this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2023
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I see what you mean, though I would probably make the same mistake myself without thinking it through.
What would be a better way to address "everyone"?
this is a little difficult, as social awareness for nonbinary ppl is still developing and we especially dont have a lot of established formal or fancy ways to address/include them.
a few small things i have learned/picked up over time:
example: ladies, gentlemen and everyone inbetween
explanation: some nonbinary identities (genders or not) can be defined in relation to men and women but this is not true for all of them. something like "and inbetween" or "all around them" is therefore not fully inclusive and might even imply an underlying ignorance, which could make ppl feel unseen and misunderstood.
example: ladies, gentlemen and people of all other identities
explanation: something like "ladies, gentlemen and everyone else" ends up reducing all nonbinary genders into one "everyone else" while the two mainstream genders get named directly. this implies that nonbinary identities are less important to the speaker. it's ofc impossible to name all identities individually, so when trying to address everyone, i would try to not seperate into genders at all.
example: ladies, gentlemen and people of all other genders
explanation: the nonbinary umbrella does, next to nonbinary genders, also include people without a gender (agender). so if we try to address everyone by simply including all genders, we might still forget agender people.
sowy for the wall of text. i went all out with formatting in the hope that that might make it more readable.
this is all just my personal perspective and i pwobably didnt get everything right myself. i hope it can still help other ppl be more inclusive :3
This is really great, I appreciate this a lot!
Or you could just do, "hey everyone" and sidestep the whole problem.
basically point 2 in my powerpoint presentation x3
All of this is one reason why I find myself using 'fellow humans' as a form of address. Yeah, it sounds like you're an alien overlord in a skin suit, but it's 100% inclusive.
That and (to get all hippy about it) it's a consciousness shifting exercise - refuse divisions when they're not necessary for a specific discussion, think at the level of shared humanity as the default.