I honestly had to really think this one through. I've had a lot of good advice, even great advice, over the years. I even started this post a couple of months ago, but just didn't feel like I could pinpoint what the best advice was going to be.
I started thinking about all the uproar over gender identity and political correctness, the inability to allow for generational gaps in people's verbiage, that my black friends have all "poo-pooed" the idea of being called African Americans and just want to be referred to as black if that distinction is necessary at all. So that led me to what I do believe is the best advice I have ever been given:
You can only be offended if you choose to be offended.
Man, there is so much truth in that. Since when did we become so sensitive to any wording that is not considered rude or inappropriate on the whole, that generational verbiage could not be allowed. Obviously, I'm not talking about the use of bigoted words or intentionally referring to someone who appears to be female as she or vise versa. But as in calling someone transgender is apparently unacceptable. It must be a transgender person or you are offensive. What? Grow up or get out! It's ridiculous that we have allowed Political Correctness to invade us so much that some people fear to speak. No one - I repeat No One - is going to misunderstand that I refer to someone as a transgender rather than a transgender person. If you are a human, and transgender's are, you are a person. What difference does adding "person" to the end of the name make? None. Except in a snowflake world with little control freak infants trying to run....correction, ruin.....the world.
Stop looking for things to whine about. Live your life with kindness, respect for others (which does NOT define itself as catering to ridiculous specifications), tolerance, helpfulness, love. Just be a good person.
