To think that sex and gender are the same thing?

[StNinian]

I don't buy into the distinction many people make between the two terms nowadays. "Gender" was never a word used to describe how one feels/identifies behaves until recently. It has long been synonymous with "sex". Just curious to see if anyone else agrees with me.

They should be called sex reveal parties.

Sex is your biological reality. Gender is the societal norms around that, ie expected behaviours, roles etc.
I refuse to accept it as an identity though. "I agree with being shafted because i was bon female" isn't something I'm going to ever agree with.

Well a biological male could say that their gender is female, but a huge % of people are still going to see that persons gender as male.

I recommend the word Stereotype for most behaviours, and maybe Abuse would be best for foot or anykind of binding.

The only relevance gender or sex has to foot binding is who gets bound.

The only relevance gender or sex has to foot binding is who gets bound

But that's a huge relevance. It was specifically done as it was considered a beauty ideal for women.

Just because you are too prudish to use the word sex to describe your biological reality, doesn't mean that you can use gender to mean biological reality.

Possibly unpopular opinion.

Gender is unnecessary, especially given it is a social construct.
I don’t see the need for it.
we do need Sex though and it must reflect reality not a fantasy.

Gender is, at best stereotypes, at worst, made up nonsense.
Sex is actual proved biology.

Sex is real.
Gender is imaginary.

Yep. And it’s still a beauty ideal.

Gender/sex is used to classify who is subjected to these beauty treatments and who is not.

“Breast ironing (also called breast flattening) is when young girls' breasts are damaged over time to flatten them and delay their development. Sometimes, an elastic belt, or binder, is used to stop them from growing.
Breast ironing usually starts with the first signs of puberty and is most often done by female relatives. In most cases, the abuser incorrectly thinks they're behaving in the best interests of the child. They believe flattening the breasts will make the child less 'womanly'. They hope this will protect the girl from harassment, rape, abduction and early forced marriage, and help them stay in education. “

https://www.sussex.police.uk/advice/advice-and-information/caa/child-abuse/breast-ironing-flattening/

Congratulations to the success of the humanities professionals who succeed getting this into popular language.

Always have a little look at the adults who dilute or dismantle language, what are they looking to gain.

Words matter, it’s how “no” works.

Can we now get them to stop.

Even 30 plus years ago, I refused to get dragged into that. My DC were dressed in lemons, greens, purples, oranges, reds, etc

Sex is physical.
Gender is emotional/mental.

This has always been the case but people are now more aware of the difference between the 2.

Lots of people will still say gender when they’re referring to sex which doesn’t bother me.

I’ve been applying for lots of jobs and most of the discrimination questionnaires say ‘gender assigned at birth’ which I believe should say sex instead.

It shouldn't say either.

Absolutely nothing is assigned at birth.

Sex is irrevocably fixed at conception.

Gender isn't actually real.

100% agree with this.

Gender cannot be assigned at birth.

Anymore than Father Christmas climbs down a chimney.

Think of other animals. Animals are (usually) either male or female, but not all animals have gender-specific names. Beavers, butterflies, bats, snakes, monkeys etc. And not all animals that do have gender-specific names, have separate gender-specific names for their young. That's because "gender" is something made up as a way to separate and classify groups based on certain characteristics. Look at bees. Bees are either biologically male or female, but there are three types/classifications (genders?). Queens, drones and workers. Workers are biologically female, but they are not queens. They look different and act differently because of their role in the hive, but they are still as female as queens are. They just get classified differently because of characteristics other than sex.

TLDR: Sex is real. Gender is made up.

I find it easiest to think of like time.

Sex is like the diurnal cycle, day following night, a REAL genuine, scientific thing that has always and will always be. You don't need to 'understand it' it is. All living things innately express it.

Gender is a manmade construct, like 1pm. It is something we created to give us a way, as humans, to give greater depth to our experience of the world. It is not expressed by animals or plants, it is only humans and it really doesn't suit all of them!

Sex: a human baby is born a girl
Gender: I buy her a pink babygrow

So those convinced they are different….
I just put the bins out, I also filled in female as my ‘gender’ (what the form said) twice this week. Surely I should have written male?

Humanities professionals assign meaning to words for personal gain.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

I’m not 100% convinced here. If a man is “feminine” or has “feminine traits” or wears a dress, this doesn’t make him have a female gender.

This is where we’ve gone wrong, becoming overly attached to gender stereotypes and considering anyone falling outside the stereotypes to be eligible to be considered to have changed gender - this is all rubbish.

On the other hand we can discuss gender roles or socially expected female characteristics in different societies, and I guess a male or female could exhibit any of these. But I still think the actual gender is the same regardless of what outward manifestations of gender are exhibited.
Whilst it is possible for people to “identify” as a different gender, this wish does not make it so.

All this conflated with the fact that 20 years ago gender was in common usage as a way of avoiding the word sex. Eg a gender scan in pregnancy.

Sex and gender have not always had different meanings- that's a recent development and a new re-interpretation of the word gender.

If they had always been different we never would have had the term gender-bending in the past.

We've all been brainwashed to believe that gender can be different to your sex.

Isn’t that “gender roles”? (rather than gender as such?)

But surely it isn’t that simple? You are talking about stereotypes?
My baby has a blue baby romper outfit - that doesn’t mean her gender is male?

If they had always been different we never would have had the term gender-bending in the past.

”Gender-bending” described behaviours, masculine or feminine, and was a term that came into use in the 1970s. Gendered nouns were masculine or feminine, not male or female. Gender has never been a synonym for sex until very recently.