Xenopronouns.

That’s the big wall people hit, and nope the fuck out over.

Let’s point right at the xeno-elephant in the room and get it out of the way.

Dragon rider/fucker.

That’s been the crux of the neopronoun arguments. And, I suspect, they intended at pear least part of that. I say they because I’ve discussed it with dragon rider, and they understand my limitations. I respect their choice, I just have so much trouble adapting to individualized pronouns that it fucks my brain and hands too much. My hands are already throbbing from the previous wall of text.

So, this isn’t about whether or not they’re a troll. That’s irrelevant. Seriously, it doesn’t matter for this discussion, or for the rules of blahaj.

What does matter is the most common objection to their use of “drag” as a pronoun. “Dragons aren’t real, and you can’t fuck things that aren’t real, therefore drag is full of shit and can be ignored.”

So, what the fuck is a xenopronoun?

You can look up definitions aplenty, but it comes down to saying “I reject gender entirely, and will choose a term that is not only disconnected from gender, but is disconnected from human limitations”

That’s it. A person using a xenopronoun doesn’t necessarily think they’re a dragon, or a dog, or whatever. They don’t have to be otherkin either.

My standard example for this is a standard neopronoun like “xe” neatly slots into English. If I request that, it’s an easy ask. If I request my pronoun be “sam” “south”, or even “samurai”, those things all make sense, and won’t cause as much of a fight as something like “pup”.

If I listed my pronouns as “tige/tiger/tigers”, I’m going to catch hell everywhere I go, right? And that’s with a tiger, the most majestic and sexy animal on earth (with the possible exception of the platypus or one of my chickens).

So, why could it matter? Why should anyone respect that? It makes no sense, I’m not a fucking tiger. I can’t fuck a tiger without dying (but that wouldn’t stop me from trying!). I have no real connection to tigers other than a strange fascination that I enjoy joking about. So why should anyone use it?

Well, truth is that even if I actually wanted people to, I don’t think I would object if they didn’t, because I’m just a cis-het dude up in the mountains, hoping and wishing I could pray that we aren’t in a civil war before the end of the year, and hoping that the lack of war doesn’t mean the fascists won already.

But I’m not the reason xenopronouns exist. Like I said, it’s about people either so disconnected from gender that adopting an animal or other kind of term as a pronoun is more them; or those that have some kind of genuine belief that they have a connection to the thing they’ve adopted as a pronoun

Now, how the fuck does that relate to trans people and trans rights? You can’t be a trans cat because you can’t turn into one, you can’t have been assigned the wrong species at birth, none of the things that we all recognize as aspects of being trans. You can’t, it’s a physical fact.

But, maybe some trans people are among the group that is so disconnected from gender that even standard neopronouns don’t work. Or, maybe they also hold a religious or spiritual belief regarding inner connect to animals or other entities. You can be trans and a member of an animist religion.

Why should those trans people be denied their religious beliefs? Why do they have to disconnect that belief from their lack of gender? Who decides when a person has to just suck it up and pick a regular fucking word, for fucks sake?

Yeah, I think we can all agree that there is zero concrete, discrete, evidence based indication that spirit animals, or angels, or any of that exists. Right? I mean, even if you believe in those things, you can clearly see a lack of physical evidence of them. There’s no forensic residues left by them, you can’t detect them using reproducible means. You may or may not agree that whatever spiritual methods used should or should not be a proof, but it absolutely isn’t something you can just take a picture of.

But there’s trans people for whom that most definitely is a part of who they are. Just like there’s cis folk that believe that way.

The key is, who decides when a trans person can use those terms? Who decides if the otherkin of the world can/should fall under the trans umbrella, even if they don’t have a disconnection from gender? I know it damn sure isn’t the cis majority, and I’ll fight on that fucking hill. We, even cis allies, do not get to define who is and isn’t trans, with the qualifier that language consensus and medical reality may not match with what trans folks decide belongs in their shelter.

I haven’t actually formed a final opinion on xenogender beyond that, btw. My opinion is that my opinion doesn’t fucking matter, no matter what that opinion ends up being. I may eventually come to believe that xenopronouns are a bad thing for trans rights, that it’s a weak point that leaves the fight vulnerable, and needs to be shelved at least temporarily. But it’s still just the opinion of some cis-het dude in the mountains. Though, being real, writing this did convince me that if blahaj wants to cover xenopronouns as part of their fight, as the rules of that instance, I’d have their back. I may disagree overall (I’m still torn), but I sure as fuck agree that their community is who decides, not anyone else.

But that’s what it all comes down to. Some folks want/need things that make others uncomfortable, make them face things they don’t understand. Some of those may be trolls. Hell, it’s inevitable that trolls use it as a weapon, and that full on enemies of trans rights use it as an avenue of attack.

Shit. I think I just thought myself into an opinion about it. Didn’t plan that, and I gotta pick it apart a few times. But that’s off topic.

That’s what the argument is all about. Where’s the line, who gets to decide where the line is? For blahaj, we know where the line is currently. The instance officially falls on the side of the line that says “if you fuck with one of us, you fuck with all of us”, and they include xenopronouns as part of “us”, until and unless an individual starts breaking other instance rules.

I gotta be real, the entire point of LGB back in the day was that alone, the lesbians, gays, and bis were small numbers, but all together, apes strong. Then T got added, and apes stronger. The fight got bigger, but so did the numbers fighting it. Once the Q+ got brought in as a distinct aspect of what was already already there as well as new groups, those numbers start looking like an army. Once you have the numbers, fucking with one of them seems like a bad proposal. Maybe that + including neurodivergent people, otherkin, and other folks that don’t fit the cis-heteronormative world would be another ape to hold with. You add in the allies, and the “all of us” that’s fucking back can be a force for real change. Maybe the allies here, we can just fight beside our friends and canopies families, and let them sort out labels and pronouns after they aren’t being literally killed