# Appropriate Pronoun for a Drag Queen

**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/appropriate-pronoun-for-a-drag-queen/631965
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 19, 2012, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/appropriate-pronoun-for-a-drag-queen/631965 "2012-08-19T15:08:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 19

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### Author: ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)
#### Post date: [August 21, 2012, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/appropriate-pronoun-for-a-drag-queen/631965/19 "2012-08-21T15:35:24Z")

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> [@Kevbo](#):
>
> More recently I met someone VERY androgynous. I have met them twice, and I still am unsure on their biology and also unsure on which gender they are presenting. They have a weird name that doesn’t offer a clue. Weird enough I can’t remember it. Maybe I’ll make a note of it next time, and see if Google can offer a clue. And it is not just how to refer to them in the third person. In some languages and cultures it is formalized, but even in english, in America, there is a way you speak to a lady, and a slightly different way you speak to a man. Another really obvious one is how you shake their hand.

It is? I’m female (straight bio-female, in case anybody gives a hoot), and I shake hands with both men and women pretty much the same. Is this the thing where guys are traditionally taught to shake a woman’s hand more gently than a man’s so her rings won’t hurt her fingers? Or do men (or women, for that matter) expect a woman’s handshake to feel different from a man’s (besides the typical difference in average hand size)? I’ve never seen this discussed before, and I’d be interested to know what the differences are.

> [@Kevbo](#):
>
> I am straight, but try not to be narrow, and it makes me very uneasy not to know which gender someone is presenting. Hope this is close enough related not to be a hijack.

Sounds reasonable to me, and I quite agree it can be awkward not to know what set of gender pronouns or forms of address (e.g., “sir” vs. “ma’am”) to use for somebody. AFAICT, there’s nothing contrary to etiquette in discreetly asking a third party what gender the person in question identifies as, or even asking the person themselves if a situation comes up where you really can’t avoid a gendered reference.

Somebody who presents socially in a very non-gender-specific way needs to be prepared for other people sometimes guessing their gender wrong, and needs to correct them politely without making a big deal of it or making them feel bad about it.

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