I am manning the front desk at a tech conference and I ran into a situation where I did not know if I should address an individual with Sir or Ma'am. My salutation is "Hello Sir/Ma'am Welcome to Tech Camp! How may I help you?"
But given the sensitive topic, I am at a loss as to what to say.
I've reached out to the conference's organizers, but my immediate supervisor cannot be reached (phone, slack, text) or found.
Just drop "Sir/Ma'am" entirely and say:
"Hello and welcome to tech camp! How may I help you?"
It doesn't seem like such a formal environment that omitting that would be too casual.
You could also consider addressing everyone that way, not just transgender or androgynous individuals. That would sidestep the issue entirely and give you one less thing you have to think about when you're welcoming them or helping them out.
I am manning the front desk at a tech conference and I ran into a situation where I did not know if I should address an individual with Sir or Ma'am. My salutation is "Hello Sir/Ma'am Welcome to Tech Camp! How may I help you?"
There is never a need to mention gender when greeting someone in person.
"Hello! Welcome to Tech Camp! How may I help you?" is completely appropriate.
I have organized a number of conferences in the American South, where simply forgoing salutations is socially uncouth.
In your case it’s too late to really do anything about it, but this is the reason at registration people are given options to submit their pronouns nowadays. But what use are pronouns really in a conference setting? Pronouns are for talking about someone, not to someone. Honorifics and salutations are for talking to them. The organizers should either ask for salutation at registration and print it on the badge, or have stickers people can choose from. (Sir, Ma’am, Mx, none, and so on).
For example, from a real event in Texas:
Without that, just do your best, accept correction quickly and graciously, and consider substituting something more neutral like “friend” when really puzzled.
Hmm ... there are intergenerational and inter-subcultural (word?) considerations here.
Specifically, many people (myself included!) were raised with the notion that omitting the honorific in a formal situation is staggeringly rude. For this and for practical reasons -- I doubt that there's enough cultural impetus to discard honorifics entirely, for the benefit of the small amount of people who are in honorific-ambiguous territory -- I'd suggest the following:
Take your best shot on honorific. The vast majority of people, it's pretty clear which one to use. If you get it wrong, person will tell you what he or she wants.
I've been asked by someone to use 'zir' before. I gamely promised that I'd try.
There’s no guarantee that you get it right for everyone. And you can’t even ask because some people will find it rude to be asked.
The safest is to avoid calling anyone “sir” or “madam”. And I don’t know about “madam”, but many men don’t like being called “sir”.
A friend pointed me to the essay at https://www.them.us/story/gender-neutral-pronouns-101-they-them-xe-xem
I can't vouch for that essay's correctness, but it seems plausible, and suggests a solution:
Traditionally, proper manners is always to introduce yourself first and then invite the other person to do likewise. This can be extended to stating your own preferred pronouns (even if they are the older ones) as an implied invitation for the other party to inform you of theirs.
Perhaps:
"Welcome! I am Doctor Archibald Farnsworth, but most folks call me Arch. My pronouns are ze and zim. Whom do I have the pleasure of meeting, and how would you like to be addressed?"
If your going to insist upon formality, do it right.
