I commented on raven@hexbear.net 's comment recently, but screenshots aren’t working on this sublemmy right now (maybe because it’s new), so I’m gonna textpost it here:
raven [he/him] English 9 • I disagree with that. I never saw what I understood as a bad faith argument. It bordered on some things that might sound like reactionary points but I think it was just a little confused, maybe had a hard time explaining things on account of being neurodivergent and perhaps didn’t fully understand them in the first place. You just had to get deeeeeeep in the weeds with it to try to figure out what the fuck it was talking about. There were a lot of claims that things are a certain way, and then that thing being referenced out of context later elsewhere and you had to refer back to the whole history of the user to figure out what was going on. Maybe it needed a user to ride along and translate for it lol
combat_brandonism [they/them] English 12 • “If you use they/them…you’ll never gender someone correctly.”
Explain how that’s not reactionary.
raven [he/him] English 1 • I’m going to need the context there because that doesn’t sound like something dronerights would have said.
DroneRights [it/its] English 1 • I said it. It was in the context of using they/them who have clearly stated pronoun preferences that aren’t they/them.
Here’s the nuance: If you call someone who uses they/them they/them, then you are REFERRING to them correctly, but you’re not GENDERING them correctly, because you aren’t gendering them at all. You’re referring to them neutrally, which is the correct way to refer to someone who wants to be referred to neutrally.
Giving no answer is wrong if the answer is 30. Agender is the “no answer” option.
So you don’t believe in gender neutrality outside of its applicability to agender people? For example, if you saw a sign for a gender neutral washroom, you would think that only agender people can pee there?
they/them is often used in a gender-agnostic way, but calling me a gender-agnostic pronoun is not getting my gender wrong. Either you don’t know my gender, in which case you just don’t know my gender — you aren’t asserting a wrong gender, and maybe “not asserting” is what you mean by “not correct” but most people interpret “not correct” to mean “wrong” because correct is generally understood as a binary concept — or you do know my gender, in which case I understand what you mean by they/them.
I agree that refusing to gender you isn’t getting your gender wrong. That’s what I’ve said again and again in this thread: not making a statement is not the same as making an incorrect statement. Why are we arguing when you keep saying stuff I agree with? What do you think my contention with the idea of they/theming you is?
Not wrong, just “not correct” huh?
I think I get what you mean now, but most people are going to interpret ”not correct” to mean “incorrect” because the word “correct” carries a binary all-or-nothing connotation. “Not correct gender” does not sound like “gender agnostic.”
And look how all of Hexbear has failed to grasp a simple nuance, banned me, and prevented me from explaining myself. What an anti-intellectual website. And as soon as I was gone, the transphobia ramped right back up to its original levels.