To be bored of the ‘it’s not gender it’s sex’ posts?

[HermioneMakepeace]

Seriously. Every time someone uses the word ‘gender’ this happens. Gender reveal parties, gender scans, etc. Everyone knows what they mean. Why nitpick and derail the thread?

The dictionary definition of gender is,

either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones.

It says ‘especially when’, not ‘only when’. IMO gender is a completely acceptable alternative to sex. And an easier term to use as it does not flag on work computers.

Does anybody else agree or AIBU?

If gender isn't the right word then why do hospitals use it? Waiting for me scan a few months back a big poster on the wall saying "if you would like to know the gender of your baby please let the sonographer know"

Why's it known as a gender scan?
Private scanning places use the word gender.

Bit of an own goal from Cariadne there.

In feminism, there is an awful lot of educated, middle-class women sneering at less educated working class women

Somewhat ironic then that the only person who has been sneery on this thread is Jenmumma who certainly comes across as uneducated.

lucymegan

Most hospitals don’t, and if they do they’re wrong. The fact that gender and sex are conflated on such a wide scale is the problem. Correcting as many people as possible at any given opportunity is vital to undoing this and that should include posts in AIBU about the sex of a fetus.

YABU. The misuse and confusion between gender and sex has directly lead to the greatest threat to women's rights we’ve seen in a generation.

It’s vitals important that the word SEX is used to describe man v woman.

Good thread, OP. Some good posts on here.

YABU, conflating sex and gender has lead to a huge threat to women's rights.

You are asking to be abused by posting this on MN! If a form asks what you are it asks what Sex you are, so lets just go with that Op xx

Hermione I lurked on the feminist threads here for a very long time before I joined any discussion. I wouldn’t say I was intimidated exactly, but I was unsure where I stood in some issues. I felt something might be going on in society, had started to see things in real life that bothered me (I have been a committed LGBT supporter and L activist) and I didn’t fully understand what was going on, or my own feelings about it.

It has been a real eye opener. Do take a look because there is real knowledge, real action and real change being driven there if you are interested.

But I don’t see any of this happening

@HermioneMakepeace it is! It really is!

When I first stumbled into the conversation - before the feminism boards existed - I had no idea. But there is a strong and growing grassroots movement fighting this. Driven by many excellent women who have spent their lives fighting for women and now supported by a generation of women, to whom these discussions were entirely alien only a couple of years ago.

Women are fighting. We are writing and campaigning, engaging MPs, phoning into radio shows, organising meetings and writing articles.

We are talking to our DCs schools, to our colleagues and neighbours. We're stickering and marching. Wearing t-shirts and raising funds.

I believe we are making a difference. We have to because the alternative where we roll back women's rights until only male born voices count is too awful to imagine.

And we all this despite being called killjoys and worse. Because every single women on this board has benefitted from feminism. And every single women will lose something if this fight is lost.

YABU, gender is just an in word (who even said gender up until a few years ago). It’s sex.

By making the unproven blanket assumption about all trans people that they are only trans because of stereotypes such as liking blue or dresses

Err

That’s because that is what the leading pressure group for this Movement is teaching to children in schools, and in training for police and anyone else who purchases their training package.

Anyone who is undecided on this matter should read the excellent speech by cllr Field posted on:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3595007-Leeds-Councillor-thanks-Mumsnet-FWR-in-gender-critical-speech

Well, you are demonstrating prejudice with that last bit. By making the unproven blanket assumption about all trans people that they are only trans because of stereotypes such as liking blue or dresses

I don't think - or assume this. Not even slightly. I've known, worked alongside and socialised with transmen and transwomen. I wouldn't even try to assert that their feelings and what makes them 'trans' can be summed up in a simple statement. That would be facile, reductive and incredibly insensitive, not to mention prejudicial.

But as XenoBio has just pointed out, it's not me that's using this as the basis for determination!

Sometimes I get bored of being a joy sucking feminist. I see threads like this and think not only do women deserve their oppression, they actively fight for it, so why do I care?

I don’t really mean it of course, but honestly, the comments moaning about these things being boring are crazy to me. Don’t you care about how important this is? Don’t you see our rights being eroded? It really wasn’t very long ago that we weren’t allowed to own bank accounts or property, to have agency over our own bodies etc. Women fought and died to give you those rights, and when the patriarchy starts raising its head again, looking to take those rights away, you complain that you’re bored?! Unbelievable.

"Going by the dictionary, ‘gender’ has two definitions: gender as sex and gender as a social construct."

Dictionaries record how terms are used, but they can be behind the times. I'm not sure either definition would be applicable to the trans person who just has an inner sense of themselves asbeing "the opposite" and that the parts they have are alien/wrong and to have the parts of the opposite sex would be more natural/normal.

Also, the oxford dictionary webpage defines a trans man as "A female-to-male transsexual" and lists nothing else. But that is only a subset of the people who are now refered to as trans men.

In otherwords, it is not always appropriate to use what is recorded in a dictionary as the be all and end all of the meanings terms have.

Typical TRA position from Cariadne hurl accusations about and then flounce off refusing to engage properly in the discussion. This is because their argument that being a woman or a man is based on feelings doesn't stand up to scrutiny or science and they know it.

I’m sick of ALL gender posts. Seriously the entire feminism board needs to be removed, it’s vile.

Im sick of ALL gender posts. Seriously the entire feminism board needs to be removed, it’s vile

What part is vile exactly? Women having a voice? Women being concerned about their rights? Women not being polite? Please do elaborate on what exactly is “vile” about it.

Seriously the entire feminism board needs to be removed, it’s vile

And there we have it. Anywhere that women organise to talk about things that affect them, we get folk wanting that space removed.

@Fucklt I have to agree with you.

Yabu
I’m fed up with seeing the word gender in place of sex. I don’t know if it’s cos people are squeamish about the word sex as “sex reveal” sounds a bit dodgy. It may seem a killjoy to correct it but the bigger picture is that a lot of people then go on to nod along with the idea that you can change sex when of course you cannot. It’s funny how a lot of people will go along with a lie to be polite.

Fuckit
As you clearly don't give a shit about women why are you concerned about FWR.
Op YABU
The conflation of sex and gender has really muddied the waters. It's important to make a distinction between biological, Sex and Social, Gender.

I get the impression MNHQ would quite happily say goodbye to the bolshy women posting sense on the feminist topic, too. They appear to get a fuckton of hassle from TRAs over it

I don't think - or assume this. Not even slightly. I've known, worked alongside and socialised with transmen and transwomen. I wouldn't even try to assert that their feelings and what makes them 'trans' can be summed up in a simple statement. That would be facile, reductive and incredibly insensitive, not to mention prejudicial.

Fair enough, I misunderstood your post. And agree with what you say here.

But as XenoBio has just pointed out, it's not me that's using this as the basis for determination!

We do live in a society that says men do this and women do that, so one would fully expect it to be likely that a trans person would want to do some of the things it is normal for men and women to do, just like any other man or woman might do them.

So using stereotypical behaviours as evidence of trans might not be quite the same thing as saying they determine your gender, but more along the lines of sayinhg they can be used to infer someone's gender.

In the same way someone musing a sneeze to infer a cold is not the same as saying that sneezing determines that you have a cold.

Although even if I was correct in that interpretation, you can still argue that they are wrong in inferring trans in others, especially in young people, from atypical behaviour. Let people work out their gender for themselves.

But again I do agree with that first paragraph.