https://thefederalist.com/2019/11/18/the-hardware-store-proves-well-never-erase-the-sexes-from-our-language/
You see, I needed a self-centering hole locator to finish a rim joist on the deck we were building, and a pipe nipple, ballcock, and pipe dope for some plumbing repairs. I also needed to buttress a groin vault.
“I think my gender changer is lost in the mail.”
My wife looked at me with a face I had never seen in our 19 years together.
“Is there something we need to talk about?”
I had discovered that my autocorrect (a misnamed item if there ever was one) had screwed up the “ship to” address on an online order from an electronics supply house. I’d ordered a DB37 parallel cable adapter to change a male connector to a female one for a project I was working on. It’s called a gender changer.
“It’s for that electronics project at work. It’s called a gender changer,” I explained, redundantly.
“Well, it sounds pretty creepy. Haven’t we heard enough about this stuff in the news?” she replied, paying more attention to her iPad than our conversation.
“You don’t understand,” I mansplained in my best Cliff Clavin. “The DB37 connectors come in two types: female and male. The male connectors have pointy things that go into little holes in the female connectors. If you try to mate two males or two females, you won’t get a — er, connection. This is my dilemma at work. I have two males that need to — um, mate.”
Actually, I already have a DB37 male-to-female gender changer, but I couldn’t make it work no matter what I tried. Turns out it identifies as a DB25 female-to-male. I even tried affirming its feelings, but to no avail.
“Two males can’t mate,” she added. “Everyone knows that. Why are you talking about this weirdness? Are you going Caitlyn on me?”
It occurred to me that her offer to pick up some things for me at the hardware store later that day might be problematic. You see, I needed a self-centering hole locator to finish a rim joist on the deck we were building, and a pipe nipple, ballcock, and pipe dope for some plumbing repairs. I also needed to buttress a groin vault. I could imagine this was going to get ugly.
Just recently, I learned the Purdue Online Writing Lab is discouraging the use of “man” in words such as mailman (even if your mail carrier also carries a Y chromosome), mankind, and man-made. Assemblyman, sportsman, anchorman, and other terms that might refer to a person of either sex or any gender should be laundered to become gender neutral.