I don’t know whether I’ve ever met a transgender or non-binary gender person, because I regard a person’s gender identity to be of no concern to me. I treat everyone equally. ...
Treating everyone the same can be disrespectful. When a person chooses to keep their gender identity private, then it is no business of anyone else’s. But when a person chooses to make their gender identity public, or to reveal it to you, that is when it becomes disrespectful to treat them as if you didn’t know, or to treat them the same as you would treat anyone else.
This applies to people you meet in real life, and to public figures you may happen to discuss on a chat board. Though honestly not knowing who the person is, or which pronouns they prefer, is an excuse.
Transgender people especially have to deal with bigoted assholes insisting that their gender is the one associated with the genitals they were born with. This is one reason why insisting on using other pronouns can be so hurtful. If here were no bigotry, no violence against non conforming people, no national campaigns to take away their rights, then it’s likely that nobody would care that much about a few people insisting on using anachronistic grammatical conventions.
But what if I think that the best man for a job is often a woman? Or a transgender person? Or a person of non-binary gender? Or if I don’t assume that because a person is male that he’s dominating and aggressive? Or if I don’t assume that because a person is female that she’s caring and nurturing? That’s what I mean by treating everyone equally. I don’t ascribe gender identifiers onto people.
And what if I’m quite happy to use the preferred pronoun provided it’s ‘he’ or ‘she,’ if the person is transgender? And what if I refuse to use any pronoun if the preferred pronoun is ‘they?’ There are ways of getting around having to use pronouns.
I only referred to the comedian Rhea Butcher because someone else noted that ‘Rhea’ is ambiguous as to gender, and asked which pronoun I’d use, with gender not being readily identifiable. I had to look at the Wikipedia page to inform myself. Rhea’s brand of comedy is not to my taste (I prefer Billy Connelly until, alas, his heath deteriorated). Just to be provocative to my critics (but not to Rhea Butcher), I deliberately used the ‘wrong’ 3rd person singular pronoun. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have referred to Rhea. Or only did a superficial reading, and used ‘she’ as a result of ignorance. I wish I hadn’t done what I did.
There are greater problems than the choice of 3rd person singular pronouns. Do you address people with Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms or Mz (or variations thereof if the person is of non-binary gender)? And how do you decide? Do you need to ask the person beforehand? I suppose if the person has a definite preference, then I’d be told - and I’d use that one. I don’t have any objection to using Mr, Mrs, Miss, Ms or Mz as requested by the person. But nowadays, the situation doesn’t arise for me. Perhaps decades ago when I was in clinical medicine i might have offended someone with the wrong one.
