If you want to include all genders, like I said, just don’t use gendered words. The word people exists along with many others that can be used. For pronouns, unless you like actually know the person, pretty much everyone is going to be okay with they/them. If you know the person, you should try to use the pronouns they actually want which shouldn’t be hard since you know a fairly limited number of people.
As for sports, if you think trans women participating in women’s sports or trans men participating in men’s sports is unfair, you do not understand the effects of HRT. End of story.
Yes, gender is an arbitrary thing with no inherent meaning. We assign meaning to it as a society, and the empathetic choice is to go along with the meaning that doesn’t make people horribly uncomfortable living their lives. (Or to just get rid of the concept entirely, but that’s a debate for another time and I’m not entirely sure which side of it I would be on)
If you claimed to be 100 years old that would be completely different. Numbers are a much much more concrete concept than gender, and redefining them would have far too high of a cost (and, almost everyone gets to experience a wide range of ages already, so the benefits would be negligible). I would like to point out, however, that every 100 year old was born at age 0. Who we are born as does not define who we will be. If I buy a kit to make a table, and use the pieces to build a chair instead, I have a chair. It doesn’t matter that it was expected to become a table. It is a chair.
If you want to include all genders, like I said, just don’t use gendered words. The word people exists along with many others that can be used. For pronouns, unless you like actually know the person, pretty much everyone is going to be okay with they/them. If you know the person, you should try to use the pronouns they actually want which shouldn’t be hard since you know a fairly limited number of people.
As for sports, if you think trans women participating in women’s sports or trans men participating in men’s sports is unfair, you do not understand the effects of HRT. End of story.
Yes, gender is an arbitrary thing with no inherent meaning. We assign meaning to it as a society, and the empathetic choice is to go along with the meaning that doesn’t make people horribly uncomfortable living their lives. (Or to just get rid of the concept entirely, but that’s a debate for another time and I’m not entirely sure which side of it I would be on)
If you claimed to be 100 years old that would be completely different. Numbers are a much much more concrete concept than gender, and redefining them would have far too high of a cost (and, almost everyone gets to experience a wide range of ages already, so the benefits would be negligible). I would like to point out, however, that every 100 year old was born at age 0. Who we are born as does not define who we will be. If I buy a kit to make a table, and use the pieces to build a chair instead, I have a chair. It doesn’t matter that it was expected to become a table. It is a chair.