The point Cathy is making is that it is not actually respectful to be misgendered, and that the implication that a person is being respectful by assuming that you’re a member of what they take to be the ruling gender is not really that cool. NOT AS COOL AS THE DELICIOUS SNOW CONE SHE’S PURCHASED, ANYWAY
RANT: I mean really, is this hard? If you don’t want to ask what pronouns someone prefers because it would be an impossibly brief customer service style interaction and therefore awkward, which I get, then here’s a tip: if you can tell that someone is trying to project signals of being one gender or another, go with that! If someone is obviously dressed in a female manner, use female pronouns. Your RATE OF GIVING OFFENSE will probably not be zero, but it will be substantially lower than it will if you decide to go the SLY DETECTIVE route and say what’s “really” going on. (If you don’t want to ask what pronouns someone prefers when you see them regularly, or if you know what pronouns they prefer and just decide that it’s too hard for you to use the right ones, then MAY SEVEN BLIGHTS DESCEND ON YOU)
I understand that it is human to want to Solve Mysteries, but it’s maybe irritating also. I promise that I will try to be funnier on this subject in the future. IN THAT VEIN, please tune in THURSDAY, when Mona and Inez try to put together a flyer for a local event.