I don't know if my own too-much-time-in-Texas experiences are wildly appropriate for the pronoun thing. But I will say that pronouns have been tricky for me in inverse proportion to exposure; the first is the hardest, no matter how well-intentioned I was. Also, privilege mumble mumble. People who think of pronouns as a thing they do more in isolation (without thinking about the way you experience their usage) might feel negatively about the request because, in the absence of any harm that they can perceive, it could wrongly feel more like a funky power dynamic. Or so my good ol' boy upbringing would lead me to believe. In either case, the solution would not be a trick, but rather time and emotional intimacy- if you feel like going through the trouble rather than hunting around for people that don't need to be house trained.

For the water system, unless it's very high volume a hose siphon (or little plastic specialized siphoning tools) might be your best bet. It's not fire-and-forget exactly, but it's quiet and scalable and doesn't need power.

I have no thoughts about the bed, but it made me think of this: http://xkcd.com/150/