So you want your trans friends to be comfortable at SCA events... (Part 1)

I would rather talk about sword fighting than trans issues any day of the week, but Pennsic is here and a quick chat seems useful. I'll write up something longer and more in depth later on.

Here's a quick list of things you can do to make any SCA event you're at a little more comfortable and trans inclusive:

1. Mind your miladys and milords.  I'm going to get misgendered twice a day once I arrive on site at Pennsic. It's just what happens. That doesn't make it comfortable. I know that it's considered both polite and part of the fun to refer to each other as such, (particularly milady, much to my sadness), but if you drop the frequency a touch and avoid assuming the genders (both persona and otherwise) of everyone you meet, I guarantee you'll save someone a bit of pain.
Edit: A suggestion has been raised that "good gentle" is a perfectly fine gender neutral honorific that could take the place of some of these.

2. Assume folks are using the correct bathroom and changing area. If you'd like me to go into this in more depth I will, but really, bathrooms are private. Mind your business and they'll mind theirs, and I guarantee they know better than you where they should be. For added support here, check out http://www.illgowithyou.org/, and consider wearing some garb-appropriate token to indicate acknowledgement and support. (Some kind folks have made me a few to wear and pass out, which I'll be experimenting with at Pennsic.)

3. Check out your kingdom's armor policies. (And maybe other policies as well.) Every set of armor rules that I've looked at (though I believe a few are being rewritten), equates gender with genitalia. Men need to wear cups. Women are expressly assumed not to need to. The go-to question from fencing marshals in my area was for ages "Are you wearing your gender-specific rigid protection?" To which my answer is universally no. The marshals who know me have now switched to "Are you wearing your anatomy-specific rigid protection?" which is the actual question the rules intend to ask, and works perfectly well.

4. Don't be afraid to ask about a person's gender and pronouns if you're not sure. Assuming is far ruder. And frankly, this should be even easier in the SCA than elsewhere, given the prevalence of people playing genders other than their own. Ask how people want you to refer to them, and it will save you and them a lot of hassle.

5. Avoid binary gendered language if you can. "Lords and Ladies," etc. If you're giving a speech or titling an event, it takes very little effort to address the set of all humans in a more gender neutral fashion. Outside of the SCA, "esteemed guests" works well, but I'm sure there are a number of fun and interesting more period-appropriate addresses you could use. Many trans people fall into "lords and ladies" and the applicable gender binary just fine, but not everyone does.
Edit: As before, "good gentles" covers this very well.

6. If any of this goes against your Dream, consider why. The SCA was pitched to me as "The middle ages without all the bad parts." The bad parts are mostly hand-waved as plague, but if your version of the Dream doesn't include space for same-gender consorts, women fighters, or the acknowledged existence of trans people, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say you're still including a lot of the bad parts there. Learn from history, then grow beyond it.

I hope that's clear and helpful to folks. Another part I'd normally add is an addendum that it's not the job of your trans friends to educate you, but in my case in particular I'd rather help where I can. So if you have questions, always feel welcome to ask.