Kate Hackett
Twitter user Gad Saad drew quite a bit of attention on the website after he tweeted that his wife was “frozen in fear” because she did not know the pronoun for the server who made her coffee at a cafe.
Saad is a professor of marketing and evolutionary psychologist explained the situation his wife was in; she went to their local coffee shop and quickly became uncomfortable for not knowing how to address the barista because she wasn’t sure if the server was transgender.
Saad continued his Twitter thread. He said that while he believes in transgender people’s right to express themselves, it can be difficult for others to know which pronouns to use.
“Fighting for a world free of bigotry does not imply that we must suppress perfectly natural categorization mechanisms that are built into our brains and our languages,” he concludes.
The thread quickly became a place to mock Saad by pointing out how you don’t even need pronouns to order a coffee. He responded, “She wanted to say to the server’s colleague, ‘he’ll get the hang of it’ (new server) but hesitated because of ‘he’ll’.”
The explanation didn’t really help his case as Twitter continued mocking the entire interaction, noting that “they” would have been entirely acceptable.
things you can “safely” say to your gender-ambiguous server: “hello” “how are you?” “can i have a coffee with cream & sugar” “the leaves are beautiful out there” “those are great shoes” things not to say: “what up, theyfriend?” “can i see your genitals?”
@midwesthedgie / Twitter
That’s the bizarre thing. I cannot think of a single thing I’d say to someone serving me in a coffee shop that would require me to know their gender. The only pronouns in any exchange would be “you” or “me”.
@blairbarley / Twitter
