When I was at school only nouns had "gender"

[somebloke123]

People just had sex.

Why the change in usage?

I didn't have sex when I was at school - have I missed out on something?

A pedant elaborates: Yes you did, as did I, since to have sex is the state of being male or female. I didn't have sexual intercourse though.

Sorry I meant "to be in the state of being male or female".

Because sex and gender mean two different things. Your sex, male or female, is basically your chromosomal make-up (XX or XY). Gender is the not just the physiological, but also the behavioural characteristics that distinguish between feminine and masculine.

Simply put, sex is biological, gender is a social construct.

Malinois has already said what I was going to say and said it better

Thanks malinois. So it seems to me that when filling in a form, it should really ask for your sex, which is objectively determined. Instead one gets all this absurd stuff about "the gender you were assigned at birth" as if there were someone standing with the midwife arbitrarily "assigning" you a gender much as a traffic attendant at a cross channel ferry might assign your car arbitrarily to a particular lane for boarding.

somebloke123 I've never seen a form asking for "gender assigned at birth". I've seen "sex", and I've seen "gender", although I suspect that most forms that ask for gender, really want to know your sex.