> Even today I'd guess close to half couldn't tell you the defined difference between the two.

I kinda halfway try to follow this stuff, and honestly, I'd have trouble defining most of the terms involved in a way that didn't step on someone's toes—and I'd be trying not to! No wonder people are put off by it.

If someone wants you to refer to them as $GENDER, then just refer to them as $GENDER. Don't treat people differently because they don't conform to the traditional gender binary. Don't treat attraction between the same sex as being fundamentally different than attraction between opposite sexes.

That's 99.9% of it, right there.

I don't even mean pronouns. I mean the stuff like elsewhere in this thread where people are stepping in it (depending on the perspective of the reader) re: whether gender identity is wholly a social construct. "Yeah, it's entirely social" is no longer the safe fallback answer for careful liberals (I write, as a careful liberal)

I think you have to accept that gender identity is a contentious issue for a lot of people, even among the liberal/feminist/LGBTQ set, so any possible position you take is probably going to offend someone.

So just be honest and try to be polite, that's the best you can ever do. Whether or not you claim that gender is "entirely social" should depend on what you believe, not what you think the safe answer is.