Correcting gender to sex on threads

[DtPeabodysLoosePants]

I'm cranky today and have no tolerance for nonsense and the "please look at my scan picture and guess the gender" threads really wind me up. If I can be bothered to post I correct it to sex. I'm not the only one who does it but other posters really get pissed off at the correct term being pointed out. I feel very strongly that the difference between sex and gender should be pointed out especially in the current climate of trans propaganda and erosion of women's rights. I don't wish to piss on anyone's parade and will congratulate the poster on her pregnancy but ffs people need to stop this gender nonsense. The change in use of language is causing confusion and I think we should correct this when we see it. I change school forms, any forms I can really to sex and cross out gender or if it's online with a comments box I will say something there. How did all this start and when? Has it been slow and insidious?

I'd like to know too, when 'sex' was dropped in favour of 'gender'. It's so prissy and 'Victorian' (Fetch me my smelling salts, someone said 'sex'! ), yet it must have crept in in the 70s/80s/90s when we were all supposed to be so up-front and looking at prudishness as a thing of the past.

So how did it come about?

It's happening more and more because even the NHS uses gender rather than sex on all their medical forms. Of all the areas of public sphere, medicine is surely THE most important area to record sex rather than gender identity - due to male and female bodies being so radically different, and our medical needs being so different. Yet, even the NHS has fallen for pomo queer-theory reality-denial.

I reckon a campaign should be for each of us to write into our local NHS Trust and ask them to use the word sex, not gender, on all their forms.

I’m certain half the reason the word gender became such a thing was because people didn’t like using the word sex.

Ironically, Victorians had no issue using the word 'sex'.

They used both words correctly, and in the original sense: sex referred to the two groups of humans, females and males, and gender referred to the grammatical differences in certain non-English languages.

I correct them, it really annoys me.

We had this in primary sex ed recently. I emailed to correct. Introducing the idea of same sex couples but calling them same gender couples!

I think it should be done using some discretion. But it can often be done in a light way.

Most people don't know they are making an error and they might have even been called out on using sex in the past. A lot of people these days feel worried most of the time about using the wrong words.

It probably changed when people started writing “yes please” on forms that asked for sex

I'm sure you're right about the Victorians and one of the reasons it wouldn't have been a problem then is that nobody talked about sexual intercourse openly. I wish we could get back to the proper use of both words.

I think it started the ball rolling when sex became a verb, which was D.H. Lawrence's fault.

I recently had to do some e-learning (NHS) and was really shocked that it stated several times that "Gender" is a protected characteristic under the equality act. I emailed them to correct them that "Sex" is the protected characteristic and that "Gender Reassignment" is a separate one entirely! This is in official training!!!!! Is it all a massive conspiracy???!

I've started correcting people on this as the sloppy use makes communication really difficult given the current climate. Sometimes it is not clear what the person is actually trying to communicate because of the way they're using "gender". It applies in conversation, and in the media. So it is my own personal mission from now on to question and correct when I come across it. Even if I just become a PITA I'm going to stick with it. I regret not doing so in hospital recently where the admission form asked my gender. They clearly did not want to know my gender. They wanted to know my sex. How can medics be prissy about the word sex????

It probably changed when people started writing “yes please” on forms that asked for sex

That reminds me of an incident that happened when I was in the sixth form back in the early 1980s.

There was a satirical school magazine put out two or three times a year by the sixth form and I remember that in one of them there was a profile of one of the teachers. With things like Hobbies, Teaching Style etc with amusing or jokey things for each one.

Anyway, when it came to Sex, the profile had "Twice daily."

I don't think anyone back then would even have thought of using gender.

Actually, as a result of that three boys ended up getting the cane.

Now before you think that this was some private school this was just a bog standard comprehensive (actually an ex-secondary modern). Corporal punishment in state schools carried on until 1986.

On threads where it is pointed out there's always some posters that get pissed off and say things like "We know what the OP meant" "pedantic, nit- picking" etc. All of which just underlines that people use sex and gender interchangeably, and that is the problem.

I had a procedure recently and was heartened to read the leaflet that referred to segregation by sex in recovery and waiting areas , then a massive facepalm when the front page had my name and "gender" on it.

I went for a booking scan last week, pleased to say that not one NHS form used the term gender.
Lots of people still asking me if I'll find out the gender though, I just scrunch my face, looking confused and make a point of saying, 'eh?' when they have to elaborate I chime in with 'oh you mean sex!!!' Have to admit to being both bored and boring in this repect

I wonder why people do choose to find out the sex? I have 3 dc and I did not want to know and the moment they were born and the midwife said it's a boy/it's a girl was fantastic for me. I can only think that people want to know so that they can choose stereotypical clothes and toys and colour schemes for the bedroom. To be fair the choice of neutral clothes was not great when I was looking each time but all 3 had white or lemon for the first few weeks. Then yes, the pinks and blues came. With dd I was asked if she was a boy despite the pink, and ds has been mistaken for a girl on a regular basis. I refused to buy ELC pink versions of anything though and all 3 had trains and vehicles and construction toys.

If gender hasn't become such a farce then maybe it wouldn't be such a big issue and we would happily interchange the words but as things stand? No.

A gender doesn't determine a person does it. It determines the genital area.

I've tried to correct the ignorance of this but suspect I'll be told to fuck off 🙄

@DtPeabodysLoosePants Oh my god I can't agree more! Why does it matter what genitals your child has?! It's so bizarre how people assign clothes, toys, activities and even colours according to the sex of their child.

It probably changed when people started writing “yes please” on forms that asked for sex

Love that theory.

@DtPeabodysLoosePants a lot of presumptions there in your posts about who might want to find out their baby's sex! How ridiculous. If you want to know I found out because I wanted to know a little bit about the person I was growing before I met them for the first time. We were then able to call them by the name we'd chosen and felt more bonded when they arrived than I think I might have done otherwise (although I don't actually know having only done it this way).

Personally it seems very strange not to find out the sex but I'm not about to make a) judgements on how someone else choses to carry out their pregnancy or b) sweeping generalisations about those who do thing differently to me.

There were no pink or blue rooms here, quite the opposite. We deliberately kept the baby's sex and chosen name a secret until birth in order to prevent friends and family buying "gendered" clothing. Since birth my DDs clothes have come from anywhere in the shops, not just the girls section. As someone with a PhD in a pure science subject I make sure to challenge any sex based stereotypes that my DD encounter, girls can be scientists and engineers and boys can be ballet dancers and nurses etc. I try to use balanced language towards her, so she is brave and clever not just beautiful or kind, and she has a toy workbench alongside her toy kitchen.

Finding out from a scan that I was having a DD actual made me feel more strongly about issues surrounding women's rights and identities. Although I'm still unsure how I feel about pink dinosaurs on dd's clothes? Are they good and inclusive or do they undermine the message of equality??

I am definitely one who crosses out gender and outs sex (unless the former is more appropriate).

Gender is sometimes used interchangeably with sex but not always: I just filled in a form that asked if I was male/female/transgender/or identify with some other gender. Why do they need to know this? It is even more frustrating on an equities monitoring form as they are obviously not monitoring their obligations to ensure no discrimination on the basis is sex.

That's fair enough but I don't understand how knowing the sex allows you to find out more about them before they are born? Apart from knowing which genitals they have of course.

@DtPeabodysLoosePants two of the most fundamental pieces of a person's identity is their name and their sex, the latter of which is so important that it causes discussion on threads such as this one. By finding out if I was having a boy or a girl I was able to know the sex of my child, and as a consequence be able to address them by one of the two names we had chosen. "It", "the baby", "the bump" became "her", "she", and "DD's name" and the concept that I was soon to be a mother became a little bit less abstract knowing I was going to have a "daughter" rather than just an as yet undefined child.

Knowing the sex of your child is so important it is literally one of the first things you get told after their birth, I simply chose to be told it 20 weeks earlier than if I hadn't found out during a scan. Personally, I can't stand not knowing things, if there's a riddle or maths problem and I can't crack it, it bugs the hell out of me until I know the answer, NOT finding out the sex of my baby when I had the chance wasn't something that ever appealed to me.

Finding out we were having a girl while I was pregnant made both of us think more deeply about our attitudes toward the different sexes and we had (and still do have) many discussions about how we wanted to parent our daughter. Dp was oblivious to the differences in children's clothes for boys and girls and was amazed at the pinkness of clothes aimed at girls once I pointed it out to him.

When I said, "I wanted to know a little bit about the person I was growing..." I was not implying that their sex would tell me about her favourite colour or if she would be good at Maths when she was older I was talking about how having a boy or a girl might affect our family dynamics, how we would parent them, and importantly how their biology would impact on potential medical and emotions issues throughout their lives. I think it is probably more accurate to say finding our the sex gave us the opportunity to know more about ourselves as people and future parents within the context of having a daughter (or a son if that had been the case).

DP (male) and I have conditions which have genetic links, mine is strongly influenced by female hormones whereas his condition presents very differently in boy compared to girls. Knowing our child's sex enabled us to have discussions about medical things relating to potential problems we may encounter in the future and talk about their anatomy in terms of nappy changing, hygiene, potential illnesses. Dp grew up with sisters so knew all about cystitis, thrush, periods, wiping front to back, etc, but having grown up in a house with no brothers, and from an early age no father, I am definitely lacking in knowledge about young boys and how to look after their genitals. Had our scan showed I was having a boy I would have been able to ask dp to help prepare me for looking after and toilet training someone with a penis.

Thinking about it know I can't think of any way that DP treats our child that is specific to her being a girl. I am a bit more active in discussing everyday sexism and empowerment for women (as much as you can to a 3-year-old). I am glad we had the chance to figure things out a little bit before having an actual baby to look after, that was overwhelming enough! My concept of the child I was going to have was developed during pregnancy, and probably further back to before we were even trying to get pregnant but every piece of information I got about her took me one step closer to meeting her in person.

My path to motherhood has been very deliberate. Dp and I planned when to get pregnant, we planned what names to give, we wanted to know as much information as we could before the birth and finding out the sex is all part of that and was just our personal preference. We are both scientifically minded so learning as much as we could when we could was just our natural way. Now that our dd is here it is up to her to guide us who she is and for us to listen to her.

I actually think it’s round the other way - by waiting til birth to find out the sex of your baby, wanting the ‘suprise’, it’s actually attaching more importance to it.

I found out with mine - i wanted to know everything, I saw the heart chambers, lungs, bladder, brain, kidneys, with my second dd I saw her sucking her thumb! The genitals are just another part of the anatomy so if it really doesn’t matter that much what sex you’re having then why make it into a big deal by keeping it a secret?

I get that and thank you for sharing your thoughts and reasons. My biggest fear with finding out would have been if the sonographer had been wrong. It happens. For me that was too big a risk to take.
I also found that colleagues were gifted many things after the 20 week scan and that they were all pink or blue. Things became very stereotyped before the child was even born. One woman was devastated that she was having a boy. It was awful to hear what she was saying about it (especially as I'd had a miscarriage).
I also worked in the women's unit in Sheffield (2002-5) and they said they refused to disclose the sex due to sex selective abortions. That coloured my view too.
For me meeting my baby and discovering if they were a boy or a girl was a big part of the actual birth. For others I see it's different and not necessarily about being pink or blue although I expect for some it is.