Let’s say one of the “ladies” was actually a transwoman, and guys just hits wrong. They’ll likely mull it over and be hurt. Not what you wanted to do with a greeting.
yeah, yeah, it’s their issue, snowflake, whiny, looking for a reason to be hurt, whatever it is that masculinguists use this week, but social justice aside, this is manners. Don’t hurt folx.
There’s a rule in news reporting, and I see it applied in waves, that one’s ethnicity isn’t mentioned unless it matters. In a car crash, no ones ethnicity is listed, unless there’s a search for a hit and run, for example. Age, gender, residence. That’s on the report, and they are details that humanize. Sure, some surnames hint, but who took whose name in an inter-ethnic marriage? Sally Johnson (a Black woman) may have married David Rosenberg. Or Judith Rosenberg.
I have wondered for years, a decade as a reporter and editor, and the decade since, if this could apply to gender.
Ultimately I’ve fallen on more information is better, but wondered what it would do socially.
Use non gendered words when you can. Use the appropriate gender, and not in slang senses with people you don’t know.
Is my kiddo going to call me dude? Yeah. Will I call my non-binary AMAB kid dude? Yes. Is either misgendering? No.
But you never know how strangers will take it.
Want to be funny? “Have a great day, intrepid hikers!”
