The gender neutral term for “ladies and gentleman” is “distinguished guests”. This has been around since at least the 60s, so no one is going to question your use of it.
Please, please use this along with “ladies and gentlemen” if you aren’t entirely sure of the gender of your audience.
Thank you!
imagine ‘anon crushes’ in real life
someone runs up to you dressed in like a tarp with a paper bag over their head and yells SORRY I LIKE YOU A LOT before vaulting over a table and sprinting away
sirius gets a baby girl and names her orange and he’s just so happy and proud and he tells everyone he meets hey this is orange, she’s the new black
you have no idea how angry this makes me
siriusly angry?
and when sirius dies she will be the orphan black
I WAS IN CHURCH AND THE PREACHER DUDE ASKED PEOPLE WHAT ANIMAL THEY WOULD BE IF THEY WEREN’T HUMAN AND THIS ONE GIRL STOOD UP AND SAID “I WOULD WANT TO BE EITHER A WOLF OR A MERMAID BECAUSE THEY BOTH LURE MEN IN WITH THEIR BEAUTY AND THEN MURDER THEM.” AND THEN SHE SAT BACK DOWN.
SHE’S BEEN GOING THERE FOR FOREVER AND SHE SINGS IN THE YOUTH BAND NO ONE EVEN QUESTIONED HER ANSWER.
i really like the idea of a fantasy setting but in modern times. elves on smart phones and taking pictures for their instagram. dwarves getting into console wars and calling each other casual gamers. mages casting dangerous spells for the vine. i want it.
ok but how about fantasy-victorian? Elves in corsets and Dwarves running steel mills and refineries in cool waistcoats. Wizards collaborating with humans to come up with mad inventions using a combination of science and magic.
Wario’s gettin reeeeal sick and tired of words like “gay” and “lesbian” being considered “inappropriate for children”.
The censoring of words like gay and lesbian for “family friendly” audiences also ties back into the whole “homosexuals are perverts and pedophiles” myth that is so widespread. Extremely bigoted people spread the myth that queer people are inherently disgusting, wrong, unnatural, and worst of all, harmful to others. These people are so vehemently opposed to anything queer, even the mere mention of it is cause for extreme alarm.
And these people hold power. Lots of power. Enough power to make it impossible to have queer characters or themes in media for children. Enough to make something as simple as “don’t bully kids for their sexual orientation” into a massive argument. Enough to make it so major companies like Nintendo and Microsoft add words like “gay” to their chat filters. World of Warcraft at one point had “gay” as a censored word on it’s family-friendly chat filter, but not “faggot”.
Young people are the ones who are most in need of reassurance that their sexual/romantic orientation and gender is healthy and normal. By setting up a system where queer kids are forced to explore their queerness on their own, without any kind of support or guidance from the media they digest, without knowing there are tons of other people just like them, and a heavy stigma against turning to older queer people for support (the pedophillia myth), homophobes effectively drive a wedge directly into the LGBTQIA community.
