The New Homophobia

File under white gay males, and women who no longer find themselves at the top of the minority totem pole. You didn’t pull up the ladder fast enough.

Does anyone else feel like the recent focus on gender identity/pronouns/trans is being totally driven by the extreme 5% on both sides (left and right)?

Meanwhile the remaining 90% of us are under the attitude of "equal rights for all, do and/or call yourself whatever you want as long as it brings no personal harm to others".

Personally, for every gender non-binary person I've encountered (there have been multiple), when I incorrectly use the wrong pronoun, I get gently/nicely corrected and the conversation moves on without anyone caring further.

In the article the author laments "At the time, I was exhausting so much mental energy memorizing my coworkers' pronouns and all of the new progressive dogmas out of fear that I would be fiercely condemned if I slipped up"

My question is, does this really happen as described? Or only at the extreme end? And I'm being totally non-facetious here.

Again, I've called non-binary people "her" before and you know what happened? They said "Hey actually, I prefer 'they' just FYI", I responded with "ah, sorry, got it!", and we moved on. That was it.

We could all mostly ignore it if there wasn't a bunch of idiots in government passing laws every chance they get to ensure it continues being a very real human rights issue. The right initiates all this non-sense, they do some oppressing and the left has no choice but to react, because you can't just let that stuff slide, so both sides end up completely consumed by an issues most people aren't effected by.

I’d like to believe that most people are like you and are just doing their best to make everyone productive and comfortable. I was a bit surprised to see how most people I interact with over the age of 40 or so (my parents incl.) are pretty stubborn about referring to people based on what they consider right, like it’s some act of bravery to disregard how someone else would like to be treated.

I agree with you that this hyper-focus and polarization on the topic is driven by some extremely opinionated media personas, and unfortunately when looking at my parents’ usual YouTube feed it’s apparent that the influence of this niche is far-reaching. I just wish people would get along.

It's red meat for the conservative base, so they run with it. Mix in a little "grooming" and you end up with repackaged LBGTAnything-phobia from the '80s and '90s.

The far left has tried to take possession of the conversation to show sensitivity and contrast. Which is unfortunate. It shouldn't be political.

Still, we use gender in plenty of places where it doesn't really matter, and I'm good with eliminating it or broadening the classifications. It's a no-brainer. Beyond that, why not just call people what they want to be called? It's just respectful.

In my experience, most people in general are certainly chill if they're in a sexual or gender minority. I won't get pissed if you assume I have/want a girlfriend or wife. It's really not an issue if no insult is intended.