One offs with randos I'd brush off, but if I had to work with some prick who's repeatedly calling me "sweetheart" after I asked them to stop you better believe I'd lose my shit, intent be damned.
What's complicated? I'm merely assuming you're the most statistically likely sex. It's very simple for me specifically and I'm just being nice.
Yeah, and the people that work with you rarely refer to you by pronouns and when they do, you probably aren't even there? Like, "Where'd Mysterious go? [pronoun] went to the bathroom." The time that pronouns mainly come into play in a group setting (work, friends, family) is telling stories of something that happened for those that weren't present.
Sure thing buddy. If you saw someone with their back turned and couldn't tell the sex, you wouldn't even attempt using like a "sir" or "ma'am" and you'd just say "excuse me". No one is assuming woman or man based on stats ever, that's not a thing.
-No, because the sentence was muddy and hard to understand by your own admission.
-You're not expected to just know. If you get it wrong, it's an honest mistake and they'll correct you.
-I am unsurprised that you think something that doesn't directly effect you cannot possibly be a problem.
-If you use the wrong one, then you're misgendering by definition.
-No it wasn't. I just said there was a John and Jane and then they went to the store. Nobody would misunderstand that. I just said that if John or Jane are referred to as they, that could make that line misunderstood.
-People are going to get it wrong a lot because that's how brains work, you focus on high priority things and just sorta autopilot the other things. It's like that one video of people passing a ball around and your have to count the passes and most people don't notice the person in the ape suit that walks by.
-Why most pronouns be gender-based vs sex-based?
-Not if you're basing it on sex vs gender.
Yes, I do understand its a joke
You DO NOT understand its a joke.
Otherwise you wouldn't be going on like this. The only way any of this ma'am/ they/ syntax stuff is a problem AT ALL is if you think there is going to be any serious repercussions from using the wrong word
(Well, I hope this is about serious repercussions. I HOPE you aren't doing all this because you are frighten of someone disagreeing with you about who's what gender.)
Lastly, have you ever heard about the term 'coming out of the closet.' And that the people 'in the closet' are there specifically because they were being cancelled? Like, lose friends, fired from jobs, thrown out of families. You're one example of Sacco - blow that up about x5 as much damage and then make sure it covers a whole demographic. Yes, we know cancel culture exists. It's been going on constantly for centuries. Pretending Rowling and Chappelle are seriously cancelled like a lot of people are today is such cognitive dissonance, particularly when they are advocating for it.
Yes I do and it's funny because of the ring of truth it has like you can't just identify as some ethnicity without being one.
I don't personally care about repercussions, I just find it dumb and pointless.
Do you think I only dislike cancel culture when it comes for me? Because that isn't true. There's a transgender women in our board game group and one of the old guys (like 70) asked me what's up with so-and-so and I'm like "nothing" cuz she's just a person like everyone else.
You also haven't mentioned how you'd resolve the whole "two people with the same pronouns but only one went to the store" dilemma, and why that wouldn't work for the singular they
It's not a meaningful problem, is it?
You're essentially complaining about a situation where a pronoun may relate to two things, therefore using the pronoun causes ambiguity. And yet this already happens routinely, even without having to magic up a scenario where a person decides to refer to themselves with the pronoun "they". So what the hell is the problem? Deal with it the same way you will already have dealt with it many thousands of times in your lifetime already: use a more precise identifier as necessary.
The english language has issues, that doesn't mean you just keep adding issues that really aren't needed. If some story that involved 2 black cats, you'd have to specify more details about which one you're talking about too. Like I said above, your brain does this stuff on autopilot and constantly having to consider pronouns every time just ain't gonna happen.