Dear Baby Girl,
Close-mindedness has become very prevalent now of days. There is even a big push in sterilizing people's language that they use. The attempt is to identify and remove offensive terms or language that is said to belittle or hurt others. If the trend continues, I can only imagine what it will be like in your day. I sometimes wonder if language evolves rapidly in an attempt to thwart the nonsense.
But in truth, this nonsense is just breaking down the lines of communication. This attempt primarily creates more hot words and phrases. Then people are peer pressured into believing they must go along to be a 'good person.' I feel this is utter nonsense that is very destructive. Anytime someone brings up the absurdity of pronouns, or identify as, or any significant number of need-based communication demands. They are trying to reduce the language and concepts available to communicate. Unfortunately, all it does is increase the barriers to communication. This approach creates a victimization mentality that feeds on itself, creating obstacles that become increasingly more difficult. One should instead foster tolerance and openness and not get caught on language itself but instead focus on achieving the goal of communication and the sharing of ideas.
Even though there may be legitimate issues, these movements are trying to highlight. It does not justify destroying the ability to communicate in the manner you feel is most effective. The current approach many of the movements take is degrading people by coddling the practice of self-victimization. It is very destructive by creating higher barriers to communication, which reduces the ability to be successful in crossing the communication barriers. Unfortunately, this leads to increased segregation and stagnation of ideas and ultimately segregation people.
In simple terms, successful communication is when you can convey the concept effectively. The fewer the barriers there are to communicate, the easier it is to work out an understanding. So on your end, you should strive for personal tolerance and try to understand where the person is coming from so you can better understand what they mean. You should refrain from intentionally triggering someones hot words but also don't beat yourself up if you do.
In general, try to look at things from their perspective to understand how better to relate to them. But don't take their foolishness or hot buttons onto yourself, no matter how much someone tries to force their limitations onto you, rise above them, and do not let them cling to you. The way I found that works best is to think critically about the thing and see if it meshes with your beliefs or not.
At the end of the day, if you managed to get your point across, then you were successful. If you managed to get it across without triggering someone's filter bias, then your future attempts at communicating with that individual are more likely to be successful as well. In general, it takes only one party in the communication exchange, which is sufficiently tolerant and understanding to make communication a success.
As a side note, keeping friends that practice tolerance and understanding and are free with each other creates easy, effective, and fun communication. When you find friends that victimize themselves, then help guide them, and if they strive to improve, strive to share your perspective further. But if they strive to be a victim consider if their friendship is worth the emotional energy, they will always be draining from you with their negativity. I want my friends to push me to grow and who strive to improve as well and to have fun doing it without having to watch my words or coddle them. So I treat them as I want, and I expect the same in return.
I will add a little more to this and discuss more about the notion of understanding a shared context when you look at specific fields such as law, medicine, science. You will find there are precise meanings for words and strict formalized definitions and rules. This notion of having a static, non-ambiguous language that has strict rules is what creates a shared context for members of these fields to share and discuss their research and ideas. If one can understand this formalized shared context, then they can effectively communicate with each other. Which is what the purpose of language is all about in the first place.
Do not mistake my rant for saying these formalized ways of communication are bad or negative. On the contrary, I think they are a great example of effectively communicating. I would encourage you to understand the formalized shared context that is used for expressing concepts if you are in a field of study that has one. I would even go so far as to say it would be one of the essential things for making you successful in your chosen path in life. Effectively understanding and communicating with others enables a significant reduction in time spent figuring things out.
This last point means, if there is a formalized shared context for communicating, then use it and don't be sloppy about it. Sloppiness in language leads to unnecessary ambiguity and verbosity. My letters are a prime example of a sloppy use of language brought about by not understanding the importance it until after setting bad habits and exiting the institutions of education.