"Calling a spade a spade": synonymous expressions?

I'm looking for expressions that are equivalent to

"calling a spade a spade."

In some environments and verbal contexts, this phrase needs to be avoided -- please take my word for it.

Thank you.

I shouldn't have used the gerund in my question. Where I need to use this sort of expression is in a discussion I'm losing patience with, and I want to say, effectively, let's not pussyfoot around with euphemisms. I'm going to tell it like it is, and Let's not mince words here, both work quite well. Thank you all.

In response to @Pharap,

Do you have evidence that someone has taken offence at this before or is this merely preemptive?

I want to avoid problems. I live in a small town where everybody has their sensitivities. I was once in a hiring committee where a person objected to someone calling one of the candidates a "dark horse." I believe I read that some town in California decided not to use the term "manhole covers" any more because of the "man" syllable.

These could work:

Telling it like it is

Informal. to be blunt and forthright. _[TFD]

Calling it like one sees it

To be honest and unbiased; be deaf to influence _{[Dictionary.com]}

I would probably use "not mincing words".

(Dictionary.com)

My choice would be "X knows a hawk from a handsaw (when the wind is southerly)."

The distinction isn't quite as obvious as Hamlet's wording might suggest, since handsaw here refers to hernshaw, a heron. For a lengthier discussion of the hernshaw and of heron-hawking, see James Harting, The Ornithology of Shakespeare (1871).

In any event, at the very least, I would have little confidence that a person who couldn't distinguish a hawk from a handsaw would correctly identify a spade as a spade.

On the other hand, according to Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms (1997), "call a spade a spade" has a less sociologically fraught origin:

call a spade a spade Speak frankly and bluntly, as in You can always trust Mary to call a spade a spade. This term comes from a Greek saying, call a bowl a bowl, that was mistranslated into Latin by Erasmus and came into English in the 1500s.

So, if you like, you can say "X calls a bowl a bowl"—and then explain to your puzzled hearers that you're just correcting Erasmus's little translation error from 500 years ago.

You could say it like it is. Alternatively, you could describe the situation as is.