4 ms·

Mostly I’ve just stopped using gendered terms. In a business letter even if the person is not trans you can’t assume Mr/Mrs/Ms unless you know. If their name is

Mostly I’ve just stopped using gendered terms. In a business letter even if the person is not trans you can’t assume Mr/Mrs/Ms unless you know. If their name is gender neutral or ambiguous I would say “Dear First Last,” though that’s even US/western-centric as not all cultures do it that way. If it’s a really important business letter you should probably find out the persons gender using some other channel. Also if the person has a title like Dr or Professor you can use that. Some people use Mx as a gender neutral but I don’t think that would fly with a more conservative minded person.

wolverine876 5y ago
I think we can't avoid these issues and need to come up with solutions. I've never seen Mx, so I think many people would wonder what it meant. Just "M." seems better and matches other usage (though outside contemporary English).
- TaylorAlexander 5y ago
  Sure. I would imagine there has been a lot of discussion around this in certain circles. Probably no shortage of good ideas. I think culturally we need to get to the point where most people accept gender as self identified, and the rest will shake out over time.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> If it’s a really important business letter you should probably find out the persons gender using some other channel. Preferred form of address, not just gender, and this has been the rule for quite a long time. Even within the classical binary, there are all kinds of variations of status, preference, relationship with the sender, etc., that feed into that. John Smith (a man) might be properly referred to in a salutation as any of: “Mr. Smith” ”John” “Dr. Smith” “Your Excellency” (without the “Dear” that would prefer the others) “Rev. Smith” “Father Smith” (And most of these correspond to one or more different forms that would be used in the main address, as well.)

wolverine876 5y ago

I think we can't avoid these issues and need to come up with solutions. I've never seen Mx, so I think many people would wonder what it meant. Just "M." seems better and matches other usage (though outside contemporary English).

TaylorAlexander 5y ago
Sure. I would imagine there has been a lot of discussion around this in certain circles. Probably no shortage of good ideas. I think culturally we need to get to the point where most people accept gender as self identified, and the rest will shake out over time.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> If it’s a really important business letter you should probably find out the persons gender using some other channel. Preferred form of address, not just gender, and this has been the rule for quite a long time. Even within the classical binary, there are all kinds of variations of status, preference, relationship with the sender, etc., that feed into that. John Smith (a man) might be properly referred to in a salutation as any of: “Mr. Smith” ”John” “Dr. Smith” “Your Excellency” (without the “Dear” that would prefer the others) “Rev. Smith” “Father Smith” (And most of these correspond to one or more different forms that would be used in the main address, as well.)