this post was submitted on 26 May 2025
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It Really Felt Like 2 Friends Fighting (lemmy.ca)
submitted 5 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] Noel_Skum 19 points 4 days ago (2 children)

“I” is the most genderless pronoun in existence - is it not? It literally means me, as a singular human entity. Linguistically I am yet to see any valid argument for its exclusion or substitution in speech. I get the whole problem with he/her etc - there are a specific niche of humans where those words are not sufficient nor apt to describe them and thankfully language then evolved for the sake of inclusivity.

[–] southsamurai -4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Well, the valid argument is that we don't get to decide when and what pronouns to respect. There doesn't need to be any other rationale. It is definitely more difficult to parse than "I", but that's a matter of practicality, not validity.

You either respect the person's pronouns, explain that you have enough difficulty using them that it would be prohibitive (like I have elsewhere in other conversations) and be nice about it, or you choose to disrespect the pronoun choices. It is every individuals choice whether or not to respect pronoun choices, but the hard truth is that when the choice is based on lack of respect, it just makes the person choosing a jerk.

The use of person-independent neopronouns is a very difficult thing to adapt to. If you scan over my comments in this thread, you'll likely notice that I don't really use drag much because I have multiple barriers to communicating effectively while trying to use it. Which, I've discussed with them, and reached an understanding that it isn't about rejecting their pronoun and isn't meant as disrespect.

I do usually manage to not use pronouns at all in most cases when discussing DR's pronoun with them, and sometimes when discussing it with others like this. It's harder than just writing with the built up language patterns I already have, but easier than trying to substitute a different word entirely.

But those person-independent pronouns do have a point. The role they play in shifting how we think of gender, pronoun usage, and language in general is certainly absolutely a linguistically applicable idea. PI pronouns don't always conform to standard grammar, at least not in English, but they don't have to, to be valid as a personal expression or for the study of language.

A PI pronoun serves a similar role to other neopronouns. We do already have the singular "they/them" that are gender neutral, so neopronouns aren't absolutely necessary in the sense that other options already exist. But, if you look at it from the perspective of questioning gendered language as a whole, or from the perspective of wanting a shift entirely away from gendered language in English entirely, neopronouns start becoming much more interesting as a phenomenon.

[–] Noel_Skum 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

If Noel calls themself Noelself then Noel is not using a pronoun but rather Noel is referring to Noelself in the third person - and unnecessarily cluttering-up a sentence.

But, fuck Noel’s life, that’s just Noel’s opinion.

[–] gravitas_deficiency 2 points 4 days ago (2 children)

And… forgive me for saying so, but they’re tedious, at best. That’s not punching down on anyone’s identity. It’s a commentary on how such neologisms make parsing a sentence far less reflexive and a good bit more unnecessarily arcane, without actually communicating any level of additional meaningful information or context.

[–] Noel_Skum 1 points 4 days ago

Yup, I pretty much agree with all that you say.

[–] skulblaka 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's quite easy, when you read "drag", it means "I", that's literally the extent of it.

But let's dig into this a little. Your argument covers literally half of all words. Let's take this comment as an example, we want to strip everything out of it that doesn't communicate.

Tedious. No insult, but. Many words make sentence long, add no value.

No one adheres to this because it makes you sound like a damn caveman. But if you feel so strongly about this, that's how you prune all the unnecessary cognitive load from your speech.

But if replacing one meaningless pronoun with another meaningless pronoun is so arcane that you can't parse the meaning of the sentence afterward, there's always the option of just not engaging with it. It doesn't harm you or anyone else and it isn't hate speech so just let people express themselves how they want to.

I also find Picasso's cubist paintings to be tedious to look at but you don't see me trying to tell him that he's painting The Weeping Woman the wrong way.

[–] southsamurai 0 points 4 days ago

But drag isn't their name. While I have clue what their real name is, their user name is Dragon Rider, not drag. If you look at their display name, the drag part is in parentheses the same way gender tags usually are, like (he/him).

If drag said something like Dragon Riderself, that would be speaking in the third person.

And, yeah, I know that choosing a shortened version of one's user name as a person-independent pronoun is going to be confusing as hell. It looks like it's a dimunutive.

Even in your comment here, there's another telling difference. Noelself. You capitalized it even in the middle of a sentence. Dragon Rider doesn't capitalize drag (not usually, anyway, and I've interacted with them a good bit) except at the front of a sentence.

Again, it is confusing, at least at first. I've gotten used to it mostly, and it scans as a pronoun for me now.

Which is part of the point of PI pronoun usage, in my opinion. Ignoring whether or not it improves a person's ability to function without internal distress, which is an important factor in respecting pronoun overall, the fact of them serves to have us reexamine exactly why and how we think about labels, specifically pronouns and gender labels.

But, I'll also repeat, "unnecessarily" cluttering up a sentence is a value judgement, and while everyone has that right, it does indicate a degree of bias in thinking. It assumes that you have the authority to decide what is and isn't useful about another person's gender and pronoun/label preferences.

It could also be argued that a single word being used as a pronoun instead of the dozen or so in common usage is de-cluttering. If there's only one word to keep track of, that's a lot simpler than shifting between they/them/their. We're just not used to it, so it takes extra effort to parse. That's not the same thing as clutter though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I get to dictate exactly what I respect.

[–] southsamurai 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Well, surr.

But if you aren't respecting people's pronouns, you're an asshole, so the choice comes with that

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If you insist on respecting that user's identity, I suggest you first open their profile and look at what they actually mean by "drag/dragon rider".

Drag is a fucking scalie who wants to be referred to by their kink.

[–] southsamurai 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

And?

You act like my approval or disapproval of their hobbies, lifestyle, or whatever is supposed to change basic decency. It doesn't.

There are limits to what I'll call someone for sure. I'm not calling anyone master. Beyond that, it's just good manners to try and call people what they prefer, within the limits of our own capabilities. DR knows my brain is fucked and it would make it a nightmare to have a conversation if I tried to use the person-independent neopronoun reliably, so they don't give me shit about screwing up.

That's basic decency.

If I'm talking to a preacher and they prefer to be called reverend, I'll call them that, and that's someone who talks to their imaginary sky friend on a daily basis. Wanting to fuck a dragon isn't any weirder than that. It's just basic decency.

Out here irl, people sometimes use my middle name instead of my first. Usually because they know a family member that talked about me. But I don't let anyone but family use my middle name. The people that refuse to honor that are assholes, and I have nothing else to do with them. Because it's just basic decency.

If DR was wanting to be called furher, or messiah, I can see refusing to use their preferred terms. But they aren't.

And it doesn't even matter if they were trolling because someone else's bad actions aren't an automatic excuse to be an asshole too.

What kind of person do you want to be? The sort that errs on the side of kindness and manners, or the sort that's an asshole? That's what it comes down to.