Personally speaking, I try and default to sex is biological and gender is cultural.
Have been the best man at a trans wedding (2006) and helped as security for that incredible day, have endured previous assaults on nights out with this mate and getting twatted by a steel bar round my head on one appallingly sick occasion (lucky to still be here). However, the feeling in the current climate is that if I deviate slightly off script in social and professional interactions it could get ugly quickly.
There’s a conservative US core that are never going to support let alone understand matters, so better to write them off and see what the rest of us have in common as people through empathy. Leave the idiots to their remedial echo chambers.
One of the main issues is the conservative, close-minded core in the US is truly vast in scale. Yes Europe has plenty of numpties, but US conservatives seem increasingly radicalised and love guns. I can not begin to imagine battling this gigantic wall of ignorance, specifically in certain states/regions and I’m not generalising the old Euro bias that Americans are “thick”. Rather, the levels of belligerence and intransigence over the pond seem to be increasing, like they weren’t bad enough previously.