so tactical let me ask you this:
if you had a friend whom you recently discovered was transgendered and they wanted to be referred to the direct opposite of what you've been calling them before like he => she or she => he would you do it or not do it on purpose?
friends aren't random people who want you to get it right on your first go
if you're transgender I have no qualms with you whatsoever if you look the part
otherwise it's loving scary
sorry
But that's exactly what it is- honorifics is about respect, esteem and authority. You address your mother as 'mom' or 'mother' or 'ma'am' out of respect and authority. She doesn't have special snowflake syndrome, it's just respectful and it makes her feel respected when you call her that.
Likewise, how you address people is important for impressions and showing them respect. if you want to selectively respect people's honorifics and selectively justify some compared to others, you're just being entirely inconsistent for the sake of your own opinion. At that point, it's no longer 'how can i show my respect for this person' but 'i dont like this person's opinion so i refuse to respect them'
you're not getting the point of the post (funnily enough the post was in response to you)
the honorifics part being about authority - yes
but we're talking about pronouns; pronoun usage is subconscious, it's not about respect
once you need to be referred to as something out of the ordinary (like "xe" or "xir" or "gogogogogogogogoir") it becomes about authority because anyone who is referred to as something different than their actual name has some sort of power over you, figuratively or literally
if you, a random stranger, are going to expect of me
the first time we meet that I know your unique pronouns then don't expect for me to ever take you seriously
if you're my friend then you're cool unless you go into the "xe" or "xir" territory in which case we're probably going to clash
too bad none of my friends are like that though
Poll