First of all, let me say that I don't know what it's like to have the thinking that "I'm something other than what I am." I don't know what that feels like. I hope this post doesn't come off as insensitive.
I think... I think it costs Christians very little to acknowledge someone through preferred pronouns. I know that there are Christians who aren't going to do that, because they feel "if I use the pronouns they like, they'll think I approve and I don't." The question I have to ask someone who has this mindset is, what are you trying to accomplish and what WILL be accomplished by ignoring their wishes?
I assume what you are trying to accomplish is to somehow get the person involved to realize they are wrong. I'm going to be frank, believing you are a different gender than what you were born with seems a little akin to stating with certainty you are a poached egg. This may be offensive to any transgender person who is reading this, but that's how I see it. But even if someone did come up to me and tell me that they were a poached egg, my first instinct wouldn't be to correct them or try to fix them. I would say to you that believing you are something different than you are is probably a mental health issue, and I'm pretty sure that just trying to directly fix them is not going to work. That means that using the pronouns you prefer (their birth pronouns) and trying to directly fix them is going to get you nowhere. Is that what Jesus taught? I just don't see Jesus going this route, because Jesus's primary goals were about drawing someone closer to God, and I don't see that correcting people such that you make them mad is drawing them closer to God.
It all comes down to priorities. We should make a stand when it's worth something. Sometimes you have to make principled stand because righteousness is on the line. I don't think it's on the line in this situation. Yes, it is possible that someone might get the idea that you approve of them being a different gender than they are born with. Is that really so bad? They might also get the idea that God loves them. To me that's far more important than them thinking you don't approve of them saying they are a different gender than they were born with. I'd rather someone go to Heaven and be surprised that they really were the gender they were born with, than go to hell knowing full well they were the gender they were born with.
We got to keep our priorities straight. Tough love may be... tempting... but in this case I think it's not necessary or helpful.
