Scrapping ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’?

While Trump has just banned transgenders from the military, Amsterdam announced that they will henceforth only use gender-neutral language. Just two weeks earlier, the London Underground announced to scrap ‘ladies and gentlemen’ for a gender-neutral greeting and yesterday the NS, the biggest train operator in the Netherlands announced that they will do the same. I think this is a great initiative, one that will hopefully be followed by other places but a lot of people are taking the change negatively. People have started leaving negative comments about something I think should be celebrated; I don’t understand why people have a problem with this change.

Why does the change matter? Do you have to be reminded that you are a man or a woman by having a voice say, “good morning ladies and gentlemen”? I’m pretty sure we’re all intelligent enough to know and be aware, without the need to be told, that we are either a man or a woman or identify as something else. By using “ladies and gentleman” we exclude “something else”. What’s wrong with good morning passengers? It won’t make you less of a lady or gentlemen but it does include everyone, which I think is only fair.

It seems like the only reason people are resistant to this change is that they don’t like change. A lot of people seem to be so afraid of change that they respond negatively and I can only imagine that the reason for this comes out of a fear of losing something that they hold dear. To be honest, I once responded negatively to something that was about to change. My first reaction to the suggestion of changing Black Pete was a definite “no!” until I thought about it, evaluated and realised that it’s actually racially insensitive (to put it lightly).

I was initially against the possible change because I didn’t want people to change something I dearly loved as a child. Even more so, the fact that other people could change it without my permission frustrated me. Thankfully, I came to my senses relatively quickly and maybe that’s what people need, a little bit of time to get used to the idea. Of course, in five years time, there will still be those two passengers that ridicule the gender-neutral announcement. But I am quite hopeful and confident that the majority of people will not mind being addressed as travellers in the future.

I wonder if one of the issues people have is that they’ll actively have to acknowledge that there aren’t just men and women. But then again, I’m wondering why this would be an issue as it would not disrupt anyone’s life in any way. However, even if it does bother you, we can’t all agree with each other but we can choose to live happily and peacefully and allow others to do the same. Why can’t we all be a little bit more accepting, kind and respectful to one another?

I believe that someone who identifies as non-binary knows what they are or at the very least know that they don’t want the label of a man or a woman and no one has to right to question that. And you know what? It’s pretty damn impressive that they know and reject the label because unlike the majority, they weren’t able to pick one of two easy options provided by society. They had to figure it out on their own and I say cheers to that.


What does non-binary mean? 

I read both Dutch and English columns and newspapers. Sometimes I like to respond to Dutch actualities, and sometimes I like to respond to British news.

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