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?

What?

If you saw two groups, one described as single sex, for women, one described as for people of the female gender, at which would you most expect to encounter a man?
Because no, we shouldn't have gone along with it. But those who did didn't really ask our permission. So we are where we are.

I don’t think we should pretend that there’s a magic female gender that’s different from sex. There isn’t.

Of course not. But nor can we ignore the fact that some people do pretend this, so now, when the words 'female gender' appear, they are highly likely to mean women and some men, whereas we know where we are with the word sex.

I personally think that this is accepting gender as something different from sex. It isn’t and I’m not going to pretend it is. The obsession with correcting gender to sex is just helping their cause and making it sound like gender is something that exists differently to sex.

Thinking about it, I don’t really use the word gender at all these days, unless I’m saying something like ‘Some people believe they have a gender identity’, ie to say something about an ideology that I don’t believe in. If I was studying a language I might need to use the word in that context, but I’m not. If I’m talking about sex, I’ll use the word sex.

I think we have no choice but to accept that some people believe they have a thing they call a gender that differs from their biological sex. People can believe whatever they choose.
My only concern is that that belief doesn't once again become conflated with the idea this gives them access to spaces otherwise denied them on the grounds of their sex.
Which is why for me I prefer to be clear and say sex when I mean sex. And gender..I don't have much call to use at all really.

I remember the days when ‘gender’ was used largely in the context of the foreign language nouns I had to learn. Masculine, feminine, neuter…

Pathetic. How did she (?) cope with learning about gendered nouns at school?