Gratuitous overly-abstract post

Over time, the definition of "human" has expanded. By which I mean, the default experience, the normal one, the one projected onto all, has come to include more categories of person. Like when Zola wrote about members of the French working class - that was a big deal at the time, because imagine that, a novel not about rich people or the bourgeoisie! Or, to step back, when the French Revolution opted to include rich but untitled sorts as full citizens. Or, to step forward, when we realized that Man includes women. When we thought to remark on it if some sphere included only men. And so it goes - same deal with race (we start to see the problem of saying 'a woman' to mean 'a white woman'), sexuality, gender identity, and so forth. It's not to say that everything improves over the years - one can think of certain obvious setbacks even to this (say, the 1930s), but that, at least, seems to be the trend. This expansion of who counts.

The question I have is, (how) can this proceed without clunkiness? Without cringe-inducing jargon, political correctness, etc.? Should we perhaps accept, even celebrate, the clunkiness, while having a sense of humor about it to the extent possible?

Consider the latest front in this battle: transgender rights. My impression from social media and such is that certain people who accept that it's possible to be assigned the wrong gender at birth based on sex, who are accepting of any trans people they happen to meet, who, in other words, are not what one would think of as transphobic, will still wince at the word "cisgender," or, more broadly, at the idea that one can no longer assume a man has one set of biological qualities, a woman another. It seems, to such people, like overkill. After all, virtually all of the time, biological sex and gender identity are as one would expect.

And yet! Most people aren't gay, but we've learned to assume that a "partner" or "spouse" could be of either gender. Even in situations where most people are Christian, "happy holidays" is often heard. We know, even if we're talking about someone in a predominately male profession, not to assume that air-conditioner-repair-person will be a man. There's some right-wing backlash to such things, but the consensus appears to be that these are small ways of showing respect. That the harm done to gay couples if the likely answer (i.e. that a woman's partner is a man) is rigidly assumed exceeds whatever minor inconvenience to straight couples who may end up spelling out what used to be the default assumption.

I could go on (and on and on), but will leave that to you, my three readers.