Am I right to cross out "gender" on my child's school form and change it to "sex?"

[PerverseConverse]

I have a form for my child's new school which asks me my child's gender. I feel it should say "sex" seeing as gender is a social construct. Would I be wrong to cross out gender and write sex?

[ErrolTheDragon]

Gah. I've just got an online form pertaining to health insurance which has Gender (Male, Female, Not specified)

Twits.

[blueskiesandforests]

In German there seems to be no separate word, only Geschlecht. Geschlecht can mean genus or even race too. Not very helpful, although you can specify biologische Geschlecht or soziale Geschlecht.

I'm an English native speaker studying in Germany as a mature student, and our lecturer tries to be very right on but I think is unintentionally saying some potentially harmful things in her efforts to be inclusive. Germany is behind the UK on disability rights, and that's her field, but she has a slide she puts up mainly about inclusion which for some reason includes a diagram conflating intersex conditions with transgender. Without distinct vocabulary it's hard to question this effectively!

It's doubly damaging because gender stereotypes are often unquestioned and another lecturer presents as fact her opinion that preschool boys and girls play differently due to nature rather than nurture, and encourages students to anecdotally corroborate the "fact", as part of a child development model.

[deepwatersolo]

regarding the mixup of trans and intersex: In Austria in intersex person has won the right to have a 'third sex' included in the passport & official documents. Next day there was already a big article in one of the major newspapers (der Standard, liberal left like the Guardian), making the case that this ruling may imply 'third sex' declaration on self declaration, and in fact 'opposite sex' assignment on self-declaration, too.

The comment section was, of course, full of men (halfjokingly) affirming they would instantly declare being women, if that meant getting to use women's earlier retirement age (63 instead of 65).

I was surprised the intersex community had apparently allied with the trans community in this lawsuit, at least that is what it looked like.

[ErrolTheDragon]

Could having 'intersex' or an 'acquired gender' instead of sex on a passport be liable to cause problems abroad for its bearer?

[LightofaSilveryMoon]

Women don't have penises.

Official record-keeping should acknowledge this.

[Labradoodliedoodoo]

Bluntness what do you actually mean by identifying as a woman?How do men identify as women? In what way? What do they identify with? What aspects? What is a woman exactly? What makes a woman a woman?

[GlomOfNit]

I did it the other evening on an indemnity waver form, before having a presumably very risky swim in an 'open water' outdoor swimming lake. (Mixed sex sessions, for the record. Which was fine.) It asked for my gender, but I thought that, in the event that my waterlogged body was dredged out of the weed, my position on whether or not I felt girly or otherwise was probably largely irrelevant. So I crossed it out and wrote 'SEX!' instead.

[mansplain111]

Ive just attempted to register one of the dds on The Girlguiding Website.

I noticed it asked for gender not sex. There’s no opportunity to print and post the form.

I know there’s issues with GGUK and genderfeelz, but how the fook do I fill that one in?

[MipMipMip]

I alter it depending on what it is for. So at the library i left it as gender, at the doctor sex.

My reason is that the library the gender doesn't matter in the same way whereas for doctors it really does. It will play with stats a bit for the library but is unlikely to have any material effect. At the doctors it could change loads of things and potentially kill you (guides, doses, check up invitations etc).

[MipMipMip]

Girl Guides probably mean gender any way. All about how you feel these days.

[Beachcomber]

"Sex" is shorthand for reproductive sex

"Gender" is either a euphemism for sex or shorthand for harmful cultural stereotype.

The form is either euphemistic or incorrect. The euphemism shouldn't really matter but in these Brave New times it does and you are right to change it.

[NotTerfNorCis]

Love the own goals being scored by TRAs on Twitter over this discussion.

A couple make the point that words and language are themselves social constructs.

Well, exactly! No child is born speaking a language. Language is not innate. Only the facility for learning it is innate. Similarly, children learn gender, which is the social construct based on their biological sex. No one can be born with the wrong innate gender any more than they can be born with the wrong innate language.

[PerverseConverse]

Oh my god. I've been quoted on Twitter when I don't even use Twitter. Am not impressed.

[PerverseConverse]

Maybe it was Bluntness100 who posted it on twitter seeing as they were the only one arguing fiercely for me not to do this

[TigerDrankAllTheWaterInTheTap]

Some of the most prolific TRAs on Twitter are watching Mumsnet all the time looking for things to get outraged about. I suspect a lot of them are unemployable, hence having a lot of time to do this. I also surmise that many of them are strangers to fresh air and exercise.

[Bluntness100]

Eh? I don't use Twitter. Don't flatter yourself that you're that important to me

You're not.

[PerverseConverse]

Yet here you are

[Oceanbliss]

NothingOnTellyAgain
" identifying as female and to be treated as such."
Presumably no maths or science, dance instead of PE, sitting quietly in the corner while the others run around, and occasionally being sexually assaulted by other students.
YAY!!!!!!!!!!

We'll said. Gender stereotypes are harmful and I really don't understand why they are still enforced. I really don't think it's healthy for children to be taught they have to fit in or identify with one gender or another. They should be exploring what their interests are, playing and experimenting, figuring out what they can or can't do without gender attached to it. My 4yr old while at the supermarket looking at the nappy boxes said 'pink is a girl's colour and blue is a boy's colour.' I replied that both boys and girls can like pink and can like blue too. Then I added but yes the girls nappy boxes are pink etc. It's not just nappy boxes though is it. It's children's clothing that is divided by gender and toys marketed towards one gender or another. Wish we could do away with this social construct and let people choose what they like to wear, do etc. Identity surpasses gender and is multifaceted. Gender is a social construct, sex is biological and therefore a real and tangible part of nature.

[Oceanbliss]

Bluntness100 every thread I've come across that you are posting on you seem to be very hostile towards other posters. Is there something going on in your life that is causing this hostility? The Op and others posting on mn don't really deserve your blatant contempt. Maybe you could deal with your real issues in life then you might make some actual valuable contributions rather than just trying to stir up a storm in a teacup. I'm saying this with genuine concern. It really can't be healthy acting like you are under attack because people don't agree with you and then feeling like you have to lash back. Or, if this is merely your idea of entertainment then that is not healthy either.

[hipsterfun]

Aw, Blunt, a few pages ago, you said you were out. And yet... here you are on page six.

[Bluntness100]

I am out, I just happened to look at my I'm on page and saw the ops post so responded,, I've genuinely not read anything else.

[R0wantrees]

From Telegraph article 2014 on Facebook's possible gender options:

'Facebook's 71 gender options come to UK users
Following its successful integration in the US, US Facebook users can choose from one of 50 gender options'

(extract)
"Facebook worked with UK groups Press for Change and Gendered Intelligence to add 21 new options to ensure the list best reflected the ways UK users may choose to describe themselves.

"Gender identities are complex and for many people, describing themselves as just a man or just a woman has always been inadequate," said Professor Stephen Whittle, vice-president at Press for Change. The European Court of Human Rights has upheld the right to develop our gender identity, as key to our personal autonomy.

"By challenging the gender binary, Facebook will finally allow thousands of people to describe themselves as they are now and it will allow future generation of kids to become truly comfortable in their own skins."

www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10930654/Facebooks-71-gender-options-come-to-UK-users.html

[NothingOnTellyAgain]

mansplain111

The GG will mean Gender as in are you "girly" or not
They change from a single sex org to a single gender org about 2 years ago without consulting or telling anyone
GG is (and i think most parents and also guide leaders on the ground dont' know this) a group NOT for people of the female sex but for those who "identify as a girl" - which means it's for feminine people / those who "feel like a girl" in their head whatever that means.

Most people >> most women and girls anyway judging by multiple threads on here going back years > don't have this feeling so logically should not be attending this group. Also most women and girls do not "identify" wholeheartedly with performative restrictive femininity so again are out. Also how you work it out for the little ones (rainbows) is anyone's guess. Mine ID'd as an animal at that age (and still does a lot of the time, she's 9 now).

Interestingly. As they are now a single GENDER group (ie unisex you just have to say the magic words "I'm a girl" to get in) not a single SEX group (ie members of the sex that have been oppressed all over the world for milennia due to their biology) they are operating ILLEGALLY. There is an exemption in law for single sex groups. There is no exemption for single gender groups. Their rules are illegally discriminatory.

I know this has been pointed out to them but they dont' care.

[R0wantrees]

My 4yr old while at the supermarket looking at the nappy boxes said 'pink is a girl's colour and blue is a boy's colour.' I replied that both boys and girls can like pink and can like blue too.

Its such a relatively recent and arbitrary thing. I was wondering the other day what might 'flip' it uo in the air.... perhaps if Meghan & Harry had a baby?

"In the early part of the 20th Century and the late part of the 19th Century, in particular, there were regular comments advising mothers that if you want your boy to grow up masculine, dress him in a masculine colour like pink and if you want your girl to grow up feminine dress her in a feminine colour like blue."

"This was advice that was very widely dispensed with and there were some reasons for this. Blue in parts of Europe, at least, had long been associated as a feminine colour because of the supposed colour of the Virgin Mary’s outfit."

"Pink was seen as a kind of boyish version of the masculine colour red. So it gradually started to change however in the mid-20th Century and eventually by about 1950, there was a huge advertising campaign by several advertising agencies pushing pink as an exclusively feminine colour and the change came very quickly at that point."
uk.businessinsider.com/pink-used-to-be-boys-colour-and-blue-girls-heres-why-that-changed-2017-10

[Knicknackpaddyflak]

Their rules are illegally discriminatory

Whole thread in a nutshell. Well intentioned blundering and lack of joined up thinking/fear of 'wrongthink' has led to an utter muddle in law, including the conflation of the words 'sex' and 'gender'. This muddle helps no one and actively disadvantages biological females.

This is an issue that needs pointing out and standing up against until the law is repaired to respect trans identities WITHOUT destroying the rights and protections and identity of biological women.

Endlessly yelling about 'people guilty of wrongthink shouldn't be allowed to speak' doesn't achieve much. Except to further a mess that is inevitably going to be damaging.