When the first resort is to using crude reference to sexual intercourse then usually there is little wisdom present or forthcoming.

One is supposed to ignore, exclude, and not interact with persons of ambiguous gender? Stay away from such persons.

Tough one to decode. That's all I get from the OP.

Obviously, there is a wealth of context absent, and presumably the instruction is not to anyone engaged in customer service. But who knows.

Because one should interact with persons of ambiguous gender, any differently than one interacts with someone of known gender ... even in customer service.

you would any other human being. why would you need to know, why would you even think of excluding someone unless you knew?

or risk getting in trouble with our boss. I would generally work around them by calling them by their first name, which is actually very much against the rules. But at least offense can be avoided. And that's the whole issue. Saying it's not our fucking business is true, but to say it that way implies that we want to know for some reason other than to simply know how to address them respectfully.

Also, it blows my mind how few people never think to use they , them, or whatever neutral pronouns instead of him and her.
I am sure if you put your heads together, you can find a solution.

know what their gender is. NOT ignore them.

someone's gender in order to interact with them".

The OP is pretty clear, not sure why you think ignoring people is a good option.

some say 2, 3, 6

someone puts their hand on my leg... or I would like to put mine on theirs.....or similar. I do not like pda much by anyone btw.

Welcome to DU.

but people seem to want to know about gender pretty much no matter what, even when sexual compatibility is not remotely in the picture.

understanding is seldom complete, but looking at things from a differing viewpoint might help in communicating. might

to be comfortable with physical affection, just why is it that you need to know their gender?

geez, what a nosy person you are.

I asked why it mattered. That is no more personal than the scenario you set up.

and if are attracted to them, and know them well enough to be engaging in gestures of physical affection, what difference does it make?

Presumably the topic has either already come up - or you got to the point of being attracted to them in a physical way without knowing. In the former, you know. In the later, it obviously didn't get in the way of being attracted to them.

it's literally the first thing people want to know about a person.

"jane just had a baby!"
"wow, boy or girl?"

part of the problem is that english doesn't have third person singular pronouns except for inanimate objects ("it&quot , but the obsession with knowing everyone's gender happens everywhere, even where the language does have such pronouns.


people just find a need to keep things simple, and it helps to put everything and everyone in a box of some sort. personally, i find complex and ambiguous situations fascinating, but i'm a freakazoid in that respect.

but I don't mind answer of boy or girl. A generalization is ok for me.

I don't know the thread/reason that you don't want to mention...

But real life many years ago I ran a small auto repair shop. The customers name, clothing etc...all were non gender specific.

Believe me I didn't care for any real reason other than I could not tell.\\

And frankly I think it was a game for the person to split the line. They did it very well.

No offense just had a laugh remembering...

Yep-you nailed it...

Maybe one of the writers of SNL had met this person. I think this was after that sketch but it was 1996-97 that I worked there...

I didn't mention the name-too stereotypical to be true but there you are...

BTW-Even the shoes...Shoes tell a lot. And I could not get a clue even there...

Edit to add a sad detail...
This person was not playing a game. I had to replace 4 tires that had been slashed due to them being an outcast in the neighborhood they lived in. I do remember they remarked it for being who they were. I totally got it-that they were crossing genders was fairly obvious. But which direction was not.

But definitely not a game for the person & I should not have put it that way earlier. It was a long time ago & that detail was forgotten till after I had typed.

I was about to chime in and remind you of how painful it is to be gender nonconforming (or to try to live in (often not very convincing) drag 24-7). It is painful enough that a substantial minority (if not a majority) of trans* individuals attempt suicide - and trans* women who dare live the gender they identify with are often the targets of rape, murder, and other acts of violence (particularly if they are trans* women of color). Or perhaps just lesser acts of violence - like having their tires slashed.

politely ask their preference.

asking a question implies something

Guess, and be wrong or, drop pronouns entirely.

Honestly, the latter is what I usually do. That seems to work well enough.

a couple months ago in a grocery store and used a incorrect pronoun. I apologized enough to not make it a big deal... and I think it was taken that way. I do not think either of us wanted this to be a drama moment. Just an error. My fault I guess, but not a critical error to either of us. Or so it seemed.

I was unloading a truck, driver and I had been talking for a while. Couldn't figure out whether man or woman. Couldn't read name on bill.

Horrors for me. He just had to ask for restroom. What to do? Gave him directions to both. He came back and said "I'm a man!" Because then he knew, I couldn't tell. I felt so bad.

I may be attracted to them?

Your one size shoe fits all is STUPID!

That's a weird idea.

I could see finding an ambiguous face attractive. But if it turns out that their genital area is not the type that appeals to me, no, I would not want to date them. An attractive face and personality is not enough. It is not exactly uncommon to have strong preferences as to which body parts one likes to play with and what one likes to do with them.

How dare you tell me I am "weird"...Or what my preference in partners is "weird".

I suspect you already have the directions of where you need to go.

You would seriously stop and say - wait, let me turn off my attraction because I can't be attracted to you because you are the wrong gender?

It's not a matter of "turning off attraction" but rather recognizing that other things that are important to you are missing, and so you wouldn't want to engage in a certain type of relationship. Heck, you can be initially attracted to someone, and then choose not to date them because they're Republican!

People aren't obligated to tell you their gender even if they appear ambiguous, and they also aren't obligated by any means to tell you what anatomy they have, and your question suggests to me that you're mainly wondering that.

Don't know how many times I have told her that he USED to have balls

...that cats are girls and dogs are boys.

TYY

When a contact person has a gender neutral sounding first name and you can't find any pictures or bios on the internet, and yet you want to address correspondence to them. The whole "Mr." vs. "Ms." thing becomes a leap of faith.

If you honestly can't tell, I guarantee you're not the first to be in that position, and I bet the subject is used to it and won't be offended by an honest request for information, if it's in fact needed for form completion.

Call me naive.

I guess I can call the recipient's office to inquire as to the gender, but that in and of itself is extremely awkward.

I suppose you can just go the whole informal route. "Dear Jamie..."

But if the content of the letter isn't informal itself, that also gets a bit awkard.

Incidentally, I've heard twice that that's how I got my job, because I bothered to research the HR person's name and addressed a specific letter to him or her...

If you have to address someone and the context really doesn't call for a first name basis, you'll find yourself in quite a conundrum.

conversation, but in call center customer service it's always a nervous moment when we answer the phone and we can't tell by the voice, and the customer on top of that has a name that doesn't tell us the gender. I would use the first name even though it's against the rules. There was no other way to avoid the risk of offending.

But I'll say again, the statement that it's none of our fucking business is kind of an insult to people who are only trying to do their jobs in a respectful manner.

on 2nd look u realize its a she. I deal with a lot of people every day in fast moving situations and have called several she's, he . VERY embarrassing.

if I don't have a name and don't know what pronouns to use. It's happened to me before.

It can be awkward, especially if the caller (quite understandably) takes offense.

Is how I answer phones when I'm working. Not 100% foolproof, but it takes a lot of the guesswork out of the equation.

Many LGBT business owners instruct staff to use this as a device to keep insults to transgender or transsexual clients to a minimum.

I don't doubt that you're able to pull it off successfully, but it has sounded forced and insincere 100% of the time that I've encountered it.

I tend to prefer something along the lines of "may I ask your name, please?" or "may I confirm your name for the phone record, please?" IMO these come across as less stilted or artificial, and they accomplish the same thing.

YMMV, of course!

I've called a number of places that use that salutation, and it has never seemed genuine.

At best, it has seemed like an empty affectation. At worst, it has seemed patronizing and perfunctory.

Don't use it if you don't want to.

I had to duke it out with AT&T over a bililng issue yesterday, and they started the call by asking "with whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?"

Alas, their artificial and, ultimately, insincere salutation was promptly eclipsed by the overall content of the call.

It was years ago, and I don't remember if he called me or if I was transferred to him, but I thought he was a woman. I think I said, "Yes ma'am" at one point accidentally, forgetting that the counter-tenor voice might belong to either gender. And that was after trying to avoid using any pronouns in reference to him.

Your advice, while having a certain amusing snarkiness, is only worthwhile if the person questioning is butting in uninvited, (i.e. Bob Seeger's Turn the Page "it's that same old cliche, is that a woman or a man&quot
Some of us exist in the real world. How about a pragmatic approach to the situation in which you are interacting with someone you cannot identify the gender?
Actual advice
For airport screeners, this must be a fairly common conundrum.
As far as people claiming there are 50+ genders. That's incorrect. There are, barring errors in genetics, only two genders for humans XX and XY. Everything else is gender identity.

if there are three, she is a female.

(Note: This only works for cats. )

I was in a situation a few weeks ago when i was having a conversation at the grocery store with the clerk and another person came up and asked something of the clerk.

I forget what it was but, I said "You can let him" go ahead of me but it didn't come out that way I stumbled as I really looked and said him then her because from what I could see the person was a female but I assumed gay from her clothing and hairstyle. Anyway it was an awkward situation.

Just motion and maybe murmur a bit and no one will have any complaints!
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It was a spur of the moment thing,caught me off guard didn't know what to say. The clerk was talking and it was what it was..

and just addressing them as whatever name you give them.

And if they scream, "MIND YOU OWN FUCKING BUSINESS", I will SMH and walk away, never to meet them again.

people who have a natural curiosity about my fellow human beings, which involves knowing someone's name, the origin of the name, age, gender, where the person lives, his occupation, his family, etc.

No ulterior motive besides being curious.

If someone wants to be offended by my curiosity well...I guess it's going to happen.

If an offended person can't let me know I've offended him without screaming, "MIND YOUR OWN FUCKING BUSINESS!!!" (instead of a more civil, "I'd rather not say, if you don't mind&quot then I guess he's someone I don't want to waste my time on anyway.

So yeah, like you, I shake my head and walk away from someone who can't understand that lots of people are just naturally curious and prefer to see others as real, interesting human beings instead of nameless, faceless, genderless "Its".

How am I going to know whether to engage in oppression and rape culture if I don't know the sex of the person I'm talking to?