# Isn't "assuming \[someone's\] gender" simply the practical thing to do? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 4, 2017, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869 "2017-05-04T18:52:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/21 "2017-05-04T20:15:04Z")
I think the main issue right now is people who refuse to accept the gender that people identify as and appear to be. These people want to lock other people in at birth and force them to remain in that gender for life. It you saw a transman walking down the street who appeared to be a man and you described him as _“A man just walked by carrying a briefcase.”_ he wouldn’t have any problem with that. He identifies himself as a man and wants other people to identify him as a man. But some people can’t live with this. They want to identify this person as a woman, despite his appearance and self-identity, because he was a woman twenty years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Iggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iggy/32/3364_2.png) [@Iggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iggy)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/22 "2017-05-04T20:36:44Z")
My work in a 9-1-1 center has me deep into specifying gender when speaking about third parties all the time. As some noted, it is sometimes about getting a description of a suspect\*. In other occasions it is a medical issue and we have been given slightly different questions to ask or criteria for determining severity based in part on gender of the patient. In general gender is a useful thing to establish. The English language is replete with gendered pronouns and nouns. And while I do not want to offend anyone, sometimes I end up making assumptions about gender solely on the basis of the quality of a caller’s voice. And once gender is established I will ask if a female patient, in a certain age range, with abdominal pain is possibly pregnant. I will select the seriousness of a dispatch level for a chest pain call based upon different age ranges and gender of the patient. I will generally assume a robbery suspect who is described as not wearing a shirt is most likely male. And I will make particular note if a suspect is described as rather androgynous (had one of those and that descriptor helped officers pick out the person from a large crowd). So in short, in my line of work assuming the external gender appearance matches biological gender is indeed the practical thing to do. - Race is also a regular descriptor, and sometimes a more touchy matter. So questioning tends to start asking more neutral descriptors such as clothing description. Once that is covered and we make clear we are asking for the caller to verbally paint a picture of the suspect then we get down to race and skin tone. And in more than ten years of doing this I have never encountered a caller who expressed offense at describing a suspect in this way. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/23 "2017-05-04T21:06:58Z")
> [@Iggy](#): > > My work in a 9-1-1 center has me deep into specifying gender when speaking about third parties all the time. As some noted, it is sometimes about getting a description of a suspect\*. In other occasions it is a medical issue and we have been given slightly different questions to ask or criteria for determining severity based in part on gender of the patient. > > In general gender is a useful thing to establish. The English language is replete with gendered pronouns and nouns. And while I do not want to offend anyone, sometimes I end up making assumptions about gender solely on the basis of the quality of a caller’s voice. > > And once gender is established I will ask if a female patient, in a certain age range, with abdominal pain is possibly pregnant. I will select the seriousness of a dispatch level for a chest pain call based upon different age ranges and gender of the patient. I will generally assume a robbery suspect who is described as not wearing a shirt is most likely male. And I will make particular note if a suspect is described as rather androgynous (had one of those and that descriptor helped officers pick out the person from a large crowd). > > So in short, in my line of work assuming the external gender appearance matches biological gender is indeed the practical thing to do. > > - Race is also a regular descriptor, and sometimes a more touchy matter. So questioning tends to start asking more neutral descriptors such as clothing description. Once that is covered and we make clear we are asking for the caller to verbally paint a picture of the suspect then we get down to race and skin tone. And in more than ten years of doing this I have never encountered a caller who expressed offense at describing a suspect in this way. I think, in general, the direr or more urgent a situation is, the more practical or down-to-earth people are. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/24 "2017-05-04T21:24:24Z")
I have never had anyone accuse me of mis-gendering them. I have been corrected on many occasions, and the only time I keep falling down is with one individual who I knew when they were a young girl. This person now has a position at Yale and prefers a neutral pronoun. Xe is the only person I know who actually wants hir gender to remain neutral. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/25 "2017-05-04T21:25:38Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > I think, in general, the direr or more urgent a situation is, the more practical or down-to-earth people are. I think that in real life, almost nobody worries about misgendering someone. If you assume wrong and are corrected, you know which gender to use from that point forward. This has literally never been an issue for me in real life. So, in real life, people are practical and down to earth. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/26 "2017-05-04T21:32:27Z")
> [@DrFidelius](#): > > I have never had anyone accuse me of mis-gendering them. I have been corrected on many occasions, and the only time I keep falling down is with one individual who I knew when they were a young girl. This person now has a position at Yale and prefers a neutral pronoun. Xe is the only person I know who actually wants hir gender to remain neutral. A bit precious I’d say. How does this person choose to pronounce “xe” or “hir”? And if those words sound very much like you or I might pronounce “she” and “her” it seems this person utterly lacks the courage of their convictions. Their own private spelling for the same phonemes the rest of use for female persons? That’s the kind of BS that gives legitimate efforts at equality a bad name. IMO, Y/X/HMMV, etc. And I say that as somebody pretty far on the forefront of equality in every direction. ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/27 "2017-05-04T22:26:35Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > A bit precious I’d say. > > How does this person choose to pronounce “xe” or “hir”? And if those words sound very much like you or I might pronounce “she” and “her” it seems this person utterly lacks the courage of their convictions. > > Their own private spelling for the same phonemes the rest of use for female persons? That’s the kind of BS that gives legitimate efforts at equality a bad name. IMO, Y/X/HMMV, etc. > > And I say that as somebody pretty far on the forefront of equality in every direction. [Xe](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xe#English) is pronounced “zee”. [Hir](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hir#English) is is pronounced “hear”. Both have existed for quite a while and are among the more popular gender neutral pronouns. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/28 "2017-05-04T23:02:14Z")
I’ve been training myself to use gender-neutral pronouns for a while now. It’s not too difficult once you’re in the mental habit. To use some of the examples in this thread: Post 1: A person just walked by carrying a briefcase. Post 6: Dr. Smith has two children. Post 13: Watch out for that driver on the left, they’re driving erratically. Post 19: “Hey–I think they’re (or that person’s) trying to get your attention.” “Excuse me! When you see my waiter, would you ask them to bring me the check?” “Man, they are ROCKIN that suit!” “Did that person just blow their nose on the tablecloth?” “They’re waving you over, you can merge.” “What an adorable baby! How old are they?” Et cetera. It just involves copious use of the singular “they” and the word “person”. However, as stated above, if one is describing someone in an important situation, then man or woman or “I couldn’t really tell their gender” should be fine. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/29 "2017-05-04T23:05:18Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > [Xe](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/xe#English) is pronounced “zee”. > > [Hir](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hir#English) is is pronounced “hear”. > > Both have existed for quite a while and are among the more popular gender neutral pronouns. Cool. Thanks. ignorance fought. Not my circles I guess. ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/30 "2017-05-04T23:19:42Z")
This is the kind of thing Liberals worry about while at the same time wondering how Trump could possibly have been elected. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_White\_Dope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/22d042/32.png) [@Great\_White\_Dope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_White_Dope)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/31 "2017-05-04T23:28:38Z")
Let’s not normalize stupidity, please. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/32 "2017-05-04T23:30:21Z")
I’ve never encountered this, but I imagine most people would just accept that it’s a mistake and move on. I think we see it more online because it’s the idiots who are the loudest. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/33 "2017-05-04T23:59:21Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > This is the kind of thing Liberals worry about while at the same time wondering how Trump could possibly have been elected. No, it really isn’t. I’m pretty liberal, and my social circle includes a large number of trans people. While there are some non-binary people who find it frustrating that others tend to lump them into male or female, they don’t go around yelling at strangers about it or anything. > [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > 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. yup. Honestly, I make a lot of mistakes. And I get corrected. But no one has ever said to me “did you just assume my gender”. They just say “they” (or whatever ) when I use the wrong pronoun, and I repeat “they” in an apologetic tone, and continue on with whatever I was trying to say > [@BigT](#): > > … > 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… Yeah, anyone who clearly presents as one gender is unlikely to get bent out of shape if you assume that is their gender. The most you risk is that they will correct you. So long as you accept the correction with grace, you should do fine. I admit that I have taken to avoiding pronouns, though. Especially with anyone androgynous. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/34 "2017-05-05T00:09:28Z")
Speaking of mis-gendering, I was with a girlfriend once who, while 110% female, dressed like a male biker sometimes. We were standing at a liquor store counter once, and the counter-person (notice how I did that?) addressed her as “sir,” which annoyed her just a little. She noisily unzipped her black leather jacket, exposing the underlying anatomy quite sufficiently. Taken aback, the clerk blurted, “Oh, excuse me, Ma’am. I didn’t see your boobs!” ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/38 "2017-05-05T00:51:09Z")
You win the thread. Actually your ex-GF wins the thread. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/39 "2017-05-05T01:30:53Z")
The posters heretofore in this thread, and also the offenderati they are discussing, take it for granted and don’t know how glad they should be to be speaking English and not one of many other languages. English has eliminated most of its gendered words long (centuries?) ago. What gendered words remains are a fraction of what there used to be, and a drop in the bucket compared to many other languages. Note the infamous pronouns: It’s only the third person pronouns that are gendered. First person and second person pronouns are not – That’s why you have so little problem with gendered pronouns in person-to-person interactions, which are spoken in the first and second person. It’s the references to third persons that cause the problem – if it’s a problem to use gendered words to say that the driver in that other car is driving erratically. And note the gendered nouns, or lack thereof: In English there are only a scattered few, and those are being forcibly retired: Waiter/waitress --\> server; Steward/stewardess --\> flight attendant; flagman --\> flagger, etc. We still have host/hostess to deal with. Tigress, Jewess, Negress, aviatrix, baxter, seamster/seamstress – all those words are history. Contrast with other languages: A lot more pronouns are gendered, most commonly the second person pronouns. (I’m thinking of Hebrew here.) ALL nouns are arbitrarily gendered: table, chair, door, car, everything. Adjectives must match the gender of the noun (however arbitrary). VERBS must match the gender of the noun. (Even Spanish doesn’t gender-match the verbs.) Worse, those nouns that can exist in both masculine and feminine forms (typically, words for people or some animals) do exist in both forms, neither of them neuter, and you simply must know, or assume, which to use. There is no such thing as a “doctor”. There are only “he-doctors” and “she-doctors”. There is no such thing as a “teacher”. There are only “he-teachers” and “she-teachers”. There is no such thing as a “servant”. There are only “man-servants” and “maid-servants”. There is no such thing as a “donkey”. There are only “he-donkeys” and “she-donkeys”. When speaking of mixed groups in the plural, masculine nouns and pronouns are used, and matching adjectives and verbs. To some (usually great) extent, MANY (most?) languages are far more gendered than modern English. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/40 "2017-05-05T01:39:33Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > 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? It might help if you could first identify who these people are. I don’t believe I’ve ever encountered this sort of thing before, so I have no idea what the people saying it might want. A quick Google indicates that “Did you just assume my gender?” is a [meme](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/did-you-just-assume-my-gender) “used to mock the sensitivity of feminists, Social Justice Warriors, and the discussions going on in the LGBTQ community”, so it sounds like the sort of person who’d use this expression is probably actually all in favor of assuming gender. What I’ve been told by people who really are transgender or genderqueer is that when in doubt as to what pronouns, etc., to use then one should just ask, and that anyone with an ambiguous appearance probably deals with way too many stupid and insulting comments to be offended by a polite question. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/41 "2017-05-05T06:24:54Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > All true. Mostly irrelevant. > > 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. Well yes. But, strictly speaking “Constable” is not gender neutral, its male. I was a student in the U.K when they finally officially abolished the Women Police Constable title in full and many of the erstwhile WPC’s were livid, I knew one or two who would rip your throat out if you tried not to call them WPC. The problem is not gender or sexism. It’s the fact it’s become a race to the bottom to find a term which will offend the least people, an impossible task since we are humans, we can be offended by anything. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/42 "2017-05-05T10:57:42Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > What I’ve been told by people who really are transgender or genderqueer is that when in doubt as to what pronouns, etc., to use then one should just ask, and that anyone with an ambiguous appearance probably deals with way too many stupid and insulting comments to be offended by a polite question. I have a fairly soft voice, more so when I was younger, and I got misgendered on the phone a lot, as people called me “ma’am.” I vacillated between ignoring it and issuing a quick correction: “Sir, not ma’am,” I’d say. No reason at all to get fussed over it. ---
**Author:** ![RitterSport](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rittersport/32/6326_2.png) [@RitterSport](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RitterSport)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2017, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869/43 "2017-05-05T12:31:49Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > This is the kind of thing Liberals worry about while at the same time wondering how Trump could possibly have been elected. I have no idea how you got that from this thread. I’m sure you don’t know everyone’s political leanings here, but **Velocity** , the one who is worried about it, is no liberal. I’m very liberal and I don’t worry about this at all. **LHoD** is liberal, I believe, and doesn’t seem fussed. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/isnt-assuming-someones-gender-simply-the-practical-thing-to-do/785869.md?page=3)