- cross-posted to:
- political_weirdos@lemmy.world
- aiop@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- political_weirdos@lemmy.world
- aiop@lemmy.world
South Western’s elected school board is making some strange decisions.
For the last two years, they’ve fixated on which bathrooms LGBTQ+ kids use. In 2023, officials in this Hanover-area district played musical chairs with school bathrooms in a misguided attempt to appease the loudest bigots among them — ending up with five different types of bathrooms.
After a low-turnout school board election in which several far-right members joined their ranks, they hired a Christian law firm, decided to begin banning books and reopened the bathroom issue. Board President Matthew Gelazela, who was elevated to his post after previously serving as the board’s most vocal bomb-thrower, pointed to Red Lion’s discriminatory policies as something to aspire to.
Now, upon the advice of that law firm — the Harrisburg-based Independence Law Center — the board approved spending $8,700 to cut windows so passersby can look into the so-called “gender-identity” student bathrooms.
For most people what’s familiar is easier to remember than what’s simpler. Personally I find drag’s comments difficult to parse. I’ll respect drag’s wishes regarding how drag wants to be referred to, but I expect drag’s going to have a lot of friction even with very tolerant and accepting people if drag insists on that pronoun choice.
This video might be helpful for drag. I know the title is a bit clickbaity but I promise the person in the video is also tolerant and accepting.
Edit: I went through and replaced all instances of you/your with drag. I think this is illustrative of the problem with drag’s approach. If everyone has to expend great effort simply to interact with drag in a respectful manner then that will lead to people becoming frustrated with drag. While drag’s identity is entirely drag’s business and no one else’s, drag’s insistence on a difficult/unfamiliar pronoun is a choice, and drag could make drag’s life easier by loosening up.
Drag finished watching the video pretty much. 3 minutes left and it seemed like she was winding down. Drag was already familiar with all the main content Jones covered. Drag thinks she’s probably underestimating the knowledge of linguistics literacy on the left because she’s from a more right leaning culture, where the “left wing” people local to that area are who would be considered moderates in other places. She used a right wing name for the left wing, so drag thinks she hasn’t actually immersed herself in left wing political culture enough to understand it.
With regard to the argument that using new pronouns is hard, drag understands and already knew her arguments. But drag thinks Jones neglected to consider the impact of neuroplasticity. Adapting to neopronouns is a skill. People with lots of practice get it faster and with less effort. Drag’s presence on Lemmy is challenging people and causing them to learn. Expanding minds. Just like the linguist with the N word pronouns. Drag picked new pronouns for this account as an experiment. Drag likes the new pronouns. Drag made revisions when an idea didn’t work, and now drag sometimes uses drag/dragself pronouns in conversation with drag’s friends and family off of Lemmy. They make drag feel dragony.
Drag’s identity is a conversation.
EDIT: Also, drag just remembered Jones’ point about misgendering trans people in conversation with people who know less. Well, drag has been in that situation. Drag was out to everyone and presenting full time, and even though drag’s mother struggled with drag’s pronouns, drag felt like she was finally getting it and understanding. She hadn’t misgendered drag in nearly a year. Well, then drag overheard drag’s mother in the next room he/him-ing drag to drag’s elderly grandfather. And drag felt like shit. Drag’s grandfather is in his 90s and he’s an asshole. He’s never going to accept drag. And drag had accepted that, and decided to just ignore him until he died. But when drag’s mother, who had been making all that progress, he/him-ed drag to the grandfather, drag suddenly realised that drag didn’t know if she had been misgendering drag behind drag’s back all the time. Drag realised that drag would never be able to trust that she was actually making an effort to respect drag, or if she was just appeasing drag to drag’s face. So drag moved out of home and cut contact with her. And drag is going to ignore her until she dies too. That’s not the only reason for our bad relationship, but it was a point where everything crystallised and drag decided to stop making excuses for her.
I appreciate that drag took the time to watch the whole video and I think drag is probably right about Jones’ cultural background, as it is similar to mine. I only meant to help make drag’s life easier if that’s something drag was having trouble with, but I respect that drag already understood the friction that drag’s neopronoun creates and made an informed choice to use it on lemmy.
Also, nice Steven Universe clip. That’s a show that helped me understand people like drag and is why I have the patience to engage with drag despite the very conservative cultural context I live in.
Drag is glad you understand drag’s motivations now. Drag didn’t pick these neopronouns with any kind of malice. Drag believes that all the people on Lemmy have the ability to be better than they were yesterday. Drag thinks it’s just a matter of giving people situations in which they have the option to choose to grow and learn. Give people enough chances, and they’ll turn out alright.
Drag will watch the video, but drag wonders why the title uses a right wing name for the right wing, and a right wing name for the left wing. The video could use each side’s name for themselves, or each side’s name for the other side. But only using right wing terms makes it seem like the video has a right wing bias. Drag will still watch, but drag will do so with critical thinking.
I noticed that too when I first came across the video, but after becoming more familiar with this person’s content I saw that they lean progressive/inclusive and the title is like that probably just for the sake of clickbait or because they’re coming from a more centrist/liberal perspective and aren’t as familiar with leftist terminology.
I still think their perspective as a linguist is worth hearing.
Drag is 9 minutes into the video and Jones is saying that using neopronouns is easier than people make it out to be. Drag agrees and drag told you so. Drag also already knew what a pronoun is. Drag has yet to encounter new information, apart from Zulu’s 16 grammatical genders
If drag keeps watching the next point he makes is the exact inverse, namely that neopronouns are also harder than many people make them out to be. Specifically when he talks about the processing cost that is incurred by using even standard/traditional pronouns in certain ways. The parts of the video I thought would be most helpful are in his conclusion, so I do recommend watching to the end.
The part I believe is helpful starts at 15:10