Gender instead of sex

[furandchandeliers]

I don't know how to explain why but I hate it when people say they're having a scan to find out the gender of the baby, and the other day I was asked by an 8 year old what gender my dog is!

I've even found myself crossing off the bit on forms that asks me my gender, and writing sex instead and then female.

Aibu to do this? Why does it annoy me so much? If I try and explain it to anyone I just get looked at like this

What are inaccuries ArialAnna?

YANBU - my cat is male, that’s his sex not his gender. He has no concept of the perceived societal roles of male cats.

The distinction is important - completely ignoring the transgender debate (please) gender constructs harm men and women and if don’t talk about gender and sex separately these constructs can’t be challenged in the same way.

So what should a pregnant woman answer when she is asked "what's your baby's sex"? because if you want to be correct, "a girl" or "a boy" would also be gender. Should she answer "I am having a female/male human"?

Agreed they are not the same.

Also agree with PP that some people are just embarrassed to say the word "sex". 9yo DC actually thinks it's a swear word! (We've had numerous discussions about it being categorically not one).

Sex and gender are not the same. Different words, different meanings. Words matter. YANBU.

And “girl” means “female child”, as “boy” means “male child” - irrelevant to gender.

I was asked not for sex or gender but only for "gender identity" the other day. "I don't have one" didn't seem to be an option.

Gender and sex used to be the same, and gender was probably mostly used as a coy word for sex, before the TRAs came along....

Some people probably still say gender when they mean sex, but the trouble these days is that you don't always know whether they actually mean sex or whether they mean gender, but I agree with Circle in that I don't believe in gender as a social construct.

A man in a dress wearing make up is just that, clothes, outward appearance don't change that. By that argument, they are more of a woman than I am, which is ridiculous and factually incorrect.

Interestingly, some regulations that are relevant to my work include the word sex once and gender twice, when they mean sex (it's to do with a hazardous substance that is extra hazardous to pregnant women) and during the consultation period I was itching to point this out, but chickened out.

I'm just waiting for a transwoman to come along and insist that 'she' is entitled to the extra protections afforded to women working with this substance, despite having zero likelihood of becoming pregnant.

I’ve always assumed it’s people not wanting to use the word ‘sex’

Pisses me off when I hear the word gender or see it written on a document. What use is it to ask someone’s gender? You might as well ask the colour of their hair!

I am with banana

I do amend forms and use 'sex' where appropriate in conversations

Yanbu.

What really annoys me is when people refer to the 20 week scan as the "gender/sex scan" or "finding out the gender/sex today" as if that's the main purpose of the scan it's a fucking anomaly scan to have an in-depth look at the baby's health, check. For abnormalities etc. Fucking annoys the hell out of me!! Especially when finding out the sex it's still a fairly recent thing in terms of scientific/medical advancement.

I always cross out gender and put sex if it’s on paper. Online forms are causing me a problem. This isn’t new I have been fighting gendered expectations of me for about 45 years and crossing these words out on forms since I had to fill them in myself. It is true that the recent escalation of the trans debate has made it clear that if we allow gender to slip through uncorrected as a synonym for sex it will be taken advantage of.

When the NHS do it I really despair -

@Candyflip it is to avoid the situations where those with neutral titles such as Doctor and/or unisex names are categorised as they don't want to be in society.

YANBU OP. It really riles me - probably unreasonably so.

So many people just don't seem to know the difference between the two. I remember sex and gender being discussed in biology at school. What do they reach now? (I'm well aware that makes me sound ancient but I'm not THAT old ).

I don't think this is as big an issue as mn users make out. IME people use the terms correctly most of the time.

For example, I don't think it's common to say to a pregnant woman "will you find out the gender"...it's doesn't sound right at all. "Do you know the sex?" Is what people actually say.

Why bliebug? Why do some forms want to know gender? They want to know sex don’t they?

@BarbaraofSeville I'm in my 40s and was told from childhood that gender and sex were not the same. Then studied courses at different levels in different subjects that confirmed this.

As an older primary school children my class had lessons on stereotypes and this included gender roles. (I found some of my nephews and nieces who are in their 20s covered this at secondary level.) As a PP said without knowing the difference between gender and sex you can't break down gender constructs which are harmful to individuals.

Sex and gender are not the same.

The words are largely used interchangeably. Get annoyed if you want to but it really isn't a big deal

@Candyflip Nope because gender and biological sex aren't always the same for a person.

In liberal societies we don't delibrately exclude minorities just because the majority have a binary sex that matches their gender identity.

If you saw the name "Dr Chris Smith" on a piece of paper you wouldn't know if their sex at birth was male, female or intersex, and what their gender identity was.

If "Dr Chris Smith" was intersex then by the time they got their doctorate or medical degree they would likely have had their chromosomes and hormone levels looked at to biologically categorise them as biological male or female, but their phenotype plus social and cultural experience may mean their gender identity differs.

Why does it bother you so much? The words mean the same. YABU. I always say gender.

Sigh.

No they don't. The word gender was used in place of sex because people became unreasonably coquettish about using the word sex. Gender is constructed from stereotypes, cultural norms and expectations placed on people BECAUSE of their biological sex. I wish more people would understand this. Sex is your biology, the chromosomes you were born with, whether you have the potential to produce sperm or eggs...

The words are largely used interchangeably. Get annoyed if you want to but it really isn't a big deal

It is when people are using gender identity to claim sex can be changed. It can't, it is impossible to identify out of chromosomes.

Sex and gender are not the same.