My wife walked up to the server at our local cafe. The person was possibly transgender. She wanted to engage the individual but was frozen in fear that she might use a pronoun that might offend. Therein lies the problem with this language policing. It takes perfectly natural
social situations and in the quest to not offend an extraordinarily small minority (who of course deserve to live fully dignified lives like anyone else), everyone is walking on egg shelves. Fighting for a world free of bigotry does not imply that we must suppress perfectly
She wanted to say to the server's colleague, "he'll get the hang of it" (new server) but hesitated because of "he'll."
@GadSaad "The barista at Starbucks was at the counter making gender and I saw one of the genders and the gender looked at me!”
@GadSaad Sounds like your wife might have social anxiety of some sort, not sure why you need to deflect that onto groups of people who are just living their lives but it's an incredibly shitty thing to do!
@GadSaad things you can "safely" say to your gender-ambiguous server: "hello" "how are you?" "can i have a coffee with cream & sugar" "the leaves are beautiful out there" "those are great shoes" things not to say: "what up, theyfriend?" "can i see your genitals?"
@GadSaad it feels like she might need a bit more practice communicating with other humans?
@GadSaad Easy solution: You just don't care if you offend them. If they look like a radical lefty, don't engage them in anything beyond strict business. In fact, I'd just turn around and leave. I don't want my coffee coming with a shot of radical ideology.