LGBTQ_Plus@lemm.ee

Okay, there's more to it than that.

Drag, regardless of whether or not any of us like them, or agree with their concept, or even think they're trolling rather than acting in good faith, has a point that is actually central to the principles blahaj is all about.

Now, I'm very outspoken in my belief that individualized pronouns are a crock of excrement that detracts from the very serious issues that trans and other non cis, non binary folks face. So, this isn't coming from someone that likes drag using such a ridiculous hill to fight on. I do, strangely, like drag anyway, but that's a separate issue.

So, neopronouns exist. They're a thing. A neopronoun is nothing more or less than a directly created term that replaces standard english pronouns with something that isn't gender specific. Again, this isn't about agreeing with it, liking it, or anything other than the fact that that's what a neopronoun is.

Individual neopronouns are when a person selects their own that is not in common usage as a group pronoun. Meaning that the pronouns aren't being proposed as an alternate to, or a replacement of, standard english pronouns. They're only being used for/by one person, or ( in the case of some niche groups) a small group that shares a common non standard identity. An example of that niche would be people that think they're some kind of animal kin using a variant of that animal's word as a pronoun, such as using "pup" when you think you're somehow magically connected the canids of some type

Now, the typical neopronouns are not really an issue for anyone that is familiar with and supports the trans and gender atypical folks of the world. We may not may not like them, but when you support folks, you tend to be willing to at least nod along until language sorts itself out by consensus because that's just what you do for people you care about, you dig? Allies will usually use and try to remember the more common neopronouns out there, like "xe/xer" or similar things that essentially just shift the spelling and use a similar enough sound that it isn't going to be a problem to keep track of.

So, drag, aka Dragon (rider) has picked an individual neopronoun "drag". They have picked a single pronoun that they also use to replace "I", and sometimes other first person pronouns.

However, by doing so, it cludges up English grammar because I is used differently from he/she/they. If the sentence "would you pass me the salt, please" is rendered using their individual neopronoun, it would read "would drag pass me the salt, please".

You see how that's going to be dissonant to a shit ton of people. It ends up looking like they're referring to themselves in the third person. It's a huge ask to want random strangers to rebuild their entire mental map of english to adopt this manner of speech, particularly when they can't shift over to it entirely because this manner of speech is only applicable to less than a half a percent of the entire population. Seriously, trans people as a whole are about 0.5% of the population. If you add in all the non cis people that are also not trans, you still don't hit 1%.

Of that .5%, approximately 4% use some form of non binary pronouns, with "they/them" being such a majority that you get into all combined neopronouns making up approximately a tenth of that group.

From that group, there are multiple neopronouns in use, with no single one having enough proponents that I can find any reliable numbers for each of the common ones like "ze/zir".

The folks wanting to use individualized pronouns, like drag, amount to maybe a few thousand people across the english speaking world

Why did I go into all of that? Because trans folks, and LGBTQ folks in general are incredibly inclusive, and supporting the folks that have their lives improved by having pronouns match their gender is something that you do because it's the decent, human thing to do. So, in trans spaces in specific, neopronouns are more than just a topic of linguistic debate. They're a vital, gender affirming thing. They matter, just like respecting a trans person's pronouns that are already part of standard english (he/she). Just like respecting a non binary or trans person's they/them.

So, regardless of anyone's opinion about dragon riders's choice of individual pronoun, blahaj needs to draw a line that says to respect everyone's pronouns. Even the ones that are divisive, or silly. The line they have to draw excludes the bullshit ones like the "attack helicopter" joke, and they have excluded a few trolls that tried out other forms just to see how far they could push things.

It doesn't matter if dragon rider (who I'll switch to just calling drag because my arthritis is kicking my ass today) does identify as a dragon (they don't, or I haven't seen them claim to). What matters is whether or not they're acting in good faith. Are they genuinely making that choice of pronoun? If they are, then blahaj is going to, and should come down on the side of preventing abuse towards drag. When someone is acting in good faith, and they're under attack, you circle the fucking wagons and load the rifles because that's why it's LGBTQ+, and not L, G, T, B, Q. Unity gives power, it gives those different groups struggling against an ugly world the ability to add up to more than the sum of the parts.

That .5% added to the percentage of gay men, lesbians, bisexual persons, and queer folk of any other variety are still a minority, but they're a bigger minority. So they circle the wagons and become a force.

Now, again, we can have our opinions about whether or not individualized pronouns make sense from the outside. But it is from the outside. If there's enough of a consensus among the folks under the rainbow that it matters, it's a topic that must be discussed with respect in their spaces (and should be elsewhere too, but that's a tangential matter).

My personal opinion, obviously, is that individualized pronouns are a net negative in practice.

But drag being there, and bring consistent in their approach to things, being consistently polite and friendly, it serves a purpose regardless of whether or not they think they're trolling. See, it makes anyone and everyone that encounters the issue have to think, for at least a brief second, about what the fuck pronouns are, and the role they have in speech and thought.

It also serves as a lightning rod of sorts. By being more than a little absurd, it draws attention. This not only makes drag the target of the anger and frustration, it does a dual purpose protection of others. See, not only do the more common neopronouns now seem more realistic, it shifts the line of where people think the "too far" is. And that makes they/them way more acceptable to anyone that was on the fence before running into drag.

I know, that's a lot, but the last time I interacted with drag, I gave my word that I was going to put thought into the matter of neopronouns as a whole, and the individual ones in specific; this is the first time it has come up since.

I'm still not done tearing the ideas apart in my head, but as far as blahaj making the right decision about where the line is drawn, I'm firmly decided. That's the line they should draw, and they actively watch for people abusing it, so it's all good