I don't share the idea that don't using prefered pronouns it's a rude, or worse, extremist position. Pronouns and the words women, men, female and male are not insults. Moreover, this "basic courtesy" we are being asked to do is pretty one-sided. Nobody asked me if I find the association of womanhood with sexist stereotypes (which trans people usually rely on to "pass") offensive, for instance.

Yes, no one asked any of us. Moreover, the very same people who insist that others call them what they are not out of "respect" and "civility" seem to have no problem insulting women not just by reducing us to the sexist stereotypes they choose to ape, but by constantly calling us all the age-old slurs (such as cunt, bitch, whore, hag, old biddy, cow, slut) and by inventing a whole bunch of brand-new ways to demean and dehumanize us (vagina-owner, menstruator, uterus-haver, gestator, bleeder, etc) and to demonize us (TERF, SWERF, Nazi, Karen, causers of mass suicides).

But as those familiar with the etymology of the word "courtesy" and the history of manners and etiquette customs know, it's always people with the most power and privilege in societies who get to decide and dictate to everyone else exactly what constitutes courteous speech, behavior and dress and what is considered rude, impertinent, offensive and unacceptable. (After all, courtesy/courteous originally referred to the strict codes of etiquette governing how people dressed, spoke and conducted themselves in royal courts; and the notion of "acceptable" evolved from a term meaning "to take something to/for oneself.")

As the brilliant work of Norbert Elias first elucidated, and others have expanded on since, the entire enterprise of establishing social rules determining what's courteous and what's discourteous (impolite, rude, ill-mannered, etc) in Western culture has always been at least partly motivated by the desire of those who are dominant & most powerful to assert power & control over the individuals and classes below them, and to keep those with inferior status in our place - in part by keeping us so busy trying to learn, understand & conform to the set of burdensome and often constantly changing rules concerning minutiae that we don't have the time or energy to challenge the unreasonable, tyrannical exercise of power & control that's going on, or to notice & see it for what it is in the first place.

There's a long-running debate over whether the words "polite" and "politics" have the same root...But there's no doubt that when certain persons or groups of people demand that everyone else in the world speak to and about them using words that they alone have decided on and dictate to us the hoi polloi, they are engaging in a power play and dominance display merely disguised as a matter of principle and "politeness." If the words they demand we use for them actually run counter to reality, our own perceptions and what everyone knows to be true, these people are not only committing mass gaslighting in the guise of exercising their basic "human rights" and seeking "respect" - they are trying to get us to agree to do things that involve relinquishing our own human rights and diminishing our own self-respect. To which I think the only reasonable response goes something like this: https://youtu.be/ccenFp_3kq8

And like this: https://youtu.be/Lpds3V90VbM https://youtu.be/EKTPij6Kb6E https://youtu.be/QodGtTU69uQ

Since I've got YouTube open, these standards from 1963/64 seem apropos too: https://youtu.be/JDUjeR01wnU https://youtu.be/q4nmxz5bQhk https://youtu.be/RTVqZNObw5o