"trying to demonstrate respect"

 I want to show respect for a person (the same respect I would like to get) by using their proper pronouns, and also by learning their name, if that's fitting.
I often ask regular customers their names--it signals, "I see you."
(Some people don't want engagement, and I leave them alone.)

Sometimes I'm scared to talk to people (far less often as I get older)--What if I do something wrong? There's a fear of hurting others inadvertently + a fear of being embarrassed oneself.

I've taken heart from something writer/ organizer/theorist and transgender right activist Leslie Feinberg said about pronouns:
The pronoun itself matters, yes.
It also matters how the speaker uses a pronoun, even if it's the wrong one. With respect?
Or not?

So, cultivating respect for individuals (and their right to self-determination)--that's key. Pronouns/names follow.

From Leslie Feinberg's obituary on hir website (2014):

[Begin quote]

Leslie preferred to use the pronouns she/zie and her/hir for hirself, but also said:

“I care which pronoun is used, but people have been respectful to me with the wrong pronoun and disrespectful with the right one.
It matters whether someone is using the pronoun as a bigot, or if they are trying to demonstrate respect.”

In a statement at the end of hir life, Leslie said zie/she had
“never been in search of a common umbrella identity, or even an umbrella term, that brings together people of oppressed sexes, gender expressions, and sexualities”
and added that she/zie believed in the right of self-determination for oppressed individuals, communities, groups, and nations. 

[End quote]

Feinerg novel Stone Butch Blues, "is widely considered in and outside the U.S. as a groundbreaking work about the complexities of gender."

Feinberg made PDF copies of hir novel available free, online. You can download it (or order an at-cost print copy) here: www.lesliefeinberg.net

"The complexities of gender"--I love that!
I sometimes have to dial up my bravery––including the willingness to get it wrong, or to feel disrespected myself (ugh)––to enter into the complexities.

Offering my pronoun FIRST in an introduction could signal respect.

I keep coming back to an experience I had with a group of people (young, white, cis women--I know because they said) who were so set on the group Getting It Right, that their concern in itself felt like it was about their own self-protection,
NOT respect for one another's self-determination.

Self-determination.
That is key.
Who wants even the most knowledgeable, well-meaning person to come into their house and tell them––without being asked ––how to fix it up?