Wei Dai argues that offense is a response to a perceived threat to one own status. He also cautions about oversensitivity.
Not being oversensitive yourself is a good practice, dismissing the possibility that another will be offended by something you do is called “insensitive”. Yes, sometimes you should take a stand and decide that a person getting offended about a particular thing is their problem, not yours (otherwise you give them complete control over you). However I don’t think someone being mildly (or occasionally significantly) offended when people get their sex wrong is really the place to draw the battle lines.
It doesn’t seem to me that getting a pronoun wrong because you didn’t datamine the Internet for personal information just to get a pronoun right is an attack to someone status.
Some people get offended if you call them a girl when they are a boy and vice versa. That is all. Either ignore this and be considered an ass by said people (and some observers) or take some degree of care to get it right.
Not being oversensitive yourself is a good practice, dismissing the possibility that another will be offended by something you do is called “insensitive”. Yes, sometimes you should take a stand and decide that a person getting offended about a particular thing is their problem, not yours (otherwise you give them complete control over you). However I don’t think someone being mildly (or occasionally significantly) offended when people get their sex wrong is really the place to draw the battle lines.
Some people get offended if you call them a girl when they are a boy and vice versa. That is all. Either ignore this and be considered an ass by said people (and some observers) or take some degree of care to get it right.