USPS will never text you unless you have your account set up that way. My mom sends me these texts asking if they’re legit, and I always ask, “Did you order something?” No. “Well, then why would you have a delayed package?”

Again, USPS will not text you like this, and they use a .gov domain.

Ah, I misread that, fair point. 👍

In Wagner’s estimation, it takes 13 milliseconds for the brain to process information from the eye, a hundred milliseconds to feel pain. But 13 milliseconds into the implosion, there is nothing left intact of the cylindrical section of the Titan.

“They would have been dead ten milliseconds ago,” says Wagner. “They wouldn’t really feel anything or see anything coming. They would just be instantly dead

Source

I know who you’re talking about, drag, drag has called me a racist, Trump supporting fascist who wants drag and all of drags friends dead because I had the audacity to criticize Harris and the DNC. Drag backed off that when I pointed out to drag that I’m a trans veteran who voted for Harris.

I’ve never had difficulty understanding drag, and as much as I think drag is full of hot air, I respect drag enough as a fellow human to refer to drag in drag’s preferred way. Drag is using the third person, this has been a trope in popular media for years and no one has complained about it.

Did y’all have a hard time relating to and understanding The Boulder in Avatar the Last Airbender? He refers to himself as “The Boulder” instead of his pronouns, where’s the uproar around that?

Let’s take it to real life: I googled it, pro wrestlers The Rock, The Big Guy, Santina Marella, Kanyon, and Stone Cold Steve Austin all regularly used the third person to refer to themselves. They used other pronouns as well, I’m not denying that, but you all act like this is some completely unheard of new thing that only these woke leftists are doing.

It’s respect, full stop. It’s the equivalent of someone saying their name is Rajesh and you say, “Eh, Steve is easier, I’m used to the name Steve, I can’t pronounce whatever you just said so the only way we’re equals is if I can just call you Steve.” That’s insane, y’all need to stop making excuses as to why showing respect to another individual is sooooooo hard.

And FYI, in writing this, I only had to go back and make three changes where I used an improper pronoun in when referring to drag. Again, if I can show basic respect to someone who called me a fascist nazi, why can’t y’all do it for your friends, family, and coworkers? It’s not hard, and I’m 30, so it’s not like I was brought up with zhe/zher/zhers and all this other stuff either my entire childhood, I didn’t learn what transgender was until I was in the Navy.

Edit: Drag told me I insulted drag and lied to Lemmy by defending drag here, so I’ve crossed it out and will let drag defend drag’s pronouns alone. Drag doesn’t want my help because, in drag’s own words, I’m a Nazi who purposefully misgendered drag and only wrote the above to insult and hurt drag.

Yet refuses to apologize for falsely calling me a Nazi:

We’re still in the growing pains version of it, though, where there are far too many people taking advantage of a legitimate position just for the attention.

I would argue “who cares?” And please, explain to me how many “far too many” is? Because the trans population makes up under 1% of the US population, so I’m really trying to wrap my head around <1% is “far too many” of anything.

This is just excuses, I’m sorry. I get “zhe/zher/zhers” is awkward to see, but watch this: “Debra is amazing, have you had zher apple pie?”

Phew, nearly suffered an aneurysm on that one. 🙄

Another issue is that there is a component of needing to be vocal and firm or no one will take you seriously, but it’s a fine line between that and being obnoxious and over-asking…reminding someone who wants to be considerate is good, being offended at someone intentionally mis-labeling may be necessary, but being offended by honest mistakes or berating someone for not realizing zhe or zher or some newly defined label was a thing definitely hurts the cause.

First, your last line is bullshit, it’s the same logic that’s been used for every single oppressed group asking for basic respect from their oppressors.

When women standing up against sexual harassment really started to gain national attention, the news anchors made the exact same arguments you’re making now. “Oh, it’s just a man being friendly! Now men won’t want to hire women because they’ll be sued! We’ve behaved this way for decades and now it’s a problem? God, Debbie is such a cunt for reporting me for rubbing her shoulders, I was just trying to be nice!”

When women reported it, it was often, “They’re just looking for a payout/attention! Why didn’t they bring this up for the last X amount of time?! Why do women have to be so rude about it?!”

When gay marriage was being fought for, what did we hear? “Oh, can’t they keep that behind closed doors? It just makes me uncomfortable, I don’t think the children should see that! It’s always been Adam and Eve for me, I’m 40 years old, how am I supposed to learn to use the word “partner” instead of “husband/wife”?!”

Notice how it’s always the oppressed who are asking for too much, always? Always, it’s always the oppressed asking for too much. But when they say, “Hey, society, can you do XYZ to show me some basic dignity and respect?” what are we met with?

“We’re still in the growing pains, people are taking advantage, we need to be patient, you need to know your place and when it’s ok to speak up, but make sure you know the correct amount to speak up, otherwise they have the right to just not respect you.”

For fucking words, that’s what y’all are doubling down on, something that costs you no money or effort beyond treating someone like a person, and respecting their reasonable request. They’re not asking for you to paint their face from memory, or have their star-chart memorized and they yell at you for not knowing that Mercury was in retrograde, or chastising you for not knowing the exact date and time they were born.

If they’ve introduced themselves and their pronouns, and you can’t be bothered to respect that, you’re just a dick at best and transphobic at worst. It’s really that simple, it’s a sign of respect, and any excuse for why you can’t use words is just an excuse to disrespect those you don’t feel deserve it. And that’s an internal issue the individual needs to get over, but the LGBTQ+ community doesn’t need to coddle a society that can’t be bothered to show them the respect of using proper pronouns.

I used to be a mail carrier, so I’ve got a few stories I could share.

There was the 95 year old retired Army vet who would give me a bottle of wine as a tip at Christmas. The first time I met him, he was writing his name on the top of his mailbox in sharpie, and when I asked why, he said, “Because the doofus you have delivering our mail keeps mixing up the boxes,” to which I responded, “Well, as that doofus, I apologize, I just started” and he started laughing and apologizing. He’d greet me from the porch every day with his mug of wine and a hearty “Oh boy, here comes trouble!”

There was the house that refused to empty their mailbox of mail, they’d only take packages. I took all their mail from their full box like 3 times over the course of six months, making them come pick it all up, and they kept doing it. So, one day, I had two small packages, and their mailbox was 3/4 full. I knew if I just threw the packages in there, the packages would be grabbed and the box would be full of mail the following week.

So, I pulled all the mail out, put the packages in the very back, and put all the mail back on top of it. She called the supervisor at the post office saying they weren’t on her back porch, he told her the packages were scanned delivered and they should be there, check the mailbox. She called him back and said the mailbox was empty. He told her he’d contact me and figure out what happened.

He called me, and asked where the woman’s packages were. I told him this was the house that wouldn’t empty their mailbox, so, I put them under all of her mail to try to force them to take their mail. He laughed and told me when I got back later that she had called back and said she still couldn’t find them despite “looking in the mailbox,” and he simply told her to empty it and she’d likely find them.

Had a house that kept leaving their dog off leash, and it would run up and bark at me while I was walking around their neighborhood. Per USPS policy, if a dog is outside and loose without any kind of fence/leash/etc, then the neighborhood doesn’t get mail that day. I told the kids they needed to keep the dog inside, I told the mother, I told their neighbors, and I was working the issue with my postmaster. The PM called them twice and sent them a letter telling them the dog is either inside when I pull up, or we’re not delivering anymore.

Well, I got one house past the dog’s house, and it came sprinting out the front door, barking and running for me. I’d had enough, and I snapped. I stomped, stood my ground, and shouted at this dog and it just stopped and started running back. Their son was in the yard, and (I feel bad in hindsight about it) I kinda yelled at the kid, telling him that damn dog was supposed to be in the house, their parents knew this, and they were lucky I didn’t dog-spray the little shit (the dog, not the kid). Whole time the kid is frozen, a yard away, just staring at me.

I continue walking my loop, still irate, when I see this guy starting to walk towards me, asking me why I was yelling at his son. I turned and asked why, after all of the warnings and requests they’d gotten, they couldn’t keep their fucking dog inside for 15 minutes a day when I’m here. He followed me on my loop, kept asking me to stop and talk to him, as we’re shouting at each other all across his neighbor’s lawns. I just kept telling him I had nothing to discuss with him since him and his family clearly couldn’t listen, and I strongly encouraged him to call the post office.

So he asked for my name, and I told him “Dave, no need to write it down, I’ll be letting my postmaster know you and I spoke,” and left. When I got back to the office at the end of the day, I was pulled into the office and handed a stack of letters from my postmaster. “You’re to deliver all of these to that neighborhood tomorrow, this is the 4th instance of that dog being loose, the whole neighborhood is going to the curb.” (This means moving the mailboxes from the house to the road) Well, the neighbors absolutely lost their shit that they were being forced to move their mailboxes because of their irresponsible neighbor, even asking me about it as I would go through the neighborhood.

To end on a slightly lighter note: the reason I told the guy my name was “Dave” was because it was the unofficial response for our office. We had a carrier named Dave that was kinda the office punching bag (he took it well and gave it right back). The old timers told me that years ago, one of the carriers Scott (I think) got into with a woman on his route. Like, in each other’s faces, shouting, cussing, etc, it was heated. Well, when the woman asked for Scott’s name, he said, “Dave!”

Dave got back to the office that day, and the PM is laying into him about how he was speaking to this customer. He’s shouting back at her that he has no idea what she’s talking about, and she keeps insisting the woman said the carrier’s name was Dave. She checked the address, and it wasn’t on Dave’s route, so then she started yelling at him about why he was so far from his route (this was before the GPS-enabled scanners). All the while, Scott is laughing his ass off in the break room listening to all of it until they realized and started yelling at him, haha.

Last one (again, not my story, but another from an old timer): Back in the 80s/90s, the post office was a different beast: no GPS tracking, no cell phones, if management wanted to observe you work outside the office, they had to either find you or ride along with you. Because of that, carriers used to do all kinds of stuff back in the day that you can’t now (like everyone finishing their routes by 11 am, and then all going to the bar until 3 before heading back to the office).

Well, this one carrier had one of the “rough” routes in his city, but he was always treated well because he brought the government checks every month. Well, his customers knew when their checks arrived every month, so on that day, he’d park at a bar at the end of this long street, and just drink his beer while the customers came through and got their checks. When everyone from that end of the road had come through, he’d drive to the bar at the opposite end of the road and repeat, since everyone had just watched him drive by. And they’d all cycle through, all while he sat on a stool, drinking his beer, and making his bread for the day.

Using someone’s preferred pronouns is a sign of mutual respect, your refusal to do so is a sign of disrespect to those around you. It’s really that simple, bud.

Do you call people Johnny when they tell you their name is John? It’s literally the same thing, they’ve explained how they’d like to be addressed, and deviating from that uninvited is just rude.

I get that they matter a lot to some people, and of course it’s super annoying (if not worse) to be referred to in the wrong way

It’s dehumanizing and disrespectful, it’s not annoying. I’ve had family members refuse to use an individual’s pronouns, but in a heartbeat correct themselves for referring to a pet by the wrong pronoun. I’ve had people go out of their way to call me “man, guy, dude, bruh” when I’m fem presenting, and I’m the only woman they’re speaking to that way while I get the “I talk like that with everyone, bruh,” excuse.

and if one group of people can try to force a change they prefer, I’m as much in my right to resist it if I don’t like it.

Correct, but then you don’t get to complain, like you are, that people get upset with you about it. You’re not free from the consequences of those around you simply because you have the right to feel differently on something like basic human respect for your fellow people.

I don’t get to complain that no one wants to have dinner with me just because they don’t like me taking food off their plates, even though I don’t agree with that societal norm.