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?

The bit that annoys me even more is that there's no consistency in the use of gender. We get told there are a billion genders but then we get told that trans women want to use the female 'gender' toilets because they are women. What do the other genders use?

Does it really matter? when said in context of sex (e.g. look at this scan pic - what's the gender?) everyone knows what a person means by gender even if it's not the correct word to use.
But it also wouldn't bother me if someone asked - what is 'there' sex?

• what was the book 'entitled'?

wrong word usage - but you know what people mean!

I was most exasperated when Sally Wainwright used it in her recent drama about the Brontes - she has Charlotte saying something like 'it's because of my gender.'
It was so anachronistic - Victorians used 'sex' and AFAIK the term gender was used mainly in a grammatical context (eg the French le, la, un, une etc).
It felt wrong in the same way as it would if Charlotte had suddenly appeared in jeans and a croptop. And it's not like audiences wouldn't have understood 'sex'.

YANBU- I can hear my sociology teacher's voice in my head every time I hear 'gender' in the place of 'sex'. She would not have approved.

Has the increased use of the word gender really affected women's rights? How?

Pop over the the FWR board and have a read - plenty of information there that has been painstakingly presented over and over again for the benefit of posters who claim not to understand the issue.

Agree with you, OP. I use the word sex whenever possible. It is annoying when you're filling forms in online though and you have to go along with it.

I entirely agree.

Just imagine though having a “Sex Reveal Party”. That wouldn’t sound right! Would be a good reason to knock that stupid idea on the head!

Preach sister! This annoys me so much.

I don’t want to be that killjoy who goes round correcting people

Then don’t - finding out the sex is an exciting moment for many parents, why would you even consider disrupting that? To most people gender means sex i.e. They want to find out if their baby is a girl/boy has a vagina/penis. It’s that simple. Willfully misunderstanding people when you and they know exactly what they mean indicates that you have way to much time on your hands.

@LadyMacbethWasMisunderstood yeah a knob or fanny reveal party 😂

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

Sometimes it's clear, sometimes not.

A recent example I saw was about sex-related violence.

One might read that as being violence relating to sexual intercourse. Actually the discussion was about violence of all types that is inflicted on women because they are women.

I don't have a nice simple solution for the ambiguity of the word "sex", unfortunately.

Willfully misunderstanding people when you and they know exactly what they mean indicates that you have way to much time on your hands.

Nobody who corrects posters using gender when they mean sex is “wilfully misunderstanding”.

We’re asking people to use the correct word so that there is absolutely no confusion when people who say they have changed gender then claim that they are legally allowed to use services intended for the opposite sex.

YANBU
I hate it too.
I also loathe filling forms in and the first thing is your Forename.
What happened to Christian name.
The world has gone bonkers.

And LadyMacbethWasMisunderstood has just given another example where there might be an unwelcome ambiguity on the party invitations.

More seriously, I would genuinely love to find a practical, workable solution for this problem of language.

Agree, op. I have been making sure my dd gets it right when she mentions it.

What happened to Christian name.

Yeah, my dad's boss was like that. Used to ask my dad's Jewish refugee colleagues, whose families had been murdered for not being Christian, what their Christian names were.

Don't think it was malice: he was just too dim to have thought about what he was saying.

YANBU OP.

Doesn't help that the word sex has two meanings, too.
If I'm trying to make a point about gender v sex, I usually refer to 'biological sex'.

We’re asking people to use the correct word so that there is absolutely no confusion when people who say they have changed gender then claim that they are legally allowed to use services intended for the opposite sex.

This.

Are you being funny KUGA? What if people have an Islamic, Jewish or Zoroastrian name? Forename isn’t wrong. It reflects modern British society better. It has been used in other countries for a long time, if not forever. I appreciate it is a cultural change which some people may not like, for various reasons, but forename isn’t wrong.

@PerkingFaintly my Jewish Dad's simple atheist funeral included random crucifixes on stuff from the well meaning undertaker. My dad's papers included something from the 50s where he had declared himself an atheist and had been assumed to be CofE. As my Mum is Irish Catholic it was doubly ridiculous because we never had any CofE - ness in our lives. My Dad would've thought it all funny st his funeral.
But words matter. And words you think are neutral or interchangeable are not.

Im part of the 99% of people who couldnt give a toss. Its not important and either are usually understood.

Just because a few people have a bee in their bonnet about it doesnt mean everyoneelse should.

Lots of every day terms are used incorrectly- a bulb is something you plant, a lamp gives you light but loads of people say lightbulb and it doesnt matter

Couldn't care less, I I think the whole "it undermines women" is rubbish and people just want a reason to be outraged and actually use another stick to beat trans down.

YANBU. Sex is real gender is a construct.

I was thinking this the other day. It's not a "gender" pay gap, it's definitely based on biological sex.

Now there's a statement where you could not use the term 'sex' properly without ambiguity (and much hilarity from men, no doubt )

The way our language stands at the moment, we cannot always use the term 'sex' properly, instead of the inaccurate term 'gender', without some torturous rephrasings, eg

Gender pay gap - sex pay gap
Gender reveal - sex reveal.
Gendered behaviours - sexed behaviours
Gender stereotypes- sex stereotypes

But we still need to do it, otherwise language becomes meaningless. We're already well into Humpty Dumpty language:

YANBU. They are different things. Merging their meaning has an effect on the way people think, behave and make laws.