What word would be the equivalent for sir or ma’am for a person not in the gender norm. I like greeting strangers with it while working retail & have always wondered what would be the right why to respond to someone who did not want to be called either sir or ma’am.
In Japanese stores or restaurants, they will call people “customer/guest.” In regular conversation, they have the -san or -sama suffix, which is appropriate for any gender, or they’ll leave out pronouns entirely (directing topics at someone is sometimes seen as rude).
Unfortunately, English doesn’t really have gender neutral words or ways to talk about people in that way. We can use “they/them,” but I’m not aware of any neutral words that are specifically used for “polite” conversations.
You could perhaps use the word “friend,” but it might be overly familiar and probably wouldn’t be appropriate for talking to a customer or client. You could say “honored guest” for customers or guests, but it’s kind of an unusual way of speaking.
I just try to leave off the honorifics and be as kind as I can. If I need someone’s attention, a nice “pardon me” can work nicely.
I wonder if it would make sense to steal the prefix sam/sama for English use. Or some other word from a different language if it has some other meaning I’m not aware of