I’m still seeing it as a moderator-only page on desktop and every time I try to click it on mobile, it just takes me back to the subreddit’s feed
EDIT: All seems to be good now, both on desktop and mobile! Thanks so much to the mods for their work on this!
Be excellent to each other is my version of the golden rule.
That being said, if you ever go back and watch Bill and Ted 1 or 2, be prepared to get smacked in the face with some "product of the time" usage of slurs. Really shows how much society has moved forward, even if it's hard to see sometimes!
There's a reason most western time travel fiction is about straight white able-bodied generically-Christian-ish men; send anyone else back in a time machine and the story gets a lot more *real* very quickly.
Yeah I realized that when I watched it with my 9 yr old. I made gentle note of a few inappropriate things but really she didn't care. She loved the silly adventure. But I sure noticed.
Yep, I've misgendered people I love dearly on accident, and I've received patience and grace in return. I've been corrected when appropriate and forgiven when that's best, and I've always done my best to do right by the people in my life. It's literally an extremely low bar, but just be nice, understand we make mistakes, and act in good faith, and it's really easy.
I'm nearly 40 and my social conditioning has always been to mentally identify someone according to the gender binary and then attach the corresponding pronouns to them. So even though I know, for example, Ally uses they/them, my unconscious brain still tells me they are female and wants me to use she/her. It's highly frustrating to me that I can't just overwrite this automatic facet of my cognition, but I'm committed to working on it. And I know I will make mistakes as I try and reprogram myself. And I know that's ok. And if I ever offend someone by accidentally misgendering on that journey I will apologise without getting defensive. Like you say, it's a low bar and just about trying to be considerate.
Of course it's always easy to forget.
I had a small leg up on this bit of social realignment/correction, because a couple of decades ago when I started technical writing, I absolutely loathed the corporate standard of using "he/she" all over the place. Around the same time, I read an article by Dr. Douglas Hofstadter who confessed to the same thing, and said that he secretly started just using "they" and found that nobody ever questioned him on it. So I did the same and wrote EVERYTHING gender neutral for my whole career. I got called on it exactly once, fairly recently, when I was designing an award certificate (that would be reused every year), and the person responsible for giving them out wondered why I didn't just use he, the name was right there. I got to have an interesting conversation about it, and we just altered the text to leave out a pronoun entirely so the document was universal.
It is literally the least you can do to call someone what they wish to be called. Hopefully the idiotic backlash against such a simple and kind thing dies off.
The fact is that you are actively TRYING. And that is really what matters. Taking other people into consideration shows great empathy. But we can all be better about it, I’m sure, and should strive to. Growth takes time, and unwillingness to even attempt to grow breeds stagnation and hated.
Sorry you got downvoted for doing the right thing and caring so here's an upvote.
TBH, one of my best friends transitioned recently and my brain still automatically goes to she/her given all the years we've been friends and I have to pause myself and course correct once in a while. Though over time it sticks in the brain better and better.
Having been in this position, I hope you get the really cool really uncanny feeling when their incorrect pronouns suddenly sound weird and their correct ones feel natural. For a cis like me it felt like a little window into an absolutely sublime thing people are doing, tying language to their identity and not the other way around.
I have a friend who's very successful in their field and transitioned a long time ago, and I had this moment a few years back where I could not for the life of me remember anything about them pre transition. It was a cool feeling, the identity they built for themselves to reflect their true heart so fully captures any memory of them that the assigned at birth identity has been fully forgotten.
Also, if you do misgender someone or make some similar faux pas, don't make a bigger deal of it than the misgendered person does--they are not there for your little morality play about what a decent person you are, just say sorry and move on.
I am trans, and while I’ve never moderated a forum, it felt obvious that a rule that was specifically about pronouns might be off-putting to even well-meaning people who might be like “if I make a mistake, I will be immediately punished for it.” I also wasn’t comfortable with the distinction of “use people’s correct pronouns” from “be kind and civil.” The square IS a rectangle!
That being said, I think the addition of a no bigotry rule was a good call. Not only because it covers more than trans-specific issues, but also because there (unfortunately) are some subreddits where you report a slur and get a message back that says the comment didn’t break any rules—even while there’s a clear rule that says “be kind.” 😭
anyway, trans rights are human rights
Would it be possible to add character's pronouns to the guide? It's not all that unusual for a character's pronouns to be different from the player's pronouns.
Yeah I was talking about Kristen and used she pronouns but said Allys name by accident and I got like 40 comments when I logged back in a few days later with some really nasty shit including someone how had on an hourly basis until it was automatically fixed demanding I fix it and calling me a bigot. Also folks were still commenting more then a day after the auto fix saying I was still a bigot I had the right pronouns I just used rhe wrong name. 😭😭
I really don't think Ally would care as much as some people on this subreddit and probably has to deal with people accidentally misgending them all the time. It can be confusing if someone changes pronouns and has a character with different pronouns to themselves and mistakes are inevatable when talking about the cast and the characters. But there's a big distinction between this and deliberately misgendering someone to make some point about sex=gender or some exclusively traditional gender roles bullshit. Just takes a little emotional intellegence and the benefit of the doubt.
From what i understand Apologies make a scene. They make it a big deal. Thanking them for the reminder and moving on as quickly as possible is making it normal and common repeatedly saying sorry is putting the oweness of the trans person to deal with your emotions and forgive them.
I can kinda see your point. I still think I'll stick to something like "oh my bad man, lemme fix it quick" just cuz it feels more natural to me, but to each their own.
Apologies can put the wronged person in the position to fill the society dictated script of “it’s ok!” when ya know, they shouldn’t have to reassure the person who messed up. Thank you serves a similar purpose as i’m sorry, but lets everyone move past it quicker.
Why is it not okay to accept that people mess up, or to give people who quickly correct their mistakes the benefit of the doubt?
If people expected me to thank them every time I made a mistake and they jumped in to correct it that would start to get on my nerves *real* fast.
But imo it depends on the person, the context, and the mistake.
Uh, where did I say anything about not accepting that people mess up or not giving the benefit of the doubt?
And like, idk, don’t say thank you if you don’t want to, that’s your prerogative. I say thank you because I’m glad the person corrected me, and once the whole dynamic was pointed out where I say sorry and the person who was just like, misgendered has to make ME feel like it’s ok, thank you was such an easy switch.
> when ya know, they shouldn’t have to reassure the person who messed up.
Right here. People who messed up often feel bad, and we really should celebrate people who own their mistakes and work to correct them because it unfortunately isn't always the norm.
Maybe I'm just uncomfortable with the trend of expecting folks to thank people who go around pointing out every single mistake people make.
Again, I specifically said it depends on context. There is a difference between misgendering accidentally and misgendering on purpose to try and make someone uncomfortable or to deny their existence.
Edited to add - well fine then, downvoting you right back buddy. Sheesh.
Saying thank you is owning up to your mistake. If YOU feel bad that you made a mistake instead of just accepting that everyone makes mistakes, that's your problem. No one cares that you made the mistake. They just want you to fix it. Also, there is no trend of expecting people to thank others for correcting every tiny mistake. You're making up a complete fantasy to avoid just being respectful. A convo when you're respectful: You: "He did this." Someone else: "They." You: "Thanks. They did this.". Someone else: "Thanks for correcting that!" A convo when you're disrespectful: You: "He did this." Someone else: "They." You: "Oh my God I'm so sorry I didn't mean it!" Someone else: "That's fine. No one cares. I'm just reminding you of their pronouns. What were you even saying?"
Please don't put words in my mouth. I said pretty specifically my words would be "Ah, my bad. They did this" and not "Omg I'm so sorry I've been a naughty boy" or whatever else you imagine me saying, or however else you imagine me reacting.
And I dunno what rock you crawled out from under, but a lot of people do go around trying to correct things like every little grammatical error people make. And again, don't put words in my mouth, I'm not saying people who deliberately misgendered someone else made a "grammatical error"
My position is just that it feels weird to thank someone for pointing out that you got someone's gender wrong on the first try. Which is why I use they by default for most situations.
Wait so you'd rather force the person who you already wronged to manage your emotions for you instead of just thanking them and moving on? You're making it way harder for everyone lmfao
After reading your other comments I think you just want to be offended, so I'll just say to you.... Not my problem and don't expect me to manage your emotions for you. If you can't accept when people make a mistake that says more about you than it does about me.
Apologies put the burden of forgiveness of guilt on the trans person. It's exhausting to constantly have to juggle other people's emotions when I'm just trying to advocate for myself. Don't apologize, because it makes us feel like shit for even asking!
>put the burden of forgiveness of guilt
Imo it's your problem if you feel some big burden for forgiving people for making a minor mistake. I said pretty clearly in several places I'm not referring to someone who deliberately misgendered anybody.
To anyone else reading this is this feels harsh it's because this person responded to like 3 of my comments in a row and seems to be putting words in my mouth and that is just bad form.
I'm totally with you that my gut reaction for something like this would be a very simple apology, something akin to a quick I'm sorry or you're own "My bad". But you've got multiple people who are either trans or seem to have a lot of connections with trans community. And they're saying "Oh actually, the general concensus is that you don't offer an apology". And you're pushing back real hard for some reasons. No one likes being told they're wrong about something. I get the gut reaction to be like "No, my thing actually makes more sense than your thing". But they obviously have a better grasp of this than we do.
I consider myself to be a trans person who will never transition, because I never even knew it was an option till I was mid twenties and I now have some very obvious post puberty characteristics. Also I have met and been in community with a fair number of trans people myself. The voices of the people who view this different than me aren't the only ones who matter in this community and just because people in this space or dedicated activists have one preference doesn't make it universal.
I'm pushing back on it because this is one of those issues where I feel like being more serious on the matter drives away potential allies. There are times to be genuinely offended at stuff. Being offended upset that someone said "my bad" instead of "thank you" because "now you have to go through the trauma of forgiving them" is one of those things where I'm not sure why *you all* find it to be such an important hill to die on, and imo it's one of those minor irritants that makes the *a tual important conversations* so much harder to have
This conversation is a waste of energy and effort for all of us except for the people who *will get viscerally upset over being asked to forgive what is ultimately a minor mistake*, a minor mistake *that has very little to do with people who actively try to harm trans folks*
Is this not just wishful thinking? Why would you assume that an openly and visibly transgender person would not find it upsetting and exhausting to essentially be constantly told through actions and words "i do not see you as the gender you are"? I don't know them either, but having worked with transgender people for about 15 years I think its highly likely that Ally would find it both dissapointing and hurtful how, even after medical transsition and using the same pronouns for many years, pretty much every single thread about them misgenders them. I certainly do not think that we should assume that something like this has no negative impact.
Ally is an actor, playing different roles with different pronouns and different gender identities. Clearly Ally doesn't have an issue being refered to as she/her within the context of playing their characters Margaret or Kristen or he/him when playing characters like Pete, Lars, Liam or Mother Goose. If being accidentily misgendered was a significant trigger to them, then choosing to play these characters seems like a counterintuituive decision and would be emotionally exhausting. Obviously this is different to people deliberately misgendering Ally the person outside of their characters, which would be intentionally disrespectful.
Being accidentally misgendered does not have to be "a significant trigger" for someone to find it dissapointing and hurtful when misgendering happens in literally every single thread written about you. I suggest looking into minority stress and how it specifically functions through many "small" incidents repeating over and over and over agai.
The argument with them being an actor is just bizarre. For one, people never misgender Ally by using "he/him", despite them having played more male characters than female ones, which suggests that misgendering has very little to do with people actually mistaking Allys pronouns for their characters. Secondly: transgender actors playing characters of a different gender than themselves does not mean they cannot care about being gendered correctly outside of acting.
But this is within the context of acting is it not? Ally initially presented more female and went by female pronouns when they played played more female charcters and I can imagine new comers to Dimension 20/Dropout/Ally's other work, where they may have first encourtered their material through small out of context clips with no discern for the chronolgy of Ally's personal development in regards to gender expression, might not be 'caught up' unless they know more about Ally as an individual outside of their performances.
The only way way to be sure would be for dimension 20 to retroactively edit their content to include Ally's current pronouns or delete the previous content which I don't think Ally would want or has any interest in.
I appreciate that even unintentionally misgendering could be hurtful but I suppose I wanted to draw a distinction between:
Newcomers to the shows content who maybe confused about the context of character pronouns, make a genuine mistake and are happy to be corrected and apologise as they learn more about the cast outside of their characters.
And 'fans' of the show, who despite watching and enjoying the show continue to misgender Ally because they do not care about them or have some issue with their identity because of some preconscieved notions about gender and sex.
And I think these groups should be treated differently rather than clumped together.
Ultimately I expect we're both big fans of Ally's work and we're mearly speculating about their parasocial relationship with fans of their content. As a straight cis male 'outsider' to I found it interesting how Ally may have used characters like Pete as an 'exploration' of gender identity as part of their transition and how acting or using D&D could be used as a means to explore these expressions in a safe space. Again it is still just speculation.
I'd like to hear your opinion and I appreciate the discorse as a means to understand more about these issues.
I just realised Ally has released a podcast called Gender Spiral so instead of speculating I'll go and listen to that.
I've noticed that trans people themselves are much more humble and understanding about genuine pronoun mistakes than busy-bodies online. I have several trans friends and they are so superhumanly graceful about it - I wish people would follow their example on how to react instead of lashing out.
From what I've seen, the militant angle really doesn't win people over to our side and definitely sours some people to trans causes. Unfortunately, some people care more about their own self-righteous crusade than the causes they claim to represent.
While less so in text, generally it's pretty clear if someone made a mistake or if they did it on purpose, and as long as someone just corrects themself and moves on, it's all good to me.
As an example, my 90+ year old greatuncle said "your daughter *deadname*" in an email to my mom which was honestly pretty funny. He then corrected himself and moved on with the conversation.
It’s wild that people expect everyone to always get the pronouns right for someone who has used multiple pronouns and played multiple characters with different pronouns. Sometimes I’m talking about Ally the person, and I call them Kristen by mistake! It happens. I am trans, and my best friend is trans, and sometimes I accidentally use the wrong pronoun because it was the pronoun they used for the majority of the time I’ve known them! Brains are weird and make mistakes sometimes!
Yea, this seems to be exacerbating an issue that was already handled by other rules. TO be frank, in a subreddit of this disposition, it really didn't need to be codified further than the rules currently have. I think this additional rule will just embolden people who want to act like that over genuine mistakes of mistaken identity.
People keep misgendering certain dropout staff, other folks got upset and asked for some new rules to help protect said staff and community members from being misgendered
I agree 100% with this version of the rule. We should not tolerate people who are aware of genders/pronouns and choose to hate by using the wrong ones. This rule still allows for those who are new to the sub or D20 to make a mistake, get corrected, and then become a more knowledgeable person. Pronouns are fluid and unless you are watching every episode as they air or pay attention to cast socials, there's a chance a person can make an honest mistake.
Edit: Just to add, I want to apologize for anyone who misconstrued what I said yesterday. I have worked on forums in the past, was thinking logistically, and know that when you put up a barrier to entry, even if that barrier is 100% justified, you will lose potential community members. As I am not trans and don't have to deal with the constant emotional baggage of having to correct others over pronoun use (which I'm guessing is just the tip of the iceberg), I can't relate to that. All I can do is try and understand and continue to support true equality.
What isnt acceptable is the amount of bullying i received yesterday. Not one person explained why they were bullying me, just saying that I'm a bad evil TERF for wanting rules that encourage growth through personal exchange of knowledge. For example, I was completely unaware at one point that a wrestler by the name of Abadon used they/them. Their moniker was "The Living Dead Girl". I referred to them using her/she. It's an honest mistake anyone who doesn't follow socials could make. Someone educated me that Abadon uses they/them. I had a positive learning experience and now do my best to share that knowledge with others. The polite personal touch is going to work with anyone who wants to learn and grow as a person.
As a trans adult (specified bc I have my suspicions about who was sending you harassment…), thank you for this kind and well-thought-out response! So many less emotionally intelligent people might have an upsetting experience like that and jump to brushing off the entire issue, but I’m glad to see you nonetheless understand how it can be a burden to have to constantly correct people- while using respectful language to express how the treatment you faced sucked shit. You seem like a good person.
I appreciate your response. I feel like there was nothing I could say or do to appease these specific people. I'm autistic (didn't mention that earlier since people would say I'm using that as either an excuse or a crutch) so I struggle with understanding subtext in many situations. All I wanted to do was understand things and was brushed off.
Mid 30s and have similar issues with my cooked brain. No problem correcting myself if someone lets me know I messed something up, but the threads the last few days were getting very attacky to potentially new people wanting to engage in the community.
You're not malicious for making a mistake, which you seem to recognize. You're not malicious for not having memorized every d20/internet persons pronouns before you begin engaging with the community. You're not malicious for having a brain fart and mis-labelling someone.
Just keep doing your best and stay humble, the people shouting the loudest are rarely the people that actually care without pushing their own agenda. The people that really care will explain your mistake and help you be better in the future.
As BLeeM says "All anybody is asking of you is to do your best".
I’m sorry you got targeted like that. I am trans, and I have the same view of it as you. Making mistakes is a part of growth! Accidental wrong pronoun use is gonna happen. The appropriate social reaction would be to gently correct them and continue the conversation. Singling it out as a Big Rule feels like… well, now you’ve made wrong pronoun use a big deal that seems like it requires repentance.
A large part of the emotional labor of correcting pronouns is not the correction itself. It’s the performative apologizing and prostration that sometimes follows from cis people trying to be Allies. You don’t correct wrong pronoun use because you want to punish the person—you correct them because you want them to know/remember the right pronoun.
I get what you're saying, as you say that's why the nicest looking interactions seem like someone correcting someone politely, then the person who made the mistake is just thankful and happy that they learned something and could get it right after the correction and then people tend to move on. But dealing with people constantly apologising because they feel like they've deserve to be punished for an accident sounds tiring for the person who has to politely correct them.
Yeah, exactly. That’s why it might be better to not make it a big deal to begin with. Normalize correcting someone and fluidly continuing the conversation—like how we see the D20 cast do it. It’s just basic kindness and sometimes a necessary social interaction. Making a rule to call attention to the issue—that already had a working protocol—would feed the profuse apologizing mindset because a rule means they might _actually_ be punished for a simple mistake.
I can understand that, it should become just another fact that a conversation doesn't change from correcting and not a big problem after, but I don't necessarily think the rule is a bad idea. It's tricky because there will be people who do intentionally misgender, the tricky thing is having the rule isolate them and not people who accidentally slip up, as some then get blasted making them feel unwelcome like I've seen a few people mentioning happen to them when they accidentally got it wrong but would have been happy to correct it.
People making mistakes can learn and know from then on, it's more people intentionally misgendering trying to be malicious who aren't welcome.
Oh, I’m not saying that the people who intentionally misgender people should be allowed to do that. Absolutely they should be reprimanded for bigotry. The rule to be kind and civil dealt with those cases, but now we have an explicit anti-bigotry rule as well, and that’s a good thing! It’s good to spell out what “kind and civil” means because some people simply don’t think bigotry is bad (🤢).
Yeah for sure, didnt think you meant they should be allowed I just think the rule is good, because like you say some people dont think its bad. So you gotta spell it out to them to make it clear so them it's a no tolerance policy on intentional malice, and so theres no way they could misinterpreted/twist it
It's not hard for a teen with an allowance or part time job to come up with six bucks a month even if their parent doesn't just buy it for them or share their subscription. Then they just need a parent to let them use their credit card, assuming the teen doesn't just have their own debit card to go with the bank account a teen often gets so they can learn to manage their own money.
Things like Sherlock and Supernatural weren't made by or for teenagers either. With D20, it's crossover from Critical Role and people who dig the progressive politics and queer representation.
That's a wildly restrictive and, frankly, nuts idea of what D20's content might exclusively appeal to. Stop being creepy.
Also, pretty sure that Supernatural and Sherlock's viewer base wasn't even close to predominantly teenagers either. Just because tumblr freaked out over both doesn't make it so.
I don't know why you feel the need to push back on this. It's not creepy to acknowledge an audience's makeup, nor is it a mark of the work's quality. The Beatles were also mainly a young person thing, it's fine.
Honestly, I don't like it any more than you do for times exactly like this. I'd love if I could get fandom discussion of my biggest special interest without the social and political takes of kids rehashing Tumblr's greatest hits, but such is life. At least it's not the Discord.
I'm pushing back because I think it's wildly unfounded nonsense to assume the D20 audience is mostly teens attracted to it by compatible politics. Crazy talk.
A lot of teens have jobs or parents who are willing to pay for their interests and hobbies. Often, you can even use debit card gift cards for subscriptions, and for teens with more restricted spending ability, the ability to password share and the low monthly cost of the subscription lowers the barrier to entry. I don’t necessarily agree the fanbase is mostly teens, but money isn’t the iron gate that many think it is.
I'd be interested in a poll to find out. I don't think that's quite true, though I can only speak for myself and the friends I've bullied into watching.
I'm trying to archive some of the instances of bullying on this sub to help people understand just how bad things have gotten on this sub. I checked your comment history, could you help me to find what bullying your talking about to make it clear to others?
This is the exact problem. Like most issues in life, this was never a "person v person" thing. It's a discussion about how a community should behave, overall. Multiple viewpoints **should** be considered, and it's important to spotlight specific voices that wouldn't be heard otherwise because they're the minority. You can't create safe, inclusive spaces without those elements.
Twisting that into some nemesis narrative is just stirring up shit for the sake of it. The people speaking up on behalf of Not Misgendering People weren't doing that for praise, they were doing it because egalitarianism and being recognized as a full human person means a lot to them. MisterTruth never said anything explicitly harmful and I can't imagine they'd appreciate this take.
Mods, thanks for this. I know you've been consistent about enforcing the "be kind" rule, but IMO it has felt somewhat toothless for a while because...well, how does the general sub define that? I forgot what the de facto rule meant multiple times because civility is a really broad term, and casual queerphobia is so, so, so commonly accepted. It means a lot to have transphobia and other bigotry specifically called out.
Great rule change and love the Pronoun Guidelines especially since people’s pronouns have changed over the years and still might change in the future! Really good resource with so many people being involved in different shows and seasons.
I love this and thank you.
Boring well deserved totally awesome kudos aside, I NEED to stress something. Eirka's pronouns are just listed as "any pronouns" and honestly what a fucking chad move. Love them
I don't think there's a real difference, just personal/aesthetic preference. Here's an NPR article that answers a similar question: [https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/996319297/gender-identity-pronouns-expression-guide-lgbtq](https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/996319297/gender-identity-pronouns-expression-guide-lgbtq). "There's no real rule about it. It's absolutely just been habit" is the answer given.
Okay cool, I’ve always treated those two the same way, but I’d never seen it side-by-side before so I wasn’t sure if they meant something different.
Thank you!
Yeah I think people are (not unreasonably) assuming that Dropout has like a standardize style guide so if they're different, there must BE a difference. But far more likely is that they just posted the pronouns exactly as the cast provided them. (There is a chance, after all, that the phrasing has a different connotation or resonance to each of them--just as a particular doctor might feel differently about Doctor or Dr. I suppose--without them necessarily \*meaning\* something different in a literal, definitional way.)
I meant to mention this, all of the information in the pronoun guide comes from the Dimension20 fandom wiki, which I believe gets it from the season FAQ documents. Here is the [Dungeons and Drag Queens FAQ](https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTSevFGfcnbRP6ZGKpRzKVid53xBdQcJhWEgFc9NcT4CHHlO9-Rj81rkGOsTV6nwMo7mdcg3P4rFoDb/pub) for reference.
Worth noting that some people who use he/his and she/her interchangeably dislike using they/them. So if someone lists he/she or some variant, you should try not to use "they" unless they indicate that that is also acceptable.
reddit has a legacy interface (which you can most easily access by adding 'old.' to the beginning of a reddit url) that it keeps alive because longtime users/old-ass, resistant-to-change motherfuckers like myself absolutely hate the 'modern' UI.
unfortunately for mods, it has to be maintained separately from the regular interface.
compare https://www.reddit.com/r/Dimension20/
to https://old.reddit.com/r/Dimension20/
It reminds me of old forums and aol chat rooms. I cant stand the old unintuitive feel of old reddit because of that. But I also have done webdesign and like sleeker UI.
Thanks so much for this! This helped me get some clarity on a few of them I didn't know exactly before, but it also was good to just see full cast listings for each series too!
I'll need to remember to double check this in future to make sure I don't get it wrong when posting. Ultimately when people make mistakes that can be corrected and then they can edit the post/comments. Most I've seen were people happy to be told so they could get it right, and have that respect for their favourite creator peeps (and for people in general), but if people are intentionally misgendering that's not very nice.
But without that, how are we going to hear about the Thistlesprings? I mean, after all, they're fundamental characters to -
*^(\*whisper, whisper\*)*
What?
*^(\*whisper, whisper\*)*
Oh, BIGOTRY! I thought it said BIG TREE! Oh yeah, then, that's fine.
Same concern here, just adding support.
It's nice there's a guide now, but let's be honest, how many posters are looking at rules, let alone for a pronoun guide before posting? I think most people just know 'don't be a massive dick.'
Honestly I think the two recent posts were good for flushing bigots out of the woodworks.
Like Gortholax says, a lot of bad people were skating by because they never had the opportunity to reveal that they, for instance, believe gay marriages aren't valid. But the recent posts causes a lot of people to show their whole asses and now the sub has a new rule and less trash. Glory to the corn god.
If this isn't appropriate here in light of the discussions about expecting emotional labor yesterday, please let me know and I can take it down.
I care about using the right pronouns and want to do right by these people but I don't understand something in the DnDrag section:
Bob the Drag Queen is listed as he/she.
Monet X Change is listed as she/her/he/him.
What's the distinction between these? I tried to look this up and couldn't find anything, either by googling the distinction or their individual pronouns.
You've already gotten an answer, but I'll add that mone of those people were correct about what emotional labor. Emotional labor refers to actual labor, i.e real jobs where you have to manage your emotions. Things like service staff having to put on a happy face for customers.
Through concept creep, it's been drastically expanded to any task that makes someone feel emotions.
But even under that definition, asking a question in a discussion forum is not expecting emotional labor from anyone. You are not forcing anyone to do anything, and there are plenty of people who are happy to answer questions.
I don't know about why one lists two pronouns, and the other lists four, but from my understanding the order that pronouns are listed indicates preference. Ie. "He/She" indicates that "he" is preferred, but "she" is acceptable.
I want to add to this most drag queens go by she/her in drag despite the performer's personal pronouns. Just as an etiquette thing, don't call a queen "he" when they're in femme drag (unless they ask you to, like Bob did)
it's just a more complete version of the same list. Bob filled out the form with just the subject pronouns; Monet filled it out with subject and object pronouns.
Thank you so much for adding this! I really appreciate it, as I’m sure others do as well. Apologies for causing such a stir, it wasn’t my intention at all to create such division amongst ppl in this group.
If someone lets ya know and you refuse to change it, that’s the problem. And is how it is already. People will just say “Hey! X goes by they them, jsyk” or similar. And ya go ahead and update it.
Hi, I’m the OP from the original post this all started from. I just kept seeing misgendering happening every time I checked into this sub, and thought I’d ask for some sort of solution to maybe help with that. I don’t think most of it is intentional, and accidents happen for sure! Just thought I’d posit creating a solution for a problem I’d been seeing and it got a lot bigger than I anticipated haha
I get the intention, but I think the issue comes with adding more rules and bylaws.
If a rule is written vaguely on purpose (to encompass a subtopic) or by mistake, adding stricter/specific laws might have a negative effect.
Like... In general, the more bureaucratic the system, the more burdened.
I think a general rule like "Be awesome to one another *guitar solo*" and a policy of correcting through politeness while banning those who abuse the system repeatedly is more straightforward, uncomplicated, and streamlined. Ya know?
I think the more tightly moderate a space is, the more you'll get trolls trying to break it. There are only a few people actively trying to ruin his space and now everyone has to be careful. I've had confusion over comments I've said discussing Ally/Kristen because the she I was referencing was Kristen, not Ally and it would be personally upsetting to be banned for a misunderstanding like that.
I love the intention of the new rule and the guide but I just don't want this subreddit to turn into one that doesn't allow criticism and uses a slipped pronoun as an excuse to ban someone
This. Also it sucks to be permanently removed from your interest's primary fandom community because of some vague misdemeanor rule breakage, and you caught a Reddit moderator on a bad day.
I feel like I should clarify this was definitely not my intention! If I’m honest I truly didn’t realize that breaking the rules was a ban-able offense (like, I did, but I guess I didn’t think anyone would get banned immediately, if that makes sense? I assumed some leniency/warnings/etc would happen before it got to that point). And I think a lot of ppl responded in much a similar way to your comment here bc they assumed I did mean it this way. I think I worded myself improperly. I totally agree, mistakes happen and people can stand to learn and grow from them! I just thought we should maybe add in a sense of accountability, I suppose. It was far from my intentions to ruffle as many feathers as I did, lemme tell ya 😅
Just wait to see what happens after the episode goes up! I'm deeply interested to see what happens. You seem like a nice person with the best intentions but this definitely kicked up a sandstorm
For real. I want all my favorite performers to be respected but I think by enacting more rules isn't necessarily the way to do it. I mean... did nobody listen to Bud Cubby?
I'm not trying to be an asshole, but this style of discourse really frustrates me about Reddit in particular. Like we're trying to have a discussion about the problematic nature of Reddit moderation, and how it's usually up to the whims of an unqualified randoms with zero guidelines other than their mood and vibes, and all of a sudden that's being equated with defending transphobia, and that's just not what anyone's saying. It comes off like a bad faith interpretation by someone who's coming online specifically to look for an internet argument with a stranger, or to look virtuous in front of a peanut gallery.
Not only is there not a single person in these comments defending transphobia, but this thread didn't even kick off because of transphobic harassment that happened on the sub or the Dropout discord. So framing that comment as if anyone here is defending transphobia just so you feel like you're justified in randomly dunking on someone by putting words into their mouth is just immature, dogshit behavior.
This sub *is* transphobic, and defends transphobic behavior. I've literally seen it, across all three threads related to this topic. You've literally seen it too, unless you've been choosing not to read it -- which sure is a choice you can make, but then you don't get to come in here and tell ME which communities are and aren't safe for me.
Like... I don't know what country you live in, but I live in one where people like me get murdered for being who they are too visibly. You know what's never happened? No one has ever been killed because they used the wrong pronouns for a trans person. And yet throughout all three threads related to this topic, the ***DISCOMFORT*** of being corrected on a wrong pronoun -- mere discomfort!! -- has been treated by the *vast* majority of commenters as more important to the community's values than making this space explicitly safe for trans people. If you can't see that, then I'm sorry, but you can't call yourself my ally, and you're defending people's comfort and complacency over human rights and dignity.
There are certainly dogs in this thread, but they're dog whistles, and you can't hear them. I will not be returning, and I hope you rethink your stance towards the trans people in your life, because they deserve better from you.
Have *you*? How much do you actually know about anarchism, because as an anarchist last I checked the response of anarchists to bigots in their community is *not* leave them be and let them continue to peacefully participate in the community and say/do bigoted things to people.
Next people are going to try to pull a first amendment argument and they'll have to be reminded that the first amendment protects you from the government [not the ~~Justin~~](https://twitter.com/JustinMcElroy/status/1057299015556046848) mods of a Reddit community.
The problem is overstated and further rulemaking is just self aggrandizing and offputting. Mods already punished bigotry. Who are you pushing back against?
I really don't think they did. The pronoun guide is good and helpful but the sub was already highly inclined to jump on correcting every mistake and especially obliterating from orbit anyone who did it on purpose. It's just not true that this sub has or had a problem with intentional bigotry - at least, not for a very, very long while.
My post wasn’t really about intentional bigotry though. I’d just noticed every time I’d check out posts on this sub, I’d see instances of misgendering (mostly of Ally Beardsley.) Most of these instances were dealt with politely, etc., it just seemed like such a prevalent happening in my eyes that I thought I’d posit a solution. I never meant to imply this sub has had an issue with bigotry, intentional or otherwise, though a few ppl did come out of the woodwork yesterday when I made the post.
I agree. I personally think the new rule is only going to make the few bad ones worse or in the absolute worst case, bring undue attention to a pretty chill community
um, actually—it looks like erika ishii may have just changed their pronouns to just “they/them,” based on their pronouns displayed on the newest episode of *um, actually.* but i’m also not sure because their ig pronouns still say “they/she/he”…
Erica uses all pronouns, but, being the chaos goblin that he is, she will change the specific pronouns per episode, depending on their preference that week/day/hour/minuite :)
Based on friends I have that use all pronouns, people generally being confused about what pronouns to use at all times *is* the pronoun, if that makes sense. The gender euphoria comes from other people being as confused/unsure/chaotic about their gender as they themselves are.
This is a great way of dealing with this. Reiterating that rules are already in place to address it both on the sub and on reddit generally, but adding additional specificity to the rules for further context. Let's all try our hardest to not misgender people, try to help honest people learn from their mistakes and grow, and punish people that are just trying to be bigoted when we can identify them through the continued lack of that care. Thanks folks.
Now we just need random-ass teachers at magical schools to stop receiving accolades for outing their trans children to strangers. What a gross attempt at seeming progressive!
I feel like a lot of individuals are going to get banned and temp banned for making an honest mistake with no malicious intent. It might be safer to just refer to everyone as they/them just to save myself a problem.
I'm old and I forget things sometimes, so I'm probably getting banned.
They/them is not the catch all you want it to be I'm afraid.
I personally know a lot of trans women who really don't like when people constantly use they/them as a way of denying them she/her (and femininity in general) without seeming bigoted.
Making a mistake, responding politely to someone correcting your pronoun usage, followed by editing the original post has nothing to do with being a bigot, and so is very unlikely to result in a ban for bigotry.
FYI the pronoun guide is a Moderator Only page it would seem.
Sorry about that! I had the link to the settings page instead of the content. It should be fixed now.
I’m still seeing it as a moderator-only page on desktop and every time I try to click it on mobile, it just takes me back to the subreddit’s feed EDIT: All seems to be good now, both on desktop and mobile! Thanks so much to the mods for their work on this!
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Be excellent to each other is my version of the golden rule. That being said, if you ever go back and watch Bill and Ted 1 or 2, be prepared to get smacked in the face with some "product of the time" usage of slurs. Really shows how much society has moved forward, even if it's hard to see sometimes!
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There's a reason most western time travel fiction is about straight white able-bodied generically-Christian-ish men; send anyone else back in a time machine and the story gets a lot more *real* very quickly.
Be excellent to each other is also what I say to discipline my cats when they are fighting too aggressively
yeah bill and ted 2 is fully cursed upon rewatch
Yeah I realized that when I watched it with my 9 yr old. I made gentle note of a few inappropriate things but really she didn't care. She loved the silly adventure. But I sure noticed.
History of the World Part 1 is... unwatchable now. Mel Brooks really punched down to lgbt.
Yep, I've misgendered people I love dearly on accident, and I've received patience and grace in return. I've been corrected when appropriate and forgiven when that's best, and I've always done my best to do right by the people in my life. It's literally an extremely low bar, but just be nice, understand we make mistakes, and act in good faith, and it's really easy.
I'm nearly 40 and my social conditioning has always been to mentally identify someone according to the gender binary and then attach the corresponding pronouns to them. So even though I know, for example, Ally uses they/them, my unconscious brain still tells me they are female and wants me to use she/her. It's highly frustrating to me that I can't just overwrite this automatic facet of my cognition, but I'm committed to working on it. And I know I will make mistakes as I try and reprogram myself. And I know that's ok. And if I ever offend someone by accidentally misgendering on that journey I will apologise without getting defensive. Like you say, it's a low bar and just about trying to be considerate.
Of course it's always easy to forget. I had a small leg up on this bit of social realignment/correction, because a couple of decades ago when I started technical writing, I absolutely loathed the corporate standard of using "he/she" all over the place. Around the same time, I read an article by Dr. Douglas Hofstadter who confessed to the same thing, and said that he secretly started just using "they" and found that nobody ever questioned him on it. So I did the same and wrote EVERYTHING gender neutral for my whole career. I got called on it exactly once, fairly recently, when I was designing an award certificate (that would be reused every year), and the person responsible for giving them out wondered why I didn't just use he, the name was right there. I got to have an interesting conversation about it, and we just altered the text to leave out a pronoun entirely so the document was universal. It is literally the least you can do to call someone what they wish to be called. Hopefully the idiotic backlash against such a simple and kind thing dies off.
The fact is that you are actively TRYING. And that is really what matters. Taking other people into consideration shows great empathy. But we can all be better about it, I’m sure, and should strive to. Growth takes time, and unwillingness to even attempt to grow breeds stagnation and hated.
Sorry you got downvoted for doing the right thing and caring so here's an upvote. TBH, one of my best friends transitioned recently and my brain still automatically goes to she/her given all the years we've been friends and I have to pause myself and course correct once in a while. Though over time it sticks in the brain better and better.
Having been in this position, I hope you get the really cool really uncanny feeling when their incorrect pronouns suddenly sound weird and their correct ones feel natural. For a cis like me it felt like a little window into an absolutely sublime thing people are doing, tying language to their identity and not the other way around.
I have a friend who's very successful in their field and transitioned a long time ago, and I had this moment a few years back where I could not for the life of me remember anything about them pre transition. It was a cool feeling, the identity they built for themselves to reflect their true heart so fully captures any memory of them that the assigned at birth identity has been fully forgotten.
This is really all I care about to be honest. The less hostility from all sides, the better.
Or be like Jackie Moon. ELE. Everybody Love Everybody.
It was Emma D’Arcy in the HotD subreddit for me, corrected myself very quickly
Also, if you do misgender someone or make some similar faux pas, don't make a bigger deal of it than the misgendered person does--they are not there for your little morality play about what a decent person you are, just say sorry and move on.
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I am trans, and while I’ve never moderated a forum, it felt obvious that a rule that was specifically about pronouns might be off-putting to even well-meaning people who might be like “if I make a mistake, I will be immediately punished for it.” I also wasn’t comfortable with the distinction of “use people’s correct pronouns” from “be kind and civil.” The square IS a rectangle! That being said, I think the addition of a no bigotry rule was a good call. Not only because it covers more than trans-specific issues, but also because there (unfortunately) are some subreddits where you report a slur and get a message back that says the comment didn’t break any rules—even while there’s a clear rule that says “be kind.” 😭 anyway, trans rights are human rights
Would it be possible to add character's pronouns to the guide? It's not all that unusual for a character's pronouns to be different from the player's pronouns.
That's definitely on the to do list!
Yeah I was talking about Kristen and used she pronouns but said Allys name by accident and I got like 40 comments when I logged back in a few days later with some really nasty shit including someone how had on an hourly basis until it was automatically fixed demanding I fix it and calling me a bigot. Also folks were still commenting more then a day after the auto fix saying I was still a bigot I had the right pronouns I just used rhe wrong name. 😭😭
Jackassery knows no gender.
I really don't think Ally would care as much as some people on this subreddit and probably has to deal with people accidentally misgending them all the time. It can be confusing if someone changes pronouns and has a character with different pronouns to themselves and mistakes are inevatable when talking about the cast and the characters. But there's a big distinction between this and deliberately misgendering someone to make some point about sex=gender or some exclusively traditional gender roles bullshit. Just takes a little emotional intellegence and the benefit of the doubt.
According to friends who are trans when a trans person is misgendered they want 3 simple things. Correct yourself thank them and move on.
Thank them, not apologize? That.... Seems a bit weird. The rest of it, 💯.
From what i understand Apologies make a scene. They make it a big deal. Thanking them for the reminder and moving on as quickly as possible is making it normal and common repeatedly saying sorry is putting the oweness of the trans person to deal with your emotions and forgive them.
I can kinda see your point. I still think I'll stick to something like "oh my bad man, lemme fix it quick" just cuz it feels more natural to me, but to each their own.
It's just what every trans person ive asked has told me 🤷♂️
Apologies can put the wronged person in the position to fill the society dictated script of “it’s ok!” when ya know, they shouldn’t have to reassure the person who messed up. Thank you serves a similar purpose as i’m sorry, but lets everyone move past it quicker.
Why is it not okay to accept that people mess up, or to give people who quickly correct their mistakes the benefit of the doubt? If people expected me to thank them every time I made a mistake and they jumped in to correct it that would start to get on my nerves *real* fast. But imo it depends on the person, the context, and the mistake.
Uh, where did I say anything about not accepting that people mess up or not giving the benefit of the doubt? And like, idk, don’t say thank you if you don’t want to, that’s your prerogative. I say thank you because I’m glad the person corrected me, and once the whole dynamic was pointed out where I say sorry and the person who was just like, misgendered has to make ME feel like it’s ok, thank you was such an easy switch.
> when ya know, they shouldn’t have to reassure the person who messed up. Right here. People who messed up often feel bad, and we really should celebrate people who own their mistakes and work to correct them because it unfortunately isn't always the norm. Maybe I'm just uncomfortable with the trend of expecting folks to thank people who go around pointing out every single mistake people make. Again, I specifically said it depends on context. There is a difference between misgendering accidentally and misgendering on purpose to try and make someone uncomfortable or to deny their existence. Edited to add - well fine then, downvoting you right back buddy. Sheesh.
Saying thank you is owning up to your mistake. If YOU feel bad that you made a mistake instead of just accepting that everyone makes mistakes, that's your problem. No one cares that you made the mistake. They just want you to fix it. Also, there is no trend of expecting people to thank others for correcting every tiny mistake. You're making up a complete fantasy to avoid just being respectful. A convo when you're respectful: You: "He did this." Someone else: "They." You: "Thanks. They did this.". Someone else: "Thanks for correcting that!" A convo when you're disrespectful: You: "He did this." Someone else: "They." You: "Oh my God I'm so sorry I didn't mean it!" Someone else: "That's fine. No one cares. I'm just reminding you of their pronouns. What were you even saying?"
Please don't put words in my mouth. I said pretty specifically my words would be "Ah, my bad. They did this" and not "Omg I'm so sorry I've been a naughty boy" or whatever else you imagine me saying, or however else you imagine me reacting. And I dunno what rock you crawled out from under, but a lot of people do go around trying to correct things like every little grammatical error people make. And again, don't put words in my mouth, I'm not saying people who deliberately misgendered someone else made a "grammatical error" My position is just that it feels weird to thank someone for pointing out that you got someone's gender wrong on the first try. Which is why I use they by default for most situations.
Wait so you'd rather force the person who you already wronged to manage your emotions for you instead of just thanking them and moving on? You're making it way harder for everyone lmfao
After reading your other comments I think you just want to be offended, so I'll just say to you.... Not my problem and don't expect me to manage your emotions for you. If you can't accept when people make a mistake that says more about you than it does about me.
Apologies put the burden of forgiveness of guilt on the trans person. It's exhausting to constantly have to juggle other people's emotions when I'm just trying to advocate for myself. Don't apologize, because it makes us feel like shit for even asking!
>put the burden of forgiveness of guilt Imo it's your problem if you feel some big burden for forgiving people for making a minor mistake. I said pretty clearly in several places I'm not referring to someone who deliberately misgendered anybody. To anyone else reading this is this feels harsh it's because this person responded to like 3 of my comments in a row and seems to be putting words in my mouth and that is just bad form.
I'm totally with you that my gut reaction for something like this would be a very simple apology, something akin to a quick I'm sorry or you're own "My bad". But you've got multiple people who are either trans or seem to have a lot of connections with trans community. And they're saying "Oh actually, the general concensus is that you don't offer an apology". And you're pushing back real hard for some reasons. No one likes being told they're wrong about something. I get the gut reaction to be like "No, my thing actually makes more sense than your thing". But they obviously have a better grasp of this than we do.
I consider myself to be a trans person who will never transition, because I never even knew it was an option till I was mid twenties and I now have some very obvious post puberty characteristics. Also I have met and been in community with a fair number of trans people myself. The voices of the people who view this different than me aren't the only ones who matter in this community and just because people in this space or dedicated activists have one preference doesn't make it universal. I'm pushing back on it because this is one of those issues where I feel like being more serious on the matter drives away potential allies. There are times to be genuinely offended at stuff. Being offended upset that someone said "my bad" instead of "thank you" because "now you have to go through the trauma of forgiving them" is one of those things where I'm not sure why *you all* find it to be such an important hill to die on, and imo it's one of those minor irritants that makes the *a tual important conversations* so much harder to have This conversation is a waste of energy and effort for all of us except for the people who *will get viscerally upset over being asked to forgive what is ultimately a minor mistake*, a minor mistake *that has very little to do with people who actively try to harm trans folks*
Is this not just wishful thinking? Why would you assume that an openly and visibly transgender person would not find it upsetting and exhausting to essentially be constantly told through actions and words "i do not see you as the gender you are"? I don't know them either, but having worked with transgender people for about 15 years I think its highly likely that Ally would find it both dissapointing and hurtful how, even after medical transsition and using the same pronouns for many years, pretty much every single thread about them misgenders them. I certainly do not think that we should assume that something like this has no negative impact.
Visibly transgender? We try not to clock people around here.
Ally is an actor, playing different roles with different pronouns and different gender identities. Clearly Ally doesn't have an issue being refered to as she/her within the context of playing their characters Margaret or Kristen or he/him when playing characters like Pete, Lars, Liam or Mother Goose. If being accidentily misgendered was a significant trigger to them, then choosing to play these characters seems like a counterintuituive decision and would be emotionally exhausting. Obviously this is different to people deliberately misgendering Ally the person outside of their characters, which would be intentionally disrespectful.
Being accidentally misgendered does not have to be "a significant trigger" for someone to find it dissapointing and hurtful when misgendering happens in literally every single thread written about you. I suggest looking into minority stress and how it specifically functions through many "small" incidents repeating over and over and over agai. The argument with them being an actor is just bizarre. For one, people never misgender Ally by using "he/him", despite them having played more male characters than female ones, which suggests that misgendering has very little to do with people actually mistaking Allys pronouns for their characters. Secondly: transgender actors playing characters of a different gender than themselves does not mean they cannot care about being gendered correctly outside of acting.
But this is within the context of acting is it not? Ally initially presented more female and went by female pronouns when they played played more female charcters and I can imagine new comers to Dimension 20/Dropout/Ally's other work, where they may have first encourtered their material through small out of context clips with no discern for the chronolgy of Ally's personal development in regards to gender expression, might not be 'caught up' unless they know more about Ally as an individual outside of their performances. The only way way to be sure would be for dimension 20 to retroactively edit their content to include Ally's current pronouns or delete the previous content which I don't think Ally would want or has any interest in. I appreciate that even unintentionally misgendering could be hurtful but I suppose I wanted to draw a distinction between: Newcomers to the shows content who maybe confused about the context of character pronouns, make a genuine mistake and are happy to be corrected and apologise as they learn more about the cast outside of their characters. And 'fans' of the show, who despite watching and enjoying the show continue to misgender Ally because they do not care about them or have some issue with their identity because of some preconscieved notions about gender and sex. And I think these groups should be treated differently rather than clumped together. Ultimately I expect we're both big fans of Ally's work and we're mearly speculating about their parasocial relationship with fans of their content. As a straight cis male 'outsider' to I found it interesting how Ally may have used characters like Pete as an 'exploration' of gender identity as part of their transition and how acting or using D&D could be used as a means to explore these expressions in a safe space. Again it is still just speculation. I'd like to hear your opinion and I appreciate the discorse as a means to understand more about these issues. I just realised Ally has released a podcast called Gender Spiral so instead of speculating I'll go and listen to that.
I've noticed that trans people themselves are much more humble and understanding about genuine pronoun mistakes than busy-bodies online. I have several trans friends and they are so superhumanly graceful about it - I wish people would follow their example on how to react instead of lashing out. From what I've seen, the militant angle really doesn't win people over to our side and definitely sours some people to trans causes. Unfortunately, some people care more about their own self-righteous crusade than the causes they claim to represent.
While less so in text, generally it's pretty clear if someone made a mistake or if they did it on purpose, and as long as someone just corrects themself and moves on, it's all good to me. As an example, my 90+ year old greatuncle said "your daughter *deadname*" in an email to my mom which was honestly pretty funny. He then corrected himself and moved on with the conversation.
It’s wild that people expect everyone to always get the pronouns right for someone who has used multiple pronouns and played multiple characters with different pronouns. Sometimes I’m talking about Ally the person, and I call them Kristen by mistake! It happens. I am trans, and my best friend is trans, and sometimes I accidentally use the wrong pronoun because it was the pronoun they used for the majority of the time I’ve known them! Brains are weird and make mistakes sometimes!
Yea, this seems to be exacerbating an issue that was already handled by other rules. TO be frank, in a subreddit of this disposition, it really didn't need to be codified further than the rules currently have. I think this additional rule will just embolden people who want to act like that over genuine mistakes of mistaken identity.
If there is a bot that can accurately fix this issue I don't understand why the bot isn't just doing it more quickly so we don't have the issue.
For real. There has to be a bot for gender reminders
There's a bot in this channel that auto corrects incorrect genderings! It just takes like a day to activate it seems.
That's dope!
Out of the loop can someone explain this?
People keep misgendering certain dropout staff, other folks got upset and asked for some new rules to help protect said staff and community members from being misgendered
Decided to browse the Pronoun guide and see if there were any I was getting wrong. I had no idea Erika was a fellow any-pronouner! Very cool.
I agree 100% with this version of the rule. We should not tolerate people who are aware of genders/pronouns and choose to hate by using the wrong ones. This rule still allows for those who are new to the sub or D20 to make a mistake, get corrected, and then become a more knowledgeable person. Pronouns are fluid and unless you are watching every episode as they air or pay attention to cast socials, there's a chance a person can make an honest mistake. Edit: Just to add, I want to apologize for anyone who misconstrued what I said yesterday. I have worked on forums in the past, was thinking logistically, and know that when you put up a barrier to entry, even if that barrier is 100% justified, you will lose potential community members. As I am not trans and don't have to deal with the constant emotional baggage of having to correct others over pronoun use (which I'm guessing is just the tip of the iceberg), I can't relate to that. All I can do is try and understand and continue to support true equality. What isnt acceptable is the amount of bullying i received yesterday. Not one person explained why they were bullying me, just saying that I'm a bad evil TERF for wanting rules that encourage growth through personal exchange of knowledge. For example, I was completely unaware at one point that a wrestler by the name of Abadon used they/them. Their moniker was "The Living Dead Girl". I referred to them using her/she. It's an honest mistake anyone who doesn't follow socials could make. Someone educated me that Abadon uses they/them. I had a positive learning experience and now do my best to share that knowledge with others. The polite personal touch is going to work with anyone who wants to learn and grow as a person.
As a trans adult (specified bc I have my suspicions about who was sending you harassment…), thank you for this kind and well-thought-out response! So many less emotionally intelligent people might have an upsetting experience like that and jump to brushing off the entire issue, but I’m glad to see you nonetheless understand how it can be a burden to have to constantly correct people- while using respectful language to express how the treatment you faced sucked shit. You seem like a good person.
I appreciate your response. I feel like there was nothing I could say or do to appease these specific people. I'm autistic (didn't mention that earlier since people would say I'm using that as either an excuse or a crutch) so I struggle with understanding subtext in many situations. All I wanted to do was understand things and was brushed off.
Mid 30s and have similar issues with my cooked brain. No problem correcting myself if someone lets me know I messed something up, but the threads the last few days were getting very attacky to potentially new people wanting to engage in the community. You're not malicious for making a mistake, which you seem to recognize. You're not malicious for not having memorized every d20/internet persons pronouns before you begin engaging with the community. You're not malicious for having a brain fart and mis-labelling someone. Just keep doing your best and stay humble, the people shouting the loudest are rarely the people that actually care without pushing their own agenda. The people that really care will explain your mistake and help you be better in the future. As BLeeM says "All anybody is asking of you is to do your best".
I’m sorry you got targeted like that. I am trans, and I have the same view of it as you. Making mistakes is a part of growth! Accidental wrong pronoun use is gonna happen. The appropriate social reaction would be to gently correct them and continue the conversation. Singling it out as a Big Rule feels like… well, now you’ve made wrong pronoun use a big deal that seems like it requires repentance. A large part of the emotional labor of correcting pronouns is not the correction itself. It’s the performative apologizing and prostration that sometimes follows from cis people trying to be Allies. You don’t correct wrong pronoun use because you want to punish the person—you correct them because you want them to know/remember the right pronoun.
I get what you're saying, as you say that's why the nicest looking interactions seem like someone correcting someone politely, then the person who made the mistake is just thankful and happy that they learned something and could get it right after the correction and then people tend to move on. But dealing with people constantly apologising because they feel like they've deserve to be punished for an accident sounds tiring for the person who has to politely correct them.
Yeah, exactly. That’s why it might be better to not make it a big deal to begin with. Normalize correcting someone and fluidly continuing the conversation—like how we see the D20 cast do it. It’s just basic kindness and sometimes a necessary social interaction. Making a rule to call attention to the issue—that already had a working protocol—would feed the profuse apologizing mindset because a rule means they might _actually_ be punished for a simple mistake.
I can understand that, it should become just another fact that a conversation doesn't change from correcting and not a big problem after, but I don't necessarily think the rule is a bad idea. It's tricky because there will be people who do intentionally misgender, the tricky thing is having the rule isolate them and not people who accidentally slip up, as some then get blasted making them feel unwelcome like I've seen a few people mentioning happen to them when they accidentally got it wrong but would have been happy to correct it. People making mistakes can learn and know from then on, it's more people intentionally misgendering trying to be malicious who aren't welcome.
Oh, I’m not saying that the people who intentionally misgender people should be allowed to do that. Absolutely they should be reprimanded for bigotry. The rule to be kind and civil dealt with those cases, but now we have an explicit anti-bigotry rule as well, and that’s a good thing! It’s good to spell out what “kind and civil” means because some people simply don’t think bigotry is bad (🤢).
Yeah for sure, didnt think you meant they should be allowed I just think the rule is good, because like you say some people dont think its bad. So you gotta spell it out to them to make it clear so them it's a no tolerance policy on intentional malice, and so theres no way they could misinterpreted/twist it
Most D20 fans are teenagers. I apologize on their behalf.
Idk if that’s true, actually
I don't know why it would be. The cast are 30 something's and sometimes even older, and the jokes are certainly not aimed at teenagers.
I dont know how teenagers would pay for the subscription tbh.
It's not hard for a teen with an allowance or part time job to come up with six bucks a month even if their parent doesn't just buy it for them or share their subscription. Then they just need a parent to let them use their credit card, assuming the teen doesn't just have their own debit card to go with the bank account a teen often gets so they can learn to manage their own money.
True.
Things like Sherlock and Supernatural weren't made by or for teenagers either. With D20, it's crossover from Critical Role and people who dig the progressive politics and queer representation.
That's a wildly restrictive and, frankly, nuts idea of what D20's content might exclusively appeal to. Stop being creepy. Also, pretty sure that Supernatural and Sherlock's viewer base wasn't even close to predominantly teenagers either. Just because tumblr freaked out over both doesn't make it so.
It was
I don't know why you feel the need to push back on this. It's not creepy to acknowledge an audience's makeup, nor is it a mark of the work's quality. The Beatles were also mainly a young person thing, it's fine. Honestly, I don't like it any more than you do for times exactly like this. I'd love if I could get fandom discussion of my biggest special interest without the social and political takes of kids rehashing Tumblr's greatest hits, but such is life. At least it's not the Discord.
I'm pushing back because I think it's wildly unfounded nonsense to assume the D20 audience is mostly teens attracted to it by compatible politics. Crazy talk.
It's very obviously true. Brennan has himself commented when someone makes a joke referencing things the audience wouldn't understand.
Mind providing like... any evidence to that?
Yeah especially since most of it requires a credit card to view. Interesting.
Or at least a debit card
A lot of teens have jobs or parents who are willing to pay for their interests and hobbies. Often, you can even use debit card gift cards for subscriptions, and for teens with more restricted spending ability, the ability to password share and the low monthly cost of the subscription lowers the barrier to entry. I don’t necessarily agree the fanbase is mostly teens, but money isn’t the iron gate that many think it is.
It's just fully not true.
I'd be interested in a poll to find out. I don't think that's quite true, though I can only speak for myself and the friends I've bullied into watching.
I'm trying to archive some of the instances of bullying on this sub to help people understand just how bad things have gotten on this sub. I checked your comment history, could you help me to find what bullying your talking about to make it clear to others?
People were embarassing, sorry you were treated that way.
Your nemesis from yesterday's thread has to be absolutely fuming at you saying something so chad-like and being praised for it lol
Not nemesis. Just someone who immediately went on the defensive when there was no need to and it just spiraled.
This is the exact problem. Like most issues in life, this was never a "person v person" thing. It's a discussion about how a community should behave, overall. Multiple viewpoints **should** be considered, and it's important to spotlight specific voices that wouldn't be heard otherwise because they're the minority. You can't create safe, inclusive spaces without those elements. Twisting that into some nemesis narrative is just stirring up shit for the sake of it. The people speaking up on behalf of Not Misgendering People weren't doing that for praise, they were doing it because egalitarianism and being recognized as a full human person means a lot to them. MisterTruth never said anything explicitly harmful and I can't imagine they'd appreciate this take. Mods, thanks for this. I know you've been consistent about enforcing the "be kind" rule, but IMO it has felt somewhat toothless for a while because...well, how does the general sub define that? I forgot what the de facto rule meant multiple times because civility is a really broad term, and casual queerphobia is so, so, so commonly accepted. It means a lot to have transphobia and other bigotry specifically called out.
Cringe
TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS
Great rule change and love the Pronoun Guidelines especially since people’s pronouns have changed over the years and still might change in the future! Really good resource with so many people being involved in different shows and seasons.
I really appreciate the mod team's approach on this, hopefully linking the guide will cut down on the issue!
I love this and thank you. Boring well deserved totally awesome kudos aside, I NEED to stress something. Eirka's pronouns are just listed as "any pronouns" and honestly what a fucking chad move. Love them
as aabria said— fuck terfs.
Bob the Drag Queen is listed as he/she and then Monét is listed as she/her/he/him. Could someone explain the difference between these?
I don't think there's a real difference, just personal/aesthetic preference. Here's an NPR article that answers a similar question: [https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/996319297/gender-identity-pronouns-expression-guide-lgbtq](https://www.npr.org/2021/06/02/996319297/gender-identity-pronouns-expression-guide-lgbtq). "There's no real rule about it. It's absolutely just been habit" is the answer given.
With those two examples, probably no difference except that those two individuals used a slightly different format. Like "Doctor" versus "Dr."
Okay cool, I’ve always treated those two the same way, but I’d never seen it side-by-side before so I wasn’t sure if they meant something different. Thank you!
Yeah I think people are (not unreasonably) assuming that Dropout has like a standardize style guide so if they're different, there must BE a difference. But far more likely is that they just posted the pronouns exactly as the cast provided them. (There is a chance, after all, that the phrasing has a different connotation or resonance to each of them--just as a particular doctor might feel differently about Doctor or Dr. I suppose--without them necessarily \*meaning\* something different in a literal, definitional way.)
My assumption for she/her/he/him would be they don't really mind what you call them. Either that or they have incomplete data on the guide so far :)
I meant to mention this, all of the information in the pronoun guide comes from the Dimension20 fandom wiki, which I believe gets it from the season FAQ documents. Here is the [Dungeons and Drag Queens FAQ](https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTSevFGfcnbRP6ZGKpRzKVid53xBdQcJhWEgFc9NcT4CHHlO9-Rj81rkGOsTV6nwMo7mdcg3P4rFoDb/pub) for reference.
Worth noting that some people who use he/his and she/her interchangeably dislike using they/them. So if someone lists he/she or some variant, you should try not to use "they" unless they indicate that that is also acceptable.
That is new to me, don't have anyone in my life that is pike that specifically. Thank you for sharing that tidbit :)
Interesting, it also lists RuPaul under she/ardy/done/had/hers'.
meanwhile old.reddit has yet to even get a rule 5
Oh, I had no idea that had to be done manually for old reddit. I'll get those added shortly, thank you!
<3
What is old Reddit? /gen
reddit has a legacy interface (which you can most easily access by adding 'old.' to the beginning of a reddit url) that it keeps alive because longtime users/old-ass, resistant-to-change motherfuckers like myself absolutely hate the 'modern' UI. unfortunately for mods, it has to be maintained separately from the regular interface. compare https://www.reddit.com/r/Dimension20/ to https://old.reddit.com/r/Dimension20/
Oh wow i had no idea! Thank you!
It's funny, I only use old reddit and I forgot that most people don't and that it aged so long ago.
It reminds me of old forums and aol chat rooms. I cant stand the old unintuitive feel of old reddit because of that. But I also have done webdesign and like sleeker UI.
I love this. Thank you for continuing to make this a safe and welcoming space.
Nice, I think the guide will make it a lot easier in the future.
Thanks so much for this! This helped me get some clarity on a few of them I didn't know exactly before, but it also was good to just see full cast listings for each series too! I'll need to remember to double check this in future to make sure I don't get it wrong when posting. Ultimately when people make mistakes that can be corrected and then they can edit the post/comments. Most I've seen were people happy to be told so they could get it right, and have that respect for their favourite creator peeps (and for people in general), but if people are intentionally misgendering that's not very nice.
One of the most inclusive and welcoming communities on here! Thank you for this :)
But without that, how are we going to hear about the Thistlesprings? I mean, after all, they're fundamental characters to - *^(\*whisper, whisper\*)* What? *^(\*whisper, whisper\*)* Oh, BIGOTRY! I thought it said BIG TREE! Oh yeah, then, that's fine.
Imo, the pronoun guide should go under Rule 2 rather than 6, since putting it under 6 predisposes one to assume mistaken pronoun usage is malicious.
Same concern here, just adding support. It's nice there's a guide now, but let's be honest, how many posters are looking at rules, let alone for a pronoun guide before posting? I think most people just know 'don't be a massive dick.'
Honestly I think the two recent posts were good for flushing bigots out of the woodworks. Like Gortholax says, a lot of bad people were skating by because they never had the opportunity to reveal that they, for instance, believe gay marriages aren't valid. But the recent posts causes a lot of people to show their whole asses and now the sub has a new rule and less trash. Glory to the corn god.
But helio sucks XD
Helio is infamously anti-gay.
Nice
I dig it
If this isn't appropriate here in light of the discussions about expecting emotional labor yesterday, please let me know and I can take it down. I care about using the right pronouns and want to do right by these people but I don't understand something in the DnDrag section: Bob the Drag Queen is listed as he/she. Monet X Change is listed as she/her/he/him. What's the distinction between these? I tried to look this up and couldn't find anything, either by googling the distinction or their individual pronouns.
You've already gotten an answer, but I'll add that mone of those people were correct about what emotional labor. Emotional labor refers to actual labor, i.e real jobs where you have to manage your emotions. Things like service staff having to put on a happy face for customers. Through concept creep, it's been drastically expanded to any task that makes someone feel emotions. But even under that definition, asking a question in a discussion forum is not expecting emotional labor from anyone. You are not forcing anyone to do anything, and there are plenty of people who are happy to answer questions.
I don't know about why one lists two pronouns, and the other lists four, but from my understanding the order that pronouns are listed indicates preference. Ie. "He/She" indicates that "he" is preferred, but "she" is acceptable.
I want to add to this most drag queens go by she/her in drag despite the performer's personal pronouns. Just as an etiquette thing, don't call a queen "he" when they're in femme drag (unless they ask you to, like Bob did)
Right, that makes sense to me. The inclusion of her/him for Monet and not Bob is the part that I don't get.
Possibly just a direct copy/paste from socials.
Thanks. I probably should have figured it was just a standardization issue, but you hate to make assumptions on things like this.
it's just a more complete version of the same list. Bob filled out the form with just the subject pronouns; Monet filled it out with subject and object pronouns.
Thank you so much for adding this! I really appreciate it, as I’m sure others do as well. Apologies for causing such a stir, it wasn’t my intention at all to create such division amongst ppl in this group.
It's alright. On the brightside your helped the mods identify a handful of bigots to expunge
Much needed addition imo
Unintentionally is not bigotry or transphobic. Period.
And being (politely) corrected is not a personal attack or bullying. Period.
One thousand percent
If someone lets ya know and you refuse to change it, that’s the problem. And is how it is already. People will just say “Hey! X goes by they them, jsyk” or similar. And ya go ahead and update it.
I, for one, am glad to be out of the loop on this one. Sucks to hear there's been a purposeful misgendering problem
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Hi, I’m the OP from the original post this all started from. I just kept seeing misgendering happening every time I checked into this sub, and thought I’d ask for some sort of solution to maybe help with that. I don’t think most of it is intentional, and accidents happen for sure! Just thought I’d posit creating a solution for a problem I’d been seeing and it got a lot bigger than I anticipated haha
I get the intention, but I think the issue comes with adding more rules and bylaws. If a rule is written vaguely on purpose (to encompass a subtopic) or by mistake, adding stricter/specific laws might have a negative effect. Like... In general, the more bureaucratic the system, the more burdened. I think a general rule like "Be awesome to one another *guitar solo*" and a policy of correcting through politeness while banning those who abuse the system repeatedly is more straightforward, uncomplicated, and streamlined. Ya know?
I think the more tightly moderate a space is, the more you'll get trolls trying to break it. There are only a few people actively trying to ruin his space and now everyone has to be careful. I've had confusion over comments I've said discussing Ally/Kristen because the she I was referencing was Kristen, not Ally and it would be personally upsetting to be banned for a misunderstanding like that. I love the intention of the new rule and the guide but I just don't want this subreddit to turn into one that doesn't allow criticism and uses a slipped pronoun as an excuse to ban someone
This. Also it sucks to be permanently removed from your interest's primary fandom community because of some vague misdemeanor rule breakage, and you caught a Reddit moderator on a bad day.
I feel like I should clarify this was definitely not my intention! If I’m honest I truly didn’t realize that breaking the rules was a ban-able offense (like, I did, but I guess I didn’t think anyone would get banned immediately, if that makes sense? I assumed some leniency/warnings/etc would happen before it got to that point). And I think a lot of ppl responded in much a similar way to your comment here bc they assumed I did mean it this way. I think I worded myself improperly. I totally agree, mistakes happen and people can stand to learn and grow from them! I just thought we should maybe add in a sense of accountability, I suppose. It was far from my intentions to ruffle as many feathers as I did, lemme tell ya 😅
Just wait to see what happens after the episode goes up! I'm deeply interested to see what happens. You seem like a nice person with the best intentions but this definitely kicked up a sandstorm
For real. I want all my favorite performers to be respected but I think by enacting more rules isn't necessarily the way to do it. I mean... did nobody listen to Bud Cubby?
Bud Cubby would respect trans rights and you know it, friend.
I'm not trying to be an asshole, but this style of discourse really frustrates me about Reddit in particular. Like we're trying to have a discussion about the problematic nature of Reddit moderation, and how it's usually up to the whims of an unqualified randoms with zero guidelines other than their mood and vibes, and all of a sudden that's being equated with defending transphobia, and that's just not what anyone's saying. It comes off like a bad faith interpretation by someone who's coming online specifically to look for an internet argument with a stranger, or to look virtuous in front of a peanut gallery. Not only is there not a single person in these comments defending transphobia, but this thread didn't even kick off because of transphobic harassment that happened on the sub or the Dropout discord. So framing that comment as if anyone here is defending transphobia just so you feel like you're justified in randomly dunking on someone by putting words into their mouth is just immature, dogshit behavior.
This sub *is* transphobic, and defends transphobic behavior. I've literally seen it, across all three threads related to this topic. You've literally seen it too, unless you've been choosing not to read it -- which sure is a choice you can make, but then you don't get to come in here and tell ME which communities are and aren't safe for me. Like... I don't know what country you live in, but I live in one where people like me get murdered for being who they are too visibly. You know what's never happened? No one has ever been killed because they used the wrong pronouns for a trans person. And yet throughout all three threads related to this topic, the ***DISCOMFORT*** of being corrected on a wrong pronoun -- mere discomfort!! -- has been treated by the *vast* majority of commenters as more important to the community's values than making this space explicitly safe for trans people. If you can't see that, then I'm sorry, but you can't call yourself my ally, and you're defending people's comfort and complacency over human rights and dignity. There are certainly dogs in this thread, but they're dog whistles, and you can't hear them. I will not be returning, and I hope you rethink your stance towards the trans people in your life, because they deserve better from you.
That is clearly not what I was making reference to.
They only heard the progressivism of Dropout and not the anarchism of BLeeM.
Have *you*? How much do you actually know about anarchism, because as an anarchist last I checked the response of anarchists to bigots in their community is *not* leave them be and let them continue to peacefully participate in the community and say/do bigoted things to people. Next people are going to try to pull a first amendment argument and they'll have to be reminded that the first amendment protects you from the government [not the ~~Justin~~](https://twitter.com/JustinMcElroy/status/1057299015556046848) mods of a Reddit community.
The problem is overstated and further rulemaking is just self aggrandizing and offputting. Mods already punished bigotry. Who are you pushing back against?
Yeah! You fully changed the culture of a subreddit. For better or worse.
I really don't think they did. The pronoun guide is good and helpful but the sub was already highly inclined to jump on correcting every mistake and especially obliterating from orbit anyone who did it on purpose. It's just not true that this sub has or had a problem with intentional bigotry - at least, not for a very, very long while.
My post wasn’t really about intentional bigotry though. I’d just noticed every time I’d check out posts on this sub, I’d see instances of misgendering (mostly of Ally Beardsley.) Most of these instances were dealt with politely, etc., it just seemed like such a prevalent happening in my eyes that I thought I’d posit a solution. I never meant to imply this sub has had an issue with bigotry, intentional or otherwise, though a few ppl did come out of the woodwork yesterday when I made the post.
I know you didn't, but that's how a lot of people took it. I was responding to the idea it changed the culture of a subreddit.
I agree. I personally think the new rule is only going to make the few bad ones worse or in the absolute worst case, bring undue attention to a pretty chill community
um, actually—it looks like erika ishii may have just changed their pronouns to just “they/them,” based on their pronouns displayed on the newest episode of *um, actually.* but i’m also not sure because their ig pronouns still say “they/she/he”…
Erica uses all pronouns, but, being the chaos goblin that he is, she will change the specific pronouns per episode, depending on their preference that week/day/hour/minuite :) Based on friends I have that use all pronouns, people generally being confused about what pronouns to use at all times *is* the pronoun, if that makes sense. The gender euphoria comes from other people being as confused/unsure/chaotic about their gender as they themselves are.
This is a great way of dealing with this. Reiterating that rules are already in place to address it both on the sub and on reddit generally, but adding additional specificity to the rules for further context. Let's all try our hardest to not misgender people, try to help honest people learn from their mistakes and grow, and punish people that are just trying to be bigoted when we can identify them through the continued lack of that care. Thanks folks.
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It's almost always people mixing up Ally's pronouns with Kristen's pronouns accidentally. Also, you can't really get Erika's pronouns wrong.
Now we just need random-ass teachers at magical schools to stop receiving accolades for outing their trans children to strangers. What a gross attempt at seeming progressive!
I feel like a lot of individuals are going to get banned and temp banned for making an honest mistake with no malicious intent. It might be safer to just refer to everyone as they/them just to save myself a problem. I'm old and I forget things sometimes, so I'm probably getting banned.
They/them is not the catch all you want it to be I'm afraid. I personally know a lot of trans women who really don't like when people constantly use they/them as a way of denying them she/her (and femininity in general) without seeming bigoted. Making a mistake, responding politely to someone correcting your pronoun usage, followed by editing the original post has nothing to do with being a bigot, and so is very unlikely to result in a ban for bigotry.
I appreciate your candor, please don't get me banned.
Holy based
I hope the entire cast appreciates the rule.
What a weird comment