I consider myself gender-critical but think this is a bit unnecessary and obsessive

[5foot5]

I am reading a book I borrowed from the library. It's not anything especially heavy or literary, just a fairly enjoyable piece of fiction set during the First World War. "The Post Office Girls" by Poppy Cooper if anyone's interested.

However, I have noticed that where the author has used the word "gender" a previous reader has struck it out and written "sex" above it (photo attached). This has happened twice now but I am only halfway through the book so there may be more.

A bit OTT, no?

Did you actually do it yourself perhaps?

Vandalising a book is of course OTT.

I’d report it back to the library. Hopefully they can find whose damaging books

People are weird.

If you don’t like the way an author writes then you stop reading. You don’t deface someone else’s property.

Writing in a library book is always unreasonable regardless of what's been written and by whom.

Of course not! I would never deface a book, especially not one I didn't own.

I was taken aback because I have never come across anything like this before.

Tell the library because defacing books in any way is not on. Plus if someone gets it out after you and you haven't said anything they could suspect you!

I wouldn’t bother defacing a library book, but I’d probably stop reading, if it used gender instead of sex in an historical context and assume the author and/or their publisher was a bit of a twat. 🤷🏻‍♀️

I am also gender critical and regard some of the recent antics of the trans lobby as mad and dangerous but I do also think in the minds of some people its become a total mania as if its literally the only issue that matters. They see trans everywhere.

I agree OP.

I don’t understand what the obsession is with sex and gender. They mean the exact same thing. I have no idea why everyone is pretending they don’t and playing along with the idea that they can be different.

Gender has been used to denote whether someone is a man or woman for hundreds of years.

They are absolutely not the same thing
which is why rubbish about gender identity has proliferated

They absolutely are the same thing. Gender and sex mean the same thing. The attempts to force gender to mean something else are bizarre and I don’t know why it’s being humoured.

In the Cambridge dictionary the definition of gender is: the male or female* sex, or the state of being either male or *female.

I'd think it was someone from MN who had done it and wanted a pat on the back. Then I'd tell the library someone had defaced the book.

🤣🤣🤣

Then I'd expect a 1000 post thread on FWR about it 🤣

Not the same thing at all.

Yes they are. The dictionary definition of gender is sex.

I think most of us used to use the words interchangeably back when lots of people were embarrassed to use the word ‘sex’ in everyday conversations. But nowadays it seems to mean something completely different to a lot of people.

Yup indeed. My twat radar would be alerted by this!

People have invented the strange idea that they can have a gender different to their sex. It is not possible and I’m not sure why we pretend it is.

Sex and gender were pretty much synonyms until social scientists redefined them within their fields of research, and then forced these new definitions on the population at large.

YANBU. While I fully agree with the annoyed person. that sex is not the same as gender, I don’t think it’s ok to write that in pen in a book which doesn’t belong to you. A pencil…maybe.

While I totally agree, you must have seen that most of society has gone mad with the idea and women who raise concerns about it are absolutely vilified. It's the ultimate Emperors New Clothes

Yes, of course I know about it. I do not understand why gender critical women pretend that sex and gender are not synonyms. They are, and no one can change their sex/gender. We shouldn’t pretend anyone can change their gender but not their sex. It is nonsense. Gender means sex.