Explaining gender vs sex to dd

[PetraDelphiki]

Can anyone help me come up with a good way of explaining gender to dd (11)? Sex is easy but I’m getting her more confused when I try gender!

Blobfishlady were they definitely asking about gender in addition to sex? Not as a synonym for sex?

As mentioned, it is standard in biology (and I suspect medicine) to use the work gender biologically, so meaning sex, rather than socially. This may be changing of course.

I do think there is a huge section of the population who use gender as a 'polite' version of sex, equivalent to using lady for woman, because sex also refers to... sex!

I’ve already given her a he facts about sex (chromosomes, anatomy arc)

lottie they weren’t asking for it in addition to sex. So the forms would have bits to fill out saying NameAgeGender_ etc.

Ok, then that is an example of gender being the traditional term for sex in many spheres of activity. So neither new nor bonkers.

I am willing to bet you've been filling in similarly worded forms for years and never really noticed. It's only recently that the word gender would have leapt out as having a distinct meaning that might be important.

In three years time all this confusing talk may have died down. We live in hope.

I've discussed sex and gender with my 10 year old son many times. I've explained that sex is either male or female and that this is the same for all mammals (biological reality). I've explained about the tiny percentage of people who have intersex conditions.

I've told him that post-puberty men are generally physically stronger and larger than women, humans are just like other mammals in this respect. That male and female skeletons are different. He knows that our brains are the same and that both boys and girls are capable of being rocket scientists and fire fighters and prime minister but that woman over the centuries have been denied these opportunities because of their sex.

Around gender we have always discussed how it's the way society tries to control the behaviour of people women We have watched children's toys adverts and then discussed why they are trying to enforce a particular set of behaviours or expectations on one sex or the other.

He knows that mum doesn't have a gender and he knows that he doesn't have to have one either however much people may try and force him to. Much like our conversations about religion really I use the way my parents treat him and his male cousin differently from his female cousin and I explain that this is exactly what I mean by gender, i.e. that one child is supposed to behave in a particular way because of their sex.

At the moment it's not an issue but I'll carry on having these discussions as he gets older. I'm not positioning this to him as a feminist issue as much as a human one.

@PetraDelphiki

gender is the reason thousands of babies are aborted before birth.

gender is the reason you need to show your daughter how to walk with her keys poking out between her fingers.

gender is the reason she'll be called frigid if she refuses sex; or a slut of she has sex.

gender is the reason why your daughter will be routinely expected to do domestic unpaid labour.

gender is the reason why, if she has children, she'll be sneered at whatever her choices (but the father will be lauded as a hero for occasionally changing a nappy)

Blowfishlady - I have had this on school forms and also crossed out gender. We also had sex assigned at birth , again I had to cross this out ....this is coming from a council, who makes cuts to services for elderly and disabled but happy to waste money on pronoun badges

I had a simile chat with my DC. In essence I said, similar to chicken drizzle cake, that sex is what you are born with and can't be changed and gender is about choices we make. I didn't talk about expectations of society and some people but rather asked them some true or false questions such as:
Do only women have long hair?
Do only men fart?
Can some women be taller then some men?
Can only women have babies?

That sort of thing.

The only difficulty they had is when I asked about breastfeeding and my eldest DC said he'd been told in PSHE that men can breastfeed as they can use a fake breast and feed the baby via it .

I showed them a Venn diagram to kick off the discussion.