Provoked by a random remark in someone else's journal

[redbird]

Anyone who asks me "Is that a guy or a girl?" is almost certainly going to get one of the following three answers: Yes; No; Why do you want to know?

Addendum: Part of what I was thinking [and didn't say] is that, unless the person is asking about a young child (or a dog, cat, or other non-human), I'd be wondering "why are you asking me? Why not ask the person directly?" [If I'm out and about as the caretaker of a young child, of course you'd ask me, along with things like "how old is s/he?"

Also, the appropriate pronoun for talking to someone you meet is, in English at least, not gendered: "you" covers singular and plural, of any genders.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but isn't it kind of presumptuous to assume any given specific person is part of that "most" ?

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I think it's presumptuous to react with dismay or coyness when someone asks a question that indicates they're probably part of "most."

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Even stipulating that you are right about gender being an important part of self-definition for most people, which is an issue on which I remain unconvinced, and even also stipulating, given that, that the importance of gender is innate [ which I very much doubt considering cultural variation in concepts of the same through history ] and also a healthy thing to have matter [ which I also seriously doubt is universlly true ], something still feels off to me here.

Am I correct in reading you as saying that the comfort of the person who asks "is that person female or male" expecting a definite answer takes precedence over the preferences of the person in question ? Because that feels to me like allocating a degree of importance to what is comfortable for the majority in ways that don't gel with optimum consideration for the minority, which includes allowing for the possibility that the person talked about might belong to that minority.

If the question were "is that person straight or gay", would the same standards apply ? Would they if the question were "is that person black or white" ?