to elevate themselves over others (whether in good or bad faith, ex. “King”, “Master”, etc - save that for scenes, if that’s your kind of thing).
Now, neopronouns and the like, I’m all about those because they don’t break my brain and, as a bonus, many of them are novel to me.
Some folk require understanding before they offer acceptance. Those folk will frame it as “just not understanding”. I frame that as lack of acceptance. Acceptance isn’t contingent on understanding. You or I not understanding an aspect of someone elses identity has nothing to do with the validity of their identity.
If you wish to ask someone questions about their pronouns and identity, you’re welcome to do so, but remember they don’t owe you an answer, and whether they offer you an answer or not, and whether you understand their perspective or not, either way, gatekeeping and invalidating their identity is not on.
That was the other option I offered folk. If someone has stated their pronouns, either use them, or if you can’t bring yourself to use them, don’t engage with the person.
If the person is trolling, report them. But even if they’re trolling, the above statement still stands. Respect their pronouns or don’t engage with them as you report them.
How can one accept or reject a thing without understanding what it is they are accepting? Is not immediately changing the way one speaks without a reason or even an explicit request equivalent to denying someone’s identity? I don’t think my discomfort with neopronouns is because I reject anyone’s identity. I don’t even understand what such a person’s identity is. Unlike established pronouns, neopronouns do not have any meaning at all to me because I’ve never heard them before and no one has defined them. What do they signify? I assume something different for each one, so what is it? I’ve always been careful with my language, so using words without a clear understanding of their meaning makes me uncomfortable.
Language is a very meaningful topic for people. Both for the speaker and the spoken to. We have all been acculturated to speak in a certain way, and to understand the meanings of such speech in a certain way. I don’t think asking people to change the way they speak is as trivial as you seem to imply. Nor is declining to change the way one speaks the same as saying “I reject your identity”, unless such a meaning is intended.
And of course I understand that someone may not want to have this (or any) conversation. But I also feel that you can’t expect people to change without them understanding why they need to change. Most people hate change, it’s just human nature. So if you choose not to educate people, you’ll have to accept that they remain ignorant until such time as someone takes on that burden.
I’m trans. Cis people literally can never truly understand my experience or why the things that are important to me are important. Acceptance can’t be contingent on understanding they can never have.
Neopronouns are the same. You can work on your own understanding to reduce your discomfort but your discomfort should be your problem, not something you get to force on to others
Can you fill in the backstory? I missed this incident or possibly multiple incidents.
I can’t remember the exact details but I believe at least a few people were banned for suggesting that drag was a troll and refusing to use their preferred neopronouns.
People weren’t banned for criticizing them, they were banned for encouraging others to misgender people if they don’t like them. I don’t think anyone was banned for not using “personal” neo pronouns.
And drag was banned from BZ for telling people to KYS, then they went and made a new account on a different instance and have continued pissing people off, now the new acount is being banned from stuff because they’ve continued the kind of behavior that got them banned in the first place.
(My God what the fuck am I thinking wading into this.)
“Dragon” isn’t a gender. Refusing to identify someone as the gender they identified with, because you thought they were trolling, is fucked up yes. That’s why blahaj made the rule, and it’s a good rule. Refusing to identify someone as a dragon because you think they’re trolling is A-ok. Deliberately conflating those two issues, so that you pretend someone is “misgendering” if they exercise a small amount of common sense and refuse to go along with someone being a dragon, is I think exactly the trick this particular troll was trying to play, and it worked like fireworks. I think in terms of creating conflict between two reasonable points of view on this topic that would get people on both sides all amped up about it, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams.
Its not even “Dragon”. Its “Dragon Fucker”.I made an error. It’s short for “Dragon Rider”.
Drag’s gender isn’t dragon fucker. That’s drag’s sexuality. Drag’s gender is dragon rider. One is about who drag is, one is about who drag likes to fuck.
At the same time, the thing is so ridiculous that it doesn’t really interfere with any sincerely held belief, I think. The drama is what the troll wants.
This is the usual series of events for the drag drama:
Drag: does something that any Lemmy user does: Commenting, posting, etc. Something innocuous
Someone: Hey. I’m not calling you that/Why are you called that?
Drag: explains
Someone: Fucking troll
Does that really seem like someone starting fights on purpose? It’s people going out of their way to pick a fight with drag, and drag retaliating. Drag doesn’t start these things most of the time
How many alts are you gonna make, drag?
Blahaj said you have to respect everyone’s pronouns, even if you think they are trolling, because it’s not up for debate and you don’t get to set conditions before you start calling someone by the right appelations. Fair enough.
A user figured out that meant they could identify as a dragon, tell everyone their pronouns were “drag,” and get people banned from blahaj for not saying “drag,” or trying to tell this person that drag weren’t actually a dragon. Blahaj, in the mode of overly well-intentioned leftists throughout all history, bought into it hard and obediently virtue-signaled by banning anyone who pointed out that drag was taking the piss. Presumably, drag laughed dragself out of dragr chair every time it happened. Drag also tended to display other fun behavior like encouraging other users to commit suicide, if I remember right.
Apparently, blahaj has finally figured it out. I eagerly await whatever overcorrection or other type of continuingly-counterproductive drama is going to ensue now. Presumably, some new user will emerge with some other type of bizarre edge case in the “official correct morality” that everyone is required to agree on, to instigate everyone to get into slap fights over.
See also Grail, who insisted their pronouns must be capitalized.
Respecting people’s gender is not carte blanche to make up rules. Like, I can’t say my pronouns have italicized vowels during local business hours, and must use thee / thou / thine if you’re disagreeing with me. That’s simply not what pronouns are for. It’s not why they matter.
Taking a ‘shut up and do it anyway’ approach to moderation is simpler, and perhaps understandable. But you have to acknowledge that’s what you’re doing. When you genuinely believe there is no limit, that gender is both super fucking important and so meaningless that it can be anything, people are going to try politely talking you through some immediately obvious problems.
Just one thing, “drag” apparently isn’t even short for “Dragon”, but “Dragon fucker”.
Yeah it was kind of obvious it was the attack helicopter meme from the start. The whole thing was a bit silly in the sense that pronouns which don’t reflect human reality aren’t really any kind of moral hazard for ones that do imo.
At the same time, I kind of feel like gate keeping pronouns actually gives the trolls power in a way. Imagine someone at the office does this and then everyone actually calls them a Christmas tree or whatever. The lack of concern about this new nickname in the broader population would definitely piss them off, since they are the one who cares about that stuff.
I think, also, what gives the trolls power is everyone getting upset about it. If it was 50% of the office saying “Is ChristmasTreeSelf coming to the party?” and 50% saying “Bro I’m not saying that it is stupid”, but neither one really treating it as any different than any other Tuesday, then it’s fine. But because people have this deeply held impassion about the whole issue (which exists for a valid reason of course), it means they feel like they need to set these super-rigid rules about what is “allowed” and “not allowed” out of those outcomes, and then other people get upset about having things they are thinking inside their head that they will get banned if they say out loud, and it just becomes a situation of upset-ness instead of anything like positive communication between people. And then there are people who like to be performatively upset because someone violated the rules and now they’re all excited to correct them, which just compounds the problem which was already an upset situation.
It is okay if people think different from you. I feel like a lot of modern society involves people needing the debate to continue until their own particular viewpoint is “proven right” and becomes the law of the land, so they won’t have to deal with any enemy viewpoints anywhere within the kingdom without someone coming in to correct them, forcibly if necessary, which isn’t really how it works.
You clearly have a bone to pick, but it should be noted that Drag was a well-known user long before the post clarifying Blahaj’s stance on neopronouns was posted, at least by a couple of months.
Troll. The word is troll, not user. Drag has never been here in good faith, and good fucking riddance. They make the trans community look lesser for their association
Getting banned from Blahaj.Zone is easy. Just disagree with the admin on anything.
That’s an instance ban. Instance bans automatically issue community bans for local communities the user has been active in.
Ada, drag is sorry for sharing the screenshots. Drag didn’t think they were anything serious. Drag won’t share any screenshots without permission again.