If one is attending a gay pride rally, an LGBT conference, or other such event, then certainly there’s a high likelihood that one will interact with people who identify as trans/non-gender-specific, etc., but in everyday interaction (supermarket, gas station, airport, etc.), close to 99% of the time, someone who looks male will be male and someone who looks female will be female.
In the latter case, isn’t it simply the practical thing to assume someone’s gender? It would be impossible for society to say *“A person-who-looks-male-but-may-or-may-not-be-male just walked by carrying a briefcase” *as opposed to “A man just walked by carrying a briefcase.”
I am not being sarcastic (OK, in all honesty, perhaps I am a little bit,) but what is the alternative that the “Did you just assume my gender?” folks are suggesting? That in every single daily interaction, we should have to do a short interview or Q&A to determine what gender someone identifies as, before using any pronouns?
When interacting with strangers in retail or other routine ways, when does their gender change any of the ways you interact? If you’re talking to someone, you say “can you ring this up”, not “can he/she/they ring this up”. Occasionally you might be talking to the manager about the cashier, or something like that, but even then it’s very easy to say “the cashier said it was $4”, not “he/she/they said it was $4”.
In 99% of cases or more, you don’t have to assume gender. It’s simply not relevant to any of your interactions.
Of course. I don’t think anyone is actually opposed to that. The question is what you do after your assumption has been proven wrong, when you are told by the person in question or someone who knows them what their gender really is. Then you’re an asshole if you decide that they’re wrong anyway.
I’ve always found the ‘did you just assume my gender’ thing to be something that comes up online, the rare times it comes up in person it’s an individual trying really hard to be offended. In my social circles, there’s generally at least a 50-50 shot of encountering someone with non-standard gender at any particular event (and near 100% at large parties), but essentially no one has a problem with ‘use the pronouns that match what they’re presenting, switch if the person corrects you, ask if you can’t tell’.
I wouldn’t put it at not-having-to-assume-gender in 99% of cases. Maybe something like 40-60%, but the times we have to use gender would be a lot more than less-than-1%.
Can you go through an entire day without ever using the words “he,” “she,” “his,” “her,” “son,” “daughter,” “brother,” “sister,” “aunt,” “uncle” “waiter,” “waitress”?" Many people would probably flub up even if there was a big monetary prize on the line to beat that challenge.
*
“Dr. Smith has two children that look-like-boys-but-may-or-not-be-boys, so may-or-may-not-be-sons.”*
The avoidance of gender terms/words would bog down societal dialogue impossibly.
The vast majority of the time I use gendered words, it’s for people I already know, or for public figures with public gender identities. If you think about it, I think you’ll find it’s the same for you and most others.
Can you give me an example of a very common, routine interaction in which you would use a gendered word with someone you didn’t know?
When I use to bus/host/wait at a fairly ritzy restaurant, my manager required that we greet every guest (not customer or patron, always guest) with good afternoon sir/miss how may I blah blah blah for you today?
Same with answering questions, “yes sir”, “absolutely ma’am”, “and for the lady?”. All the waiters wore suits, and the whole atmosphere was very posh.
Can’t say I ever ran into any trouble with assuming someone’s gender though.
I have literally not once seen anything along the lines of “did you just assume my gender?” as anything but a joke at the expense of “overly offended tumblrinas” (whom I have never seen use the statement in anything but an ironic manner). Because it’s an asshole thing to say.
There’s a Tracy-Hepburn movie from 1957 called Desk Set (I recommend it as one of their best comedies, by the way). Early on, he is interviewing her and asks this question: “Often when we meet someone for the first time, some physical characteristic strikes us. What is the first thing you notice in a person?” We get the sense that perhaps he’s trying to get her to reveal some unconscious bias (e.g. the first thing noticed would be if they are white or not) or something else about her personality. Her answer: “Whether the person is male or female.” This answer, in the context of the time, completely defuses any possibly negative implications about her personality or character, since it seems perfectly neutral.
Nowadays, not so much. You’d have to change the answer to “Whether the person seems male or female.”
Anyway, I agree with Pantastic’s answer, as long as you are open to being corrected, most of the time you can assume that appearances are not deceptive. If appearances are ambiguous, then it’s certainly safer using non-specific words, as long as you can.
p.s. to Velocity, like “actor,” “waiter” is generally now considered a unisex designation. The trend these days (having to do more with feminine equality rather than trans-gender issues) is to eschew job titles that are specialized for women with the “-ress” ending or anything similar.
Assuming gender doesn’t have to be about 1-on-1 interaction.
If I am riding in a car with a family member, and I comment, “Watch out for that guy in the left lane, he’s driving erratically,” I’ve just assumed that driver’s gender.
It also is not just about low-level civilian interaction. Everyday the police release information about wanted fugitives/suspects - “male, 38 years old, last seen driving blue Jeep,” etc. In the medical profession you have to take gender into account. In numerous industries, gender is an issue. Curves only allows female patrons. At some point you have to assume gender.
The idea of people going around saying “did you just assume my gender?” is a shitty meme that may have some tiny, tiny basis in reality, but it is so far from that that it’s basically a strawman. I’ve never seen it outside of a context of making fun of those “SJWs” or whatever term they want to use.
In reality, if someone presents in a gender-typical fashion, it is indeed practical to, when necessary, refer to them by the gender they are presenting. The assumption is that genderqueer individuals rarely go all out one way or the other. And, if they do, they understand there may be confusion, and accept it while clarifying when they get a chance.
However, if someone is androgynous, either showing no markers or mixing markers, then there’s nothing wrong with just using singular “they,” rather than bothering to guess.
(I will say that insisting on atypical pronouns is a big much, and you’d better be prepared for people who have been told about them to slip up. Heck, people may just use he or she reflexively without actually judging your gender, just because it’s how their brain works. I know I tend to use “she” for not-clearly-male.)
ETA: a lot of posts appeared while I was typing. As usual.
Agreed in many cases. But not all.
It was not that many years ago that “fireman” and “policeman” were the standard terms. Then it became “firefighter” & “police officer”. Society did not crumble. Despite the whining of many traditionalists at the time. Now “fireman” sounds downright archaic to me.
OTOH, there is room for humor in this. My wife, quite the fierce creature, took some exception back in the 1980s to replacing “mailman” with “mail carrier”. She said they did a half-assed job of it and USPS should properly say things like “The person-person will deliver your daily person into your person-box.” We still use “person-box” as an in-joke once in awhile.
In contrast, the one time it *is * IMO useful to use gender- (or race- or whatever-) specific pronouns and adjectives is when talking to one stranger about another. e.g. you’re explaining to a store manager how your interaction with two of the clerks went awry. Being able to describe the clerks as male / female, black / Asian, tall / short etc. are all ways to identify who specifically you’re talking about when you don’t know names.
It’s *not *an assertion that their height or age or whatever was relevant to the interaction. But it *is *relevant to their identification. The problem comes in when either prejudiced jerks on one side or offenderati on the other choose to make these differences relevant to the interaction.
Every bit of social change from the days of Neanderthals Og & Grog has involved some degree of casting out babies with bathwater. The goal is to keep the ratio of gain to loss high enough.
IMO we certainly have room to reduce our use of gendered pronouns. But I’d hate for an angry 0.5% to hold the other 99.5% to ransom over it.
Yes, but that person wasn’t present. Who cares if you make a wrong assumption about someone who isn’t there? You can’t hurt someone who isn’t present.
This is entirely different than your OP – this is about law enforcement assuming something based on appearance. Perhaps that’s worth discussing, but that has nothing to do with how we act day-to-day. If you witness a crime and the police ask you to describe the perp, you can say “they were dressed like a man and had a deep voice”. Or say it was a man. But that’s a pretty damn rare scenario to worry about.
In this field, personal questions are entirely normal and expected. Patients fill out forms with boxes marked “male” and “female” and check off one.
Perhaps very, very occasionally, but so what? If you can’t ask, and have to assume, then sometimes you might get it wrong. No big deal, any more than seeing someone with the same hat as your brother and calling them by your brother’s name, only to find out it was the wrong person when they turn around. You just say “sorry” and move on.
If someone indicated what pronouns they would like to be used, I have no problem in accommodating them, its really none of my business. If I have a question, I’ll ask.
Well “fireman” was not fully accurate when employed, it also meant the guy putting coal into locomotives.
And “Police Officer” is fine and dandy in the U.S, but in other countries (such as mine) it would be inaccurate, where “officer” is specified for certain police ranks and not others.
I don’t really have any social interaction that happens repeatedly where I refer to someone in the third person, but there are myriad circumstances where that sort of thing could happen:
“Hey–I think she’s trying to get your attention.”
“Excuse me! When you see my waiter, would you ask him to bring me the check?”
“Man, she is ROCKIN that suit!”
“Did that dude just blow his nose on the tablecloth?”
“She’s waving you over, you can merge.”
“What an adorable baby! How old is he?”
Gendered pronouns are, for now, part of the language. Yes, people misgender others. Happened to me a lot as a teenager. If folks do it deliberately, they’re being assholes. If folks make a big old stink out of being corrected, they’re jerks. But if folks make an honest mistake and accept correction, I can’t get worked up over it.
And as BigT said, I’ve never seen that phrase used unironically, not among my trans friends or among my cis friends.
Whatever the local terminology for law enforcement personnel or any other job, there can be both gender-specific and gender-neutral terms for them. Which sort any given society chooses to use or why is up to them. e.g. “Constable” in the UK.
We still use “person-box” as an in-joke once in awhile.