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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: January 3rd, 2026

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  • As a foreigner whose native tongue has gendered nouns and adjectives: we default to sir to sir-presenting people, ma’am to ma’am presenting, and "sir? ma’am? " when unsure and clarification is needed.

    I do not understand why you’d want to preemptively force gender someone by choosing a neutral/or newspeak/ form of address - to me it seems much much much worse than defaulting to asking for preference (“sir? ma’am?” option is the best - it declares you’ve noticed the interlocutor is a nb and passes the ball to them).

    If you’re looking for 1 word that would always work, I recommend embracing your inner old British Lady and calling everyone pet (petal), dear or love. :-)