I consider myself nb. The focus on “getting gender right” is actually more focused on gender in the usa than anything I grew up with. Now it feels like gender norms are back hard, for whatever reason, and have come on hard due to the desire to constantly name it and talk about it along with saying certain way of dressing and acting are gender coded.

We weren't a gender focused society before as much as now it feels like. And we aren’t gender focused as much as most of the world as we don't gender things like coffee pots. For me, the last few decades have really made me feel the opposite of what others insist. I feel like gender norms are forced on me and gender titles are forced on me from every single side.

I don’t care what people call me but I do like being called “him” when people don’t know what I am at first online. I’ve got big titties though idgaf when I’m called she, either. I wish we would quit talking about gender so damned much. The sexism is coming back due to it.

You can be visibly (and otherwise) "of" the binary, and still reject it. I have put down "they/them" in the past, not because I have a preference for "they/them", but because I literally couldn't care less about what gendered words other people use for me. I personally live as a man, dress like a man, etc. because it's the path of least resistance. I was born with a penis, socialized to be a boy. With few exceptions, men's clothes are just better, easier to shop for, have pockets, etc. (Sorry ladies.) It's just easier to live as a man in this place, and I won a biological coin toss.

I don't care one iota about "being a man" or defending an idealized version of masculinity. I don't spend any energy whatsoever on making sure that I'm "man enough for the man club". I just try to do things which bring me joy, wear the clothes I like, and try to take good care of myself and others. If some of those things happen to cross some imaginary line and invalidate my "man card" (blegh), so be it - I'll hand it in voluntarily every time, it's toxic as hell.

I do things like letting my daughter paint my nails because it brings her joy, and you better believe I'm wearing those painted nails around the office the next day. If someone has something to say about that, great! Depending on what was said, they've either identified themselves as a lovely person, or as someone who can be discarded for their opinions, and that doesn't cost me shit! If my nails or hair, or the way I speak breaks some "macho man" broseph's brain and causes them to piss their pants, even better!

I know that it's a privilege to be able to even have this attitude, but I try to make sure it doesn't go to waste.

On the flip side, there are those who care very much about their gender, for whom it is very real, and I respect that, as one does. I love all my trans, enby, queer, etc. homies very, very much, regardless of how they choose to present, and I try to make sure they know that. I wouldn't spend so much cognitive energy on worrying about getting the words wrong. If you do make a mistake with it, admit your mistake and apologize. Just show that you do care. Don't just brush it off, and definitely don't double down. In my experience, a reasonable person, regardless where they fall, will forgive you and move on from it fairly quickly.

The thing that helps more than anything else, for me at least, is to spend a lot of time in a community where everyone is invested in getting pronouns right -- because it can be hard if you're doing it all on your own, against the current, so to speak.

Luckily for me my workplace has gradually become such a place, where we used to never volunteer our preferred genders, to now where the norm is to introduce yourself with your name and pronouns if you're comfortable, put them on name-tags, and we all try to help each other remember people's pronouns.