Since the overwhelming majority of people just accept and identify as their birth gender, and the overwhelming majority of trans people do so with the opposite gender, it's not reasonable to expect people to stop saying he and she.
It IS reasonable to ask people to be respectful, even if it feels a bit silly at times and that includes with pronouns.
For sure on the second thing (the first thing I didn't know people's feelings on of course, which is why I asked), and I'm not in the habit of misgendering people. I don't even do that to people I can't stand.
I admit that I went from saying "LGBT" to "LGBTQ" to going back to "LGBT", which is what I say currently and which hopefully is adequate. So I wrote the above about "he and she" because I wondered if something similar might happen to that phrase as what happened to that acronym encompassing the gay community, lesbian, bi, trans, either questioning or queer (I've been told it's both at different times by different people), asexual people, and I actually realized in the middle of typing this that I had no idea whatsoever what the "I" stood for in the current form and had to look it up. Turns out that it's "intersex."
So, on the one hand, I get not wanting to exclude people. But on the other, when letters keep getting added it gets to be a mouthful--as I said about "she and he" and what I thought it might turn into sooner or later, the kind of thing where eventually you might need to take a breath before finishing. I once heard someone call everyone under that umbrella "the alphabet community", which is certainly not a sensitive way of putting it...but at this point the acronym does include over 1/4 of the entire alphabet, so I get why people might go "Oh, fuck this," and why I went "All right, forget these three extra letters."
I think that if things started out with it being seven letters and stayed that way then fewer people would be annoyed by it. Sure, there would be a period of adjustment where people would be like "I used to just be able to say 'gay' and now it's all these letters, wtf?" but they'd get used to it like they did with plain ol' "LGBT."
But instead, what happened (if I'm not mistaken, and I might not have this timeline exactly right, so let me know if I don't, like if two letters got added at the same time) was that it started with four letters, and people made the adjustment to saying that. And then they added the Q, so people had to adjust again. And then later still, after that adjustment was made, they added the I, so people had to adjust once more, and then the A, meaning another adjustment, and who knows if there'll be more?
Adding one letter is just a slight pain in the ass, and not a big deal IMHO. But a series of slight pains in the ass can add up.
Since the overwhelming majority of people just accept and identify as their birth gender, and the overwhelming majority of trans people do so with the opposite gender, it's not reasonable to expect people to stop saying he and she.
It IS reasonable to ask people to be respectful, even if it feels a bit silly at times and that includes with pronouns.
For sure on the second thing (the first thing I didn't know people's feelings on of course, which is why I asked), and I'm not in the habit of misgendering people. I don't even do that to people I can't stand.
I admit that I went from saying "LGBT" to "LGBTQ" to going back to "LGBT", which is what I say currently and which hopefully is adequate. So I wrote the above about "he and she" because I wondered if something similar might happen to that phrase as what happened to that acronym encompassing the gay community, lesbian, bi, trans, either questioning or queer (I've been told it's both at different times by different people), asexual people, and I actually realized in the middle of typing this that I had no idea whatsoever what the "I" stood for in the current form and had to look it up. Turns out that it's "intersex."
So, on the one hand, I get not wanting to exclude people. But on the other, when letters keep getting added it gets to be a mouthful--as I said about "she and he" and what I thought it might turn into sooner or later, the kind of thing where eventually you might need to take a breath before finishing. I once heard someone call everyone under that umbrella "the alphabet community", which is certainly not a sensitive way of putting it...but at this point the acronym does include over 1/4 of the entire alphabet, so I get why people might go "Oh, fuck this," and why I went "All right, forget these three extra letters."
I think that if things started out with it being seven letters and stayed that way then fewer people would be annoyed by it. Sure, there would be a period of adjustment where people would be like "I used to just be able to say 'gay' and now it's all these letters, wtf?" but they'd get used to it like they did with plain ol' "LGBT."
But instead, what happened (if I'm not mistaken, and I might not have this timeline exactly right, so let me know if I don't, like if two letters got added at the same time) was that it started with four letters, and people made the adjustment to saying that. And then they added the Q, so people had to adjust again. And then later still, after that adjustment was made, they added the I, so people had to adjust once more, and then the A, meaning another adjustment, and who knows if there'll be more?
Adding one letter is just a slight pain in the ass, and not a big deal IMHO. But a series of slight pains in the ass can add up.