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

The NHS form for my DD’s vaccinations asked for her gender NOT her sex. Sex is a protected characteristic so employers should be asking for sex not gender. If they used it appropriately noone would mind

That's rather worrying. If your DD decides that she 'identifies as male' when she is 11 and asks for her gender to be recorded as male, how will the NHS know that she needs the HPV vaccine, and when she is older, smear tests and breast cancer screenings? That is why the NHS especially needs to be clear about what it is asking.

I went to the dogs trust the other day and thought it was amusing that I could pick my preferred gender of dog.

@furandchandeliers, YADNBU, I do the same with all forms that I fill out, the kids think I'm funny for getting so annoyed about it.

Yanbu it gets on my nerves too. I think people don't like saying the word sex and think gender is a less rude word to mean the same thing..except they don't mean the same thing!

They are different.

Though even the government seems to struggle with that. Trans people with a GRC who apply for new documents in their acquired gender receive new passports and birth certificates.

Both of which have sections for 'sex' but the 'acquired gender' will be used in that section.

It may seem irrelevant when they are used as synonyms but organisations are starting to take advantage of this conflation to change policy.
Last year the Girl guides changed policy on trans children stating that they would allow boys in who identified as girls and manage girls out if they identified as boys. When challenged on how this fits with a single sex organisation they said ‘we have always been a single GENDER organisation and we still are’. So without getting into whether you agree with the policy or not have a look at how they used the confusion between the two terms to make a major policy change. Sex is the protected characteristic in the equality act.