Respectful term for nonbinary people and people of unknown gender?

[Scarlet Knight]

People, you're looking for an answer you already know, to a situation you've already had, with a problem solved 50 years ago.

When I was young and walked into a store with my long hair, the clerk might respectfully call me "Miss" and in the 70's when my sister walked in with short hair & wearing pants, she was addressed at times as "Sir".

Like any other mistake, you can then determine if it was an honest error and react as with all honest errors and either ignore or politely correct it. But don't expect people to greet you with a word that no one uses. The fact that no universal answer has come up on this thread means none exists.

Today I work alot on phones, and can't always tell gender. I do my best with the person's name or their voice, but soemtimes I get it wrong, apologize, then use what they requested, & most people are fine with that.

If at work and they get belligerent, I have to take it because "the customer is always right" - unless they get so bad that I can defend myself to my boss.

If not at work and they get belligerent, I know they're looking for a fight and have to decide whether to engage or not. If so, I won't use a respectful term and prefer the Italian ...

[Grey_Wolf_c]

a problem solved 50 years ago.

The fact that no universal answer has come up on this thread means none exists.

A problem can't both be solved and have no solution.

Also, I'm glad most fields don't take your approach to their problems. "You've got the plague, but 50 years ago we couldn't solve it, so there is nothing I can do"

Grey Wolf

[Themrys]

A problem can't both be solved and have no solution.

Also, I'm glad most fields don't take your approach to their problems. "You've got the plague, but 50 years ago we couldn't solve it, so there is nothing I can do"

Grey Wolf

We aren't talking about treating the plague here, though.

While, sure, we might be able to construct a portmanteau of madam and sir that doesn't sound stupid, there would be very, very, very limited use for this word in customer service.

The scientific progress we are talking about here isn't antibiotics, it is mind-reading. To know whether someone you have never met before identifies as non-binary, you have to read their mind.
Allegedly, progress is being made in that area, but if I am honest, I don't really want random cashiers to have a machine with which they read my mind, just so that they know which persons to call Mair or Sadam.


Alternatively, all nonbinary identified people could sign an agreement in which they promise to never, ever complain about customer service people not using respectful terms, and get a t-shirt that says "Just call me 'Hey you'" in return.
That seems the easiest way to solve that problem.

[Rynjin]

Have we considered just not saying anything?

Like, you can just say "Excuse me" and leave it at that. You don't have to call them sir or ma'am or anything, regardless of their preferred pronouns, cause 90% of the time if you're talking to someone they know you're talking to them so you don't have to constantly reiterate who they are to you.

"Hello" is just as polite as "hello sir", personally.

Real talk though, this has never failed me, and "Hey you" wasn't sarcastic either.

I worked retail and sales for a good while and don't think I ever directly referred to a customer's gender when addressing them. Came especially in handy working at Marbles, where we got a lot of androgynous/ambiguously gendered people just looking to play some board games.

"Hello", "Hey you want to play some Abalone?", etc., etc. works for everyone equally.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

The scientific progress we are talking about here isn't antibiotics, it is mind-reading.

No, it is merely coming up with a gender neutral term that can be used across the board. Literally the same problem as "is this woman married or not" solution, applied to everyone at once.

Grey Wolf

[veti]

Presumably you have a reason for addressing these people? That is, there's something about them that made you decide to include them in your mailshot or whatever it is?

Then that's your answer. Where I come from, it's pretty safe for a company to address its customers as "Dear Customer". A politician might use "Dear Voter". You in turn may call them "Dear Representative". Sales literature has the hardest job, and usually resolves it by dispensing with the formality, but I've seen "Dear Householder" used in this context.

All the best terms are gender neutral to begin with. After all, if the person's gender was really significant to your communication, you'd presumably already know it.

[Lord Raziere]

I'd imagine their name would be a good one to use. why not ask them?

[Themrys]

No, it is merely coming up with a gender neutral term that can be used across the board. Literally the same problem as "is this woman married or not" solution, applied to everyone at once.

Grey Wolf

With regard to the English language, married and unmarried women alike resented being adressed in a way that took into consideration whether they were married or not, so I suppose only few feel slighted by being adressed as Ms. (German just got rid of the extra word for unmarried women because it was a diminutive and clearly insulting, so there was zero problem there)

I do not share your optimism about the average person always having resented gendered forms of address and being glad to be rid of them even if that means having to get used to a word not previously used.

You might be able to get people to accept "sir" as neutral eventually if you start using it for women who don't mind one way or the other and slowly expand usage, but if you try to force people to accept it by just making it compulsory for customer service, expect complaints.

[Dire Moose]

I don’t really care as long as you don’t refer to me as the opposite of what I’m presenting as. Except “It.” I’m not an object.

[The Fury]

I'd imagine their name would be a good one to use. why not ask them?

That's what I generally default to. It's rare for me to learn that someone's non-bianary before learning their name.

[Themrys]

I don’t really care as long as you don’t refer to me as the opposite of what I’m presenting as. Except “It.” I’m not an object.

And how does one know what you are presenting as?

[Vinyadan]

German just got rid of the extra word for unmarried women because it was a diminutive and clearly insulting

[citation needed]

[Themrys]

[citation needed]

I find it insulting and know plenty people who do, too. You won't get anymore citation than that. Go ahead and find an essay by someone who misses being called Fräulein if you want to debate it.

[Ravens_cry]

I can confirm this. I used to chat in a flirty way with a native German speaker, and she directly informed me she didn't want to be called Fraulein. Liebling, however, was A-OK.👍
Anyway, as I said in the last page, gentle and gentles make good singular and plural substitutes for ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion.

[Scarlet Knight]

I can confirm this. I used to chat in a flirty way with a native German speaker, and she directly informed me she didn't want to be called Fraulein. Liebling, however, was A-OK.👍
Anyway, as I said in the last page, gentle and gentles make good singular and plural substitutes for ladies and gentlemen, in my opinion.

Is that similar to a woman who got angry at me because I called her "Ma'am" instead of "Miss" because she felt she wasn't old enough to be a "Ma'am"?

Alas "gentles" will not likely work outside of a Ren Faire.

A problem can't both be solved and have no solution.

Also, I'm glad most fields don't take your approach to their problems. "You've got the plague, but 50 years ago we couldn't solve it, so there is nothing I can do"

Grey Wolf

*calculates belligerence* I'm sorry, perhaps I should clarify. The problem of addressing people of unknown gender is something I've solved to my satisfaction 50 years ago. The problem likely existed even earlier, ever since the first bad phone connection was made. I believe we have all experienced something similar, used similar techniques and did well, solving the problem without a universal term.

The universal term is the non-existant solution I spoke of; one requested but that no one on this playground seems to be able to agree on. Thus it does not yet exist. It may in the future if enough people want it and agree on it. There are plenty of words that very few people will ever use.

Thus the problem has a solution, but the solution requested does not yet exist.

[Vinyadan]

I find it insulting and know plenty people who do, too. You won't get anymore citation than that. Go ahead and find an essay by someone who misses being called Fräulein if you want to debate it.

Why is it insulting? My experience was that it had simply been restricted to the familiar sphere (as in "Fräulein!" being the incipit when a parent was about to start a tirade), or used by "altmodische" country people, especially in dialectal forms (something like "Frollin".) Already knowing that its use has fallen out of fashion, I never tried using it on a girl.

[Aedilred]

Why is it insulting? My experience was that it had simply been restricted to the familiar sphere (as in "Fräulein!" being the incipit when a parent was about to start a tirade), or used by "altmodische" country people, especially in dialectal forms (something like "Frollin".) Already knowing that its use has fallen out of fashion, I never tried using it on a girl.

I can see how/why some women might find it insulting, particularly those of a feminist bent, but I would also be willing to wager that that sentiment is far from universally held. Admittedly, I don't know how the situation is in Germany, but with regard to the English equivalent, I have had a number of female friends who dislike "Ms" and insiste(d) on "Miss" (at least before they were married). While most tolerate "Ms", those who prefer "Ms" in all contexts have, in my experience, tended to be much older, and/or divorced.

[Themrys]

Is that similar to a woman who got angry at me because I called her "Ma'am" instead of "Miss" because she felt she wasn't old enough to be a "Ma'am"?

No. Fräulein is a diminutive. It essentially means "little woman". The ending -lein is also still used (for example, the affectionate diminutive of Schatz in the meaning of "darling" is either "Schätzchen" or "Schätzelein", apparently depending on which dialect someone speaks) so everyone in Germany is aware of this meaning.
Which is quite likely why it has fallen out of use so quickly and with less conflict than English managed to introduce "Ms" (of which I admittedly still don't know how to pronounce it)

To call an adult woman "Fräulein" is not implying that she is your elder and entitled to your respect (as with Ma'am), it implies, at best, that you don't take her seriously because she isn't married, and at worst, that you consider her to be a server in a restaurant. (The kind of person that used to be adressed as Frollein, which by now is considered rude even in that context). I strongy advise against using the word (unless asked to do so) if you are not a native speaker of German. The few contexts in which it would not be taken as insult are hard to determine if you aren't very familiar with how it was and is used.

I don't know about the etymology of "Miss", and to me as non-native speaker, it doesn't sound nearly as condescending as "Fräulein", so it may be that some women reject the "Ms", but if even that was a problem, it is easy to see how much resistance there would be against pushing gender neutral terms on everyone.

[Scarlet Knight]

Thank you ! In always equated "Frau" with "Misses" and "fraulein" with "Miss".

"Ms." is pronounced "mizz"; like "Miss" but slurred.

[Vinyadan]

@Themrys: just to put things in perspective, the reason why I put the [citation needed] was that there was no indication that you were from a German-speaking area, as I now assume you are, so I didn't know if you were speaking from experience or from something else. I wanted to make this clear, because retrospectively I realize that it can otherwise look needlessly irritating.

My impression until now had been that the word had simply fallen out of fashion because the marital status of a woman has ceased to mean anything, and because the definition of "married woman" in and of itself has become problematic.

From the "insulting" perspective, I guess that there is the unfortunate fact that, being the diminutive not of the word for "Mistress", but for "Woman", it assumes that, to be a full woman, one needs to be married or with child. This doesn't have any parallel in living languages I know*. Latin had a word (not used as a title), "muliercula", which could mean anything from little woman to prostitute to weasel.

*This is due to the evolution of the word. Like Italian "donna", Frau used to mean "Mistress" (in the non-sexual sense), not woman. (Italian Donna < Latin Domina "mistress"). However, Italian developed another form of address (signora < Lat. Senior), and Donna is now almost never used as a form of address. So, nowadays, donna = woman. In German, Frau used to mean Mistress (it was the feminine of frô, "Lord", which now only survives in some old nouns relative to religious or feudal customs). Later, this meaning shifted to mean "woman", but German, AFAIK, never created a new form of address.
And Frau also means "wife", as in other languages where the word for "woman" means "wife" (e.g. Spanish mujer).

[Themrys]

Yeah, I am a native speaker of German.

Sure, Fräulein fell out of fashion, but it did so because people considered it demeaning. Not necessarily just because of the diminutive and the fact men aren't considered lesser status when unmarried - there's also the fact that an unmarried woman used to be a woman who had to work low-wage jobs. (Isn't "maid" something like this?)

I once wrote an entire essay on why we now use "Frau" for "woman" while it previously meant "noblewoman".

If a big chunk of your society regularly talks in a demeaning way about the chunk of society they can afford to talk about like this (i.e. female adults, in this case), then the word normally used to describe that latter chunk takes on a demeaning meaning.

A man who wanted to show that, unlike other men, he respects women, would turn to the use of the word for noblewoman if talking to a not noble woman. Other men would follow, young boys would think that was the normal word for an adult person of the female sex, and use it that way. (There's a scene in Goethe's Faust where Faust tries to hit on a girl by calling her "Fräulein" despite her obviously being a commoner. I imagine that's how it started.)

So, "Weib", the previous word for a person of the female sex, fell out of use entirely and is now almost exclusively used as insult. The process was slow and natural, there was no change of law to make it so. But it would not have happened if the word had not taken on a negative meaning.

With "Fräulein", when women's marriage status actually affected their life, they logically had more important things to worry about than the word that was used to describe this undesirable situation.

(I don't think it is a coincidence Fräulein only started to be used for commoners when the difference between nobles and commoners wasn't so important anymore, too. Language follows reality. When nobles had actual power, they would not have allowed for commoners to just steal their titles. And a woman who would be forbidden from working as teacher if she was married won't be so stupid to ask people to call her "Frau" when she turns 30 and thinks she's old enough, thereby risking to lose her job over a misunderstanding.)

[halfeye]

Yeah, I am a native speaker of German.

(Isn't "maid" something like this?)

It also means virgin. Hence "old maid" being somewhat perjorative.

[Peelee]

"Young woman" and "virgin" having relatively interchangeable words seems like it could cause problems.

[halfeye]

"Young woman" and "virgin" having relatively interchangeable words seems like it could cause problems.

Yeah, I read a story once...

[snowblizz]

Yeah, I read a story once...

Does it star a carpenter because I might have heard of it too?

[halfeye]

Does it star a carpenter because I might have heard of it too?

Nah, I mainly remember they were (NSFW) then they get captured the bloke says "unhand that maid", the leader of the (bandits?) says "we saw you, she's not". I don't remember the rest, except that was near the beginning.

[The Jack]

I think you should roll with whatever's in your mind at the time. Just don't make a big deal of it.

Being patronizing is being rude. If I wanna look like a lady and still look like a bloke, don't use female pronouns like you're trying to avoid an execution, and don't go all magnanimous either; you get no points.

Stressing the gender either way is rude. I mean I get why some people do it the other way;Some people see it as an honesty thing; they'll always go with what they think's your biological sex; they think you're trying to deceive them. Other people are just wanna be mean.

Just be cool, that works with all reasonable people.

There's exceptions.
Trans people seem to have a pretty big morbidity rate with other issues. Some people want that magnanimous affirmation even if it'd come across as patronizing to most others. Some people can't see the other side of things and'll assume you're a bigot with great bigotry (All roads lead to bigotry?) if you don't give them the answer they think they deserve, regardless of how you meant it.
Those people are in an interesting spot, because on one hand you feel sorry for whatever issue they've got. On the other hand you're better off with other people.
I've been binging on RuPaul's drag race with my partner. We find ourselves alternating between thinking of everyone as he or she, usually the later, but it's largely the context that informs us. Sure, we've not gotten to the seasons where there are open trans yet, but I think it's really cool that they don't seem to care.

Treat others how you'd like to be treated. I don't think you should make a big deal out of my gender, so I don't think I should make a big deal out of your gender. If everyone had this mindset, the world'd be a happier place.

[Razade]

I propose we all use dude. Dude is gender neutral, even if used mostly for guys, and it might induce some people to chill the hell out. Either that or Chief. It's also gender neutral, a title of respect so people can't whinge about diminutives or whatever. I use both.

[halfeye]

Dude is gender neutral, even if used mostly for guys

In that case the usage has changed.

There was a song "Dude looked like a Lady". It wasn't a band I liked, but it used to be on the radio quite a lot.

[Razade]

In that case the usage has changed.

There was a song "Dude looked like a Lady". It wasn't a band I liked, but it used to be on the radio quite a lot.

It has. Dude looks like a Lady was written in 1987 and even then was sort of using an out of fashion use of the word. Dude started to trend to gender neutral in the 1970's. One can't account for how every single person uses it but dude is, in general venacular at least in the States, fairly gender neutral.

And even then. I offered two. Just call everyone Chief. Or Boss. Or Jefe. You can't go wrong with any of those.