I really hate when people use the word gender when they mean sex?

[RachaelC89]

Like when people are pregnant and say "oh I'm going for a gender scan" or "I know the gender" no you bloody well don't. A fetus has no gender, only a sex. Sex is your genitals. Gender is self identity.

I wish we had technology to tell which babies are trans because then we could raise them as the correct gender. It's been proven that trans people have brains of the opposite sex assigned at birth. We should also check babies chromosomes at birth even if they have binary genitals.

The studies, on small numbers of people, did NOT find trans had "brains of the opposite sex", just that some characteristics may be detectable, as with several other conditions:

Scientists said that in 4 specific regions of the brain, male-to-female trans has white matter halfway between that exhibited by male and female brains; female to male trans also had white matter changes.

However, white matter matures over 20-30 years, so this situation could be fluid with age.

Average size difference of male to female brain remains, as do other characteristics.

There is a MUCH more obvious difference in the brains of gay / hetero people that can be seen via brain scan - the left / right hemisphere proportions: The brains of gay men and women actually do look like those found in heterosexual people of the opposite sex, several studies e.g. research
Hence the scientific consensus that gay people are born that way.

I'm surprised tbh that the brains of adult trans don't have comparable hemisphere changes to those of gay people.

The scientific community use sex and gender interchangeably read some more research papers and less MN.

YANBU, people in those situations are simply finding out the sex of the foetus. They won't know the gender 'til yeeeeears later.

That said I've never heard anyone say gender scan.

It's not going to be good for your blood pressure to care that much TBH.

wow much progressive so pc but bit behind the times aren't you?

what about the trans racial and other kin?

race and species is an arbitrary social construct, they should be raised however they identify

If people want a different word for gender identity then I wish they would use another word (make one up, fine by me) or use the full phrase ("gender identity"). Taking the word gender & insisting that it be changed to a radically different meaning is annoying and I'm too old to keep up.

You're right about sex == gender but your pseudo scientific account of trans brains is claptrap.

I prefer gender - stems from people saying "yes please" when asked about sex.

Exactly Ego . I have a boy and a girl. I don't treat them any differently, they are my children. Why would I?

Dojo
You're right, the UKIA still claim the word 'intersex' and oppose the new DSD nomenclature. However, you can probably see which side of the fence I sit on, and from the DSD support group and medical aspects, a DSD is now used for babies and children. Parents don't want their babies labelled as intersex, believe me.

Has the OP returned to explain binary genitals yet? Or justify their other statements?

The New Scientist link posted described some research that is indicative, and not in any way conclusive. It suggests an area for further work, that's all.

The studies were carried out on trans people who had already undergone treatment, therefore you can't say those results would definitely be found in people who hadn't yet started treatment. Presumably hormone treatment could be responsible for changes in the brain.

Of course the studies could equally be proven to be completely right and there may well be identifiable differences in the brains of trans people from birth, which would be of some help in determining possible treatment for children and teenagers. But more likely it would become part of the decision making process rather than the single deciding factor.

My husband uses an emoticon that he swears says 'hug' on his phone

I am absolutely convinced that it looks more like female genitals

({})

Or is it just me looks more squashed together on my phone

Yanbu Rufus.

You are being entirely reasonable about SEX scans rather than GENDER scans. It's one of my biggest pet peeves.

However on the trans issue, er....no. "Deciding" someone is trans at birth just because of their brain size is ridiculous. It would be like deciding someone is gay because their hair whorl is anti clockwise.

Write to the private scan companies then, they describe the scans they provide as gender scans.

Thank you ship

Was beginning to think I had some sort of problem....apart from marrying a man who sends rude emoticons

This really isn't to do with the trans issue.

When I was young, admittedly many moons ago, sex was the word you use to refer to whether you were male or female, and gender was purely used in the context of grammar - nouns in French and other languages having feminine or masculine gender.

Feminists started using the word "gender" to refer to socially conditioned identity, but the word "sex" was still always used to refer to biological differences. The word "sex" was always used on official forms, for example, for you to indicate whether you were male or female.

I get irritated when people refer to finding out a baby's gender - or indeed any other of the uses of the word gender to mean sex, which is a perfectly good, simple word that has been in use for many centuries. I think it's to do with a peculiar modern squeamishness about sex. People can't see the word "sex" without thinking of, er, sex.

People say gender because they are too embarrassed to say sex. They think it's more sophisticated.

Makes one wonder what they actually do it when they are too embarrassed to say it, b that's a whole different thread.