I hope you will be proud of me..

I used to explain it thus;

Sex is knowing you have a baby boy or girl.

Gender is feeling slightly uncomfortable that your son is desperate to do ballet.

Looking back, I don't remember encountering "gender" for "sex" much in speech until relatively recently, but was aware of it from books. It felt more literary, or euphemistic, or sometimes a bit arch and facetious. ( This is aside from its use as a grammatical term, which was normal.)

The "gender identity" meaning I only became aware of in connection with gender ideology.

I'm wondering if there's also an American element in the use of gender as a common synonym for sex, which might also have influenced usage over here, but gradually and unevenly. Has it been more usual over there?

When and where did "gender reveal parties" for babies begin?

I was thoroughly confused about the difference, if any, between sex and gender until fairly recent years. I more or less thought they were interchangeable terms. Only since becoming aware of the rise of gender identity ideology have I figured out what the difference actually is.

I also grew up with 'gender' being a polite word for 'sex', with no concept of identity being thrown in. The use of the word gender was certainly not "post the entryism of queer politics into universities". Once it replaced Women's Studies to become Gender Studies it was a different animal, and being used in a different way. In law it is more important to be precise than to spare blushes so yes, the Sex Discrimination Act used the word sex not gender.

I don't think I lived in any societal enclave.

Well that’s told me! My experiences and memories of being a child in the 70s and 80s are clearly all wrong. Maybe I’m so old that I’ve got dementia?

I dont think this is true. It may have happened in some enclaves in society, but given that the UK passed the SEX discrimination act in 1975 it clearly isn't universally true.

And in 1875 despite the alternative society challenging primness etc., by and large mainstream society stuck to conventional norms.

ie women at work were discriminated against because of there sex.

The big change or gradual change to the use of the word gender was post the entryism of queer politics into universities. ie that manage to get rid of the then still quite new Women's Studies and they became Gender studies.

Most people in society didn't use the word gender. It was some weird concept to do with verbs and nouns and things!

I remember one person just blinking at me, like she'd gone into some sort of 'press Ctrl/Alt/Delete to reboot' mode.

The Madeleine Albright quote “There is a special
place in hell for women who don’t help other women” has always resonated with me. It is probably why I find it so annoying and sad that vast numbers of women swallowed the line that a man in a ghastly dress, demanding his rights to be addressed as a woman and access women’s spaces, were more important than a biological woman’s. How does that actually make sense!?

This made me laugh! So they had no logical reason for doing it.

We don’t seem to have moved on far enough.
Ultrasounds reveal biological sex, not a future person’s ‘gender identity’.

I believe the most convincing argument was 'wibble wibble'.

Yes me too. People often felt a bit embarrassed using the word "sex". And "sex" as a question on forms would provoke jokey responses like "yes please"!

I feel we have moved beyond that, however.

Thanks. If men think they are getting sex, they will listen!!

Sorry to jump in but I realised when I became old & therefore no longer attractive to men, that suddenly I was no longer worth their listening too

oddly when I was young and fuckable they hung off my every word....

@viques Do you think women are treated all their lives as if they are not quite worth listening to?

Well done OP and others who are scattering fertile seeds of common sense.

It is quite worrying that in a few of the posts the same issues came up, that the men in question had “ never considered” what the problems are for women if single sex spaces are not respected. So all the hundreds of miles of scrolled stories and forests of newsprint have apparently just passed over the heads of many men, nothing to do with them, pass on by. How on earth are we going to get men to realise what women are saying if they aren’t even taking notice of what we are saying, it’s great that we are educating them one at a time, but blimey , it’s going to take a heck of a long time to get through to all of them, or even to a decent percentage of them.

That used to annoy me too! And the gender reveal parties!

Thanks! That explains why some women night not like using the word sex. Like you said, once @Shedmistress had explained they should have left it.

Did the women who changed the terms ‘sex’ to ‘gender’ give reasons for doing so?

I'm old enough to remember a time when the word 'sex' meant sexual intercourse and 'gender' was a more polite word to use when referring to men and women, then all the trans nonsense came along and 'gender' became associated with identity divorced from biological reality. Maybe those women still felt a bit awkward using the word 'sex'? But even so, once it was explained then they shouldn't have kept changing it back.

Women are the ones who are disadvantaged by all this, so why do so many support it?

Is it just because they want to ‘be kind’?

Did the women who changed the terms ‘sex’ to ‘gender’ give reasons for doing so?

It’s definitely women like you that we have to thank. These people ran ‘roughshod’ over you, but they met their match. You sound amazing and strong. Thank you!