As I have aged I like to think I have grown wiser, something most people realize at some point. However, I recently received an education in "political correctness" from someone more than half my age. First, a little background.

I grew up in a blue-collar family, working a 66-hour work week in a factory to pay my way through college. I did this in an era where ethnic joke books and Archie Bunker made most people insensitive to the feelings of those they were laughing at. Seemingly the prototypical "white male", I was not beyond these indiscretions. But in truth, my ethnicity (French Canadian) lent itself to mockery by others, and I joined in along with them. Even though I could joke about my ethnic background, something that was not of my doing, I was a shy and overweight child and an obvious target for bullies. Sometimes I would find the flaw in my enemy before their putdowns went viral. Mostly, however, I would resort to self-deprecating humor to defuse the situation.

Fast forward to a world where political correctness and the lack of respect to those that are different has divided our country. My circuitous life path has landed me in a second career as psychotherapist. A significant portion of my client base is male, and among those are a fair amount that range in age from 13 to 29. This is an age where many of us are striving to figure out who we are. I cannot imagine how difficult that is in today's world without much life experience behind them.

This leads me to the education I received recently. Over the past couple of years, my young male clients have had me running to Google certain sexual identity terms. Since a portion of my work has had me helping the LGBT community, I thought I had a handle on the terminology. Then I had teenage boys tell me they were "pansexual" and "gender fluid". I tried to act like I was in touch with what they were saying, while at the same time looking for the hidden camera.

A third young man, a former client and already into adulthood, checked in with me announced that they had finally had a self-revelation. They told me they were "Gender Queer", which took me aback as I thought the later word was deemed offensive to gay community. They further explained that pronouns that stereotyped gender to were offensive (he, his, even "son"). Note how I used the word "they" to refer to this young person - even the word "man" on the first line of this paragraph would be troublesome.

Having recently attended a professional workshop on Gender Identity issues in teens, I now have a better understanding on how diverse this growing community is. These ideas have only blossomed in the past 5-10 years, as they were not even addressed in the Cultural Competencies part of my Master's curriculum. What set me back, however, in this latest conversation were not the gender identity guidelines we discussed. It was another word altogether. During the course of our talk, I referred to something as "lame". After a brief silence, I was told that this term offended them as it makes light of people with crippling leg injuries.

A bit part of the work I do with clients and how they communicate with other people is to put what the intent is in a word or action to give them proper perspective. I feel like that is the key in any communication we have with other people. Often times we are offended because we hear a word and we shut down, automatically assuming there was malicious intent behind it. Sometimes, we are right, but immediately going on the defensive stifles communication. Before reacting, stop, breathe, and tell the other person why this offends you. Chances are there was no harm intended, and that person can grow a little, or at least learn a little more about what you are made of.

Twenty years ago, my reaction to this conversation with my former client would have been one of being defensive. By saying "he" or "lame", I was not intending on insulting any particular person or groups of people. Much of our language is automatic, learned over many years. We had a good dialogue and they explained to me why my language was offensive, and I explained why that although I didn't feel like I was offending him, I respected his viewpoint. I even took the time to see the ramifications of using the word "lame" in today's context.

In his wonderful book The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro wrote: "But this small episode is as good an illustration as any of the hazards of uttering witticisms. By the very nature of a witticism, one is given very little time to assess its various possible repercussions before one is called to give voice to it, and one gravely risks uttering all manner of unsuitable things if one has not first acquired the necessary skill and experience."

This is the work the Committee on Ministry is starting to do - to learn and teach the congregation how to communicate in order to avoid or deescalate conflict; to help move forward this skill and experience by sharing why we think a certain way.
Over the next year we will have more discussions as we hope to transition to becoming the Committee on Right Relations. This is work that many UU congregations are steering toward. We recently attended a workshop on Right Relations through the New England Region of the UUA and found that our congregation is well ahead of the curve, but there is still work to be done. Please familiarize yourself with our congregation's Covenant of Right Relations, as we are hoping to engage the entire congregation into discussions on how we can all live in the spirit of why we are UU.