To wish people wouldn’t say gender when they mean sex?

[AngeloMysterioso]

I am utterly convinced that half the reason this whole gender thing grew roots in the first place was because people who were too squeamish to utter the word sex just used gender instead. Now we have a situation where the two words have very different and distinct meanings which are having a great impact on women’s social and political position and people still continue to conflate the two. On the first page of the pregnancy board alone there are three threads discussing baby’s gender. I don’t want to be that killjoy who goes round correcting people but it’s really starting to grate!

Anyone else?

I hear ya!

YANBU

YANBU.

Agreed.

YANBU - it drives me mad too!!

Doesn't help that the word sex has two meanings, too.

1. What your chromosomes are.
2. The act of shagging.

Sometimes you don't want your reader/listener to have to stop and go, "Hang on, which meaning was that?" mid-flow.

YANBU.
I think the people who use gender are the same folk who use words like hubby and holibobs not envy
It comes over as very twee and childlike imho.

Yanbu at all. Been grating on me for a long time.

You're absolutely not being unreasonable, and you're right. The conflation of the two terms is at the bottom of the current mess we're in.

Aww

Well done you!

Way to go OP!

Yanbu. It annoys me too.

Yep, I hate it. There's a couple of 'Guess my baby's gender?' threads. Well, there's about 74 genders now so you might as well ask people to guess your baby's personality type.

Doesn't help that the word sex has two meanings, too.

Lots of things are a noun and a verb as well. The context is usually clear from the rest of the sentence.

I only ever hear people complain about this in here tbh and I cantilever remember which ones the right "term" and which one. is going to offend .

Can never *

Doesn't help that the word sex has two meanings, too.

1) What your chromosomes are.
2) The act of shagging.

Actually the ‘act of shagging’ is sexual intercourse, though people just say ‘sex’, colloquially.

Until fairly recently they WERE interchangeable.

Absolutely right.

Too squeamish to use ‘sex’ and also, fit some, I think, ‘gender ‘ seemed more sophisticated.

Gender is an important concept and deserves accurate application.

Sex: ditto.

Gender reveal parties grates my gears. Oh so you can tell if the foetus will be trans in 16 years time?

YADNBU

Completely agree. When I'm given a form which asks my gender I either cross it out and write sex or I put something like mermaid or unicorn.

I was recently given a form asking if I identified as having any disability. I feel bad for the person handling the form as that got quite a rude reply.

I agree that until recently they were fairly interchangeable tbh.

But since people of one sex have started taking the word 'gender' and messing around with it in order to try and lead us to believe that people can change sex, it's very important to keep the two separate!

YANBU.
Every time anyone says the word 'gender' I automatically correct it in my own mind. The two words are used interchangeably now even though their meanings aren't the same. I feel really irritated by it.

YANNNNBU

It's fuelled the fire which women are being burned in (apols for the tortuous metaphor!)

Dd does it on purpose to wind me up. Agree that the word gender gets used because people are embarrassed about saying sex.