Ramy is my most recent binge watch. It's two short seasons and I'm so ready for some more.

It's about a young man in New Jersey who is trying to juggle modern life whilst having a faith. He's a total fuck up but easy to care about. His missteps feel relatable and the writing is incredible. There are epic comedy setups but the payoffs are so unexpected (whilst feeling earned and inevitable after they happen), that I think the writer (who plays the main character), might be a genius.

I thought it was just ok until they had an episode flashing back to his childhood and after that I was in love.

His mum and dad are from Egypt and he has a younger sister in her twenties. I thought the show would just be about him but the scope widens out and you get to see things from the perspective of other family members.

They have an episode which touches on gender stuff too and I want to talk about it so much, so BEWARE SPOILERS FOR AN EPISODE IN THE SECOND SEASON ARE COMING NOW.

His mum gets a job as a Lyft driver and gets suspended one episode. This doesn't come as much of a shock because she's pretty rude in general to her customers. She can't think about what it was that she has done, so her daughter gets her to talk about the customers she had the day before. She was very very rude to all of them but in an adorable mum-way where she just says what she thinks and people take umbrage. She's not trying to be rude.

Anyway, she tells the last story about being confused about "a man in a dress" who said he was non-binary and whose pronouns were 'they/them', and the daughter freaks out and says that her mother had been unforgivably rude by misgendering the customer.

In the flashback the mum asked "are you going to a fancy dress party? Is that why you are wearing a woman's dress?" and gives makeup tips. It's not a hate crime situation but clearly makes her customer feel uncomfortable.

The daughter is sure that it must have been that customer who made the report but tries to persuade the mum not to do anything about it.

Anyway. The mum waits all day outside the customer's house and follows when they leave. She goes into the bar, approaches when the customer's date goes to the bathroom and apologises. She says "English not my first language and I feel strange using new words. This is all so new to me," and "please give me another chance!" and the customer replies that it wasn't them who did the reporting but sure, she's forgiven.

The customer also says "you don't know how exhausting it is to police what people say about you."

The customer's boyfriend returns and says how funny it is that you run into people at random like this. The mum says that it wasn't coincidence, she'd been waiting outside the customer's apartment all day. The couple freak out.

The boyfriend says "there is an epidemic of violence against trans women, it's time for you to feel scared!" and calls the cops on her.

The daughter shows up to talk the cops out of booking the mum. The cops aren't really interested in taking further action anyway.

So, I think whilst it is firmly not telling a gender-critical fable, the writer has tried to be Switzerland about the whole thing, and has succeeded in my opinion.

The main stakeholders are set out: a non binary man who wants to be able to dress femininely without it being a big thing and an immigrant woman who doesn't mean to be rude but the rules and language keeps changing. Another woman who knows the rules: just use the preferred pronouns and don't question anything. A man who seems to think that rude, slightly creepy but ultimately harmless women deserve to be scared "for a change"(!), and that there is an epidemic of violence against non binary men, and not, in fact, women. The police who are called in to arbitrate but clearly have better things to do.

If anyone comes off as the asshole, it's the boyfriend, although his reaction is also presented as understandable because a stranger has been stalking his romantic partner.

No comment is made as to the validity of non binary identities. The daughter believes in them. The mother goes along to get along.

The line about not understanding how exhausting it is to police the language of others is fascinating to me. I think it gets to the heart of the whole thing. I'm sure it is exhausting to do that which is why most people don't bother.

Androgynous people of the past, I'm thinking Bowie for example, had to do some explaining as to why they were wearing dresses or makeup but they didn't have to ensure that people used precise language about them.

I'm sure it was annoying to have to justify the use of eyeliner in interviews but I expect it is a lot more irritating to have to insist on the use of 'they/them' when the older generation just don't get it and don't play along. We're absolutely not talking about hate crimes, here, but petty annoyances and irritations.

The issue is that a female cab driver tracking someone down to apologise for misgendering them is put in the same category as a trans woman being killed by her partner, as if somehow these two categories of offense are comparable.

Maybe it's a shared responsibility so that people can have their best lives. If no one makes a big thing out of "cross dressing"/gender non conformity, and in return those gender non conforming people don't make any demands about the language you can use about them. Isn't that win-win? They don't have to be exhausted by insisting on a personal style guide even from strangers, and those strangers don't fuck up and inadvertently cause offense.