Two weeks ago, a young person who was a friend of our youngest took their own life. They had been in our house only once, and I had met them only twice. The first time I met them, our son introduced his friend as a boy. The second time, at his school as I showed up to pick him up, he introduced his friend without using a gender and with a different name. It was, in fact, just recently and after they went missing, that I realized they were both the same child.

It now seems fairly clear to me, after the past two weeks of reflection, that when this young person first met us, (their friend’s family), they chose to be identified by a masculine pronoun, just in case we might be uncomfortable with an alternative idea. It must have made it easier to just call themselves a boy and avoid any kind of unpleasantness that could arise, which was clearly a fear based on experience. But over the past few months, it was clear that they were starting to (at least try) to embrace their gender identity.

When that child went missing, three weeks ago, the police post was shared on Twitter, and on Facebook, especially in our community and surrounding areas. With a photo and a post that both identified a male child. As it turns out, this meant that, in some way, a few people were looking for the wrong kid. They didn’t really look like that. They now responded to another name as well, and identified by a different gender. I was guilty of this too. I hadn’t put two and two together and shared the original post, in a slacktivist Facebook sort of way, in the hopes that our kid’s friend would be found safely.

I’m not saying that this made all the difference, or even any difference at all. There is simply no way to know whether or not identifying this young person as gender-fluid in the missing persons report would have changed anything, and it’s entirely possible, if not likely, that this would still have ended in the same devastating tragedy. But the mis-identification can’t have helped. And there is also no way to know that had this young person been accepted without condition as a gender-fluid individual by everyone they met in their life, that would have made a difference either. But it might have.

I’ve been thinking about this over the past two weeks, whenever someone gets bent out of shape about words. Usually, they’re getting angry that someone is suggesting they stop using a word, or a phrase, or an expression. And it’s easy to push back on that sort of thing, isn’t it? What, you’re going to tell ME that I can’t make a stripper joke at work? But I’m not sexist, therefore the things I say can’t be sexist, therefore that stripper joke wasn’t sexist, and by extension you are a wussy loser for thinking it was.

My suggestion is simply this If someone points something out – a word, a turn of phrase, a joke – that you take a moment to stop, and think about it. When Mayim Bialik calls on people to stop referring to women as “girls”, or when Russell Peters gets called out for making a “jailbait” joke at the Junos. Move past your knee-jerk reaction and take the time to think about it before adding your own complaints to an already loud cacophony of complaints. Just because your own wife talks about going out “with the girls”, does that automatically invalidate Bialik’s point? Does that fact that you have used the word “jailbait” yourself change the fact that it is, in fact, a joke about statutory rape?

You don’t have to, in the end, agree with everyone and with their complaints. But you do have to think it through before you yell about it. And this, I think is the most important question of all that you can ask yourself: “If I dismiss your suggestion that I stop using this turn of phrase, is it solely for my own comfort? Or is there a real reason for me to hang on to this word?”

If not, there is no argument. Accept that language changes. Accept that people change and that society changes. To become more inclusive. To become more accepting. To become better. There’s a very good reason the Nepean Redskins changed their team name. There’s a very good reason that no decent white human being uses the n-word any more, and that no decent straight human being uses the f-word.

Don’t hang onto words simply for your own comfort. Don’t ever use the excuse that it has always been that way, or that you’ve always said these things. Those aren’t arguments, they’re simply defensive whining. Either make a coherent argument about why the complaint is wrong, or shut up and stop using the word. Change with the rest of the world, to be more accepting and more inclusive, and better. I’m not saying that words are a matter of life and death. I just want you to remember that, every now and then, there is a chance they could be.