"Ladies and Gentlemen... er ... ummm"

Last night I dreamed (and don't blame me for my dreams) that I was about to address a diverse audience. I wasn't nervous at all (hey, it was a dream), but I was anxious about how to address the group.

"Ladies and gentlemen" seemed wrong. What if there were people in the audience who were gay? "L" and "G" are are still "ladies and gentlemen," but what about "B," "T," and "Q" (bisexual, transgender, and questioning or queer)?

So in my dream I tried a more inclusive salutation: "Ladies, Gentlemen, and Honored Others."

I thought myself quite clever. But when I woke up I wondered why we make these distinctions at all. We don't address an audience of "Christians, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, and None-of-the-Aboves." Nor an audience of "Whites, Blacks, Browns, and Rainbows."

At the Oscars, they still have categories dividing actors and actresses, even though women who act have been identifying themselves as actors for quite these many years. I doubt they would want to compete for acting honors with men. So rather than nominate equal numbers of male and female actors, regardless of the quality of their work, and rather than force males and females to compete with one another, why not get rid of the competition element and just honor outstanding acting?

So, back to addressing the crowd. I thought of course that's why presidents and other politicians aim for inclusion by starting out, "My Fellow Americans" or what-not. But "fellow" still has maleness attached to it, so it still has some exclusionary properties. "Hey, Everybody" lacks appropriate dignity.

And then there's the problem we'll have in the Post-Singularity future, when we'll have cadres of technologically enhanced individuals clamoring to our speeches. I can't very well address my audience as "My Collegial Humans" without offending the honored cyborgs and transhumans at our meetings.

Last January I had the honor of attending a workshop of young people whose goal was to create a public awareness campaign for schools and other groups to support inclusion. The "inclusion" in the campaign project specifically was about including individuals with special needs, but really, inclusion is more inclusive than that.

The resulting I Am Norm project teaches us that, because we are all different, we are all "normal."



"Different" is not the same as "abnormal," so accepting people with differences normalizes differences. It doesn't make the differences go away, but it eliminates the values that are often subconsciously attached to those differences.

Back to my speech: I do think one of the best welcomes ever is the one the gang at Cheers gave their buddy when he arrived at the bar each night:

"NORM!!"

Right. I don't think I'll address my audiences that way (maybe in a dream). But how about a simple:

"Honored Guests: Welcome!"