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?

When I had my scan, many years ago, I was told that if they can see the baby is a boy, it's almost certainly correct but if they can see the baby is a girl, there's a greater chance of being wrong.

I was expecting a girl but didn't know for sure, the only difference the sex made at birth was which name we gave the baby.

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

I find this both absurd and puzzling. You do realise that until about the last 20 years almost no-one knew the sex of their baby? I was pregnant in 1990. The quality of scans identified something with a heart beat.

The person doing my scan enthusiastically pointed out body parts. I just thought, I'll take your word for it- cos that could be anything"

Do you really think not knowing if that something was a boy or girl prevented bonding? Or prevented women talking to the baby? Or using a name? Many people used a made up funny name ( I bet there were a lot of Sprogs around or famous goal scorer for particularly active kicking babies) for as you put it "the little person. Person being the operative word.

I had an amniocentesis test and obviously the results of that will reveal the sex, if you want to know. I didn't.

I find this both absurd and puzzling. You do realise that until about the last 20 years almost no-one knew the sex of their baby? I was pregnant in 1990. The quality of scans identified something with a heart beat

By the same logic, it’s only within the last 15 years that NT screenings have been taking place. Before that they just took a blood test to check for Down syndrome. Should people not take advantage then of the advance in medicine and make their own choices without assumptions being made towards their motives? You genuinely can’t see that buying gender specific paraphernalia isn’t the only reason people want to know the sex? Or is it just another excuse to be self righteous

You genuinely can’t see that buying gender specific paraphernalia isn’t the only reason people want to know the sex? Or is it just another excuse to be self righteous

I actually said nothing about buying gender specific paraphernalia but don't let that stop you making things up or making erroneous assumptions. That isn't the reason I found it bizarre and absurd.

I really don't care if you think I'm self- righteous I still find the idea that knowing the sex of your baby in utero helps bonding is absurd. There is a whole new unique person there- why it should make the slightest difference to bonding knowing in advance whether it is xy or xx is the bizarre bit.

@LassOfFyvie my original comment was in response to the statement from the op:

I can only think that people want to know so that they can choose stereotypical clothes and toys and colour schemes for the bedroom.

I joined the thread to give an alternative view on why someone may chose to find out their child's sex during a scan. As said already I simply chose to take advantage of modern medicine in order to gather data about my impending child. I am fully aware that in the past people didn't find out from scans but that doesn't stop me from be allowed to discuss my more recent pregnancy any more than it should prevent you from discussing your experience from 1990.

I'm not sure why you find another woman's experience so "puzzling" and "absurd" just because it doesn't tally up with yours?

I have no idea (and have said as much already) what it is like for other people who don't find out until birth but I do know what it's like to carry a child and not know their sex because I obviously did that for half my pregnancy. We talked to it, we made plans for it, and we bought things for it. From the moment the test showed positive we loved it and were excited about our family's future.

There is a whole new unique person there- why it should make the slightest difference to bonding knowing in advance whether it is xy or xx is the bizarre bit.

The answer is right there in your question...knowing in advance. We wanted to know in advance, we found out, we were able to think and discuss important issue that may be important to raising a child of the sex we were told. For me it did matter whether it was a XX or XY, not because there was any preference not disappointment with our result but because having a female child IS different to having a male one (in my opinion).

If there was absolutely no difference in having a boy or a girl then is it so important? Why does it get announced at birth? Why is it one of the first thing you tell your friends and family? Why is there a special section of Mumsnet specifically for the discussion of women's rights and gender issues? Because the biological sex you are is a vitally important part of you as a person. Unless you chose to present yourself otherwise the sex you are dictates how society treats you, the language that is used around you, how you are educated, how you are treated by medical professions, how you are treated as an employee. It dictates what hormones are in your body, your susceptibility to certain illnesses, whether or not you can get pregnant, and if you create a child with another person your sex automatically determines whether or not you have automatic parental responsibility for that child. All of these thing play a part in parenting a child, from infancy to adulthood.

When my partner and I found out we were having a girl we both took some time to think about what that meant for our futures, child included. I am very glad I had the chance to go through that process before the birth because my birth child's birth was fucking terrible. I've seen/read on mn the joy women express about finding out the sex at birth, how finding out kept them strong and motivated, and the wonderful moments after birth etc. I don't think that's something I could have experienced, my life and my daughter's life was in danger. I had a emcs and the epidural only worked on one side of my body...I felt everything. Once my baby was out all I could think about was that now I could have more drugs to stop being in so much pain. I was so dazed I didn't know what to do when they brought her to show me so for some reason I sniffed her, then realised that I should give her a kiss. I didn't get to see or hold her for 45 min while I was being stitched up and then I was semi conscious for the next 12h. This experience traumatized me and I can imagine that not being able to fully enjoy the moment of finding out the sex on top of everything else that happened would have been another contributer to my pnd.

All of this, of course is just my experience (and my partner's). So far I have had one pregnancy and one child and this is how it happened and what choices we made. I don't believe I'm making any statements that suggest how other women think or feel or how they should conduct themselves.

It's interesting that on a thread about the importance of difference between sex and gender that fault has been found with someone wanting to learn the sex of their child. Strange that it's important enough to demand the use of the correct terminology but it's "absurd" for a woman to discuss the reasons why she found out the sex of her child during pregnancy! Amongst so much discussion about the erasure of women's identities and rights and the importance of language there's still the opportunity to find some stick to beat another women with.

I think it's absurd because even before this new person is in the world you are looking for a difference. I don't see any difference in having a boy baby or a girl baby unless from day 1 you are going to treat them differently.

I'm not sure why you find another woman's experience so "puzzling" and "absurd" just because it doesn't tally up with yours?

Why should I not? Why does it make any difference that you are another woman? I find quite a lot of things that people do bizarre and absurd.

In terms of the OPs OP ... god yes I think I'm hyper aware now and am quite deliberate in its use especially when talking to DD.

I'm embarrassed to say having generally lived in a bubble most of my adult life in a bubble as things didn't affect me too much, this place has cast some serious sunlight on the shit that women and girls have to put up with from cradle to grave. I used gender for years when it was actually sex I was referring to.

I get that on the baby scan new mums are very excited and they also know they actually mean sex, we've just been conditioned over the years to do it.

But language, labels and names are so so important now especially. If we can get the balance right we can try and make sure that language isn't twisted and that woman will always = adult human female.

Maybe because there is a difference! Certainly in terms of anatomy and nappy changing for starters.

boys and girls are different. Of course in many many ways they are exactly the same but let's not gaslight ourselves into thinking all women go through life having the exact same experiences and rights as men. They both are deserving of love and respect and equality but there are differences in male and female children that need addressed. The effects of how people interact with males and females start from birth, before even. Some of these are entirely justified and some of these are harmful. People talk to female children in a different way to make, they're pretty and love glitter and make up while boys are brave and adventurers. Girls get called bossy while boys are leaders. Boys are "good at maths and science" but it doesn't matter if a girl struggle with these, often the attitude is "they're not naturally good at those subjects so let's not push them". Girls are accepted if they wear clothing that goes against gender stereotypes but a boy in a skirt hits the headlines.

Boys have willy, a child friendly word to use for their genitals but girls have the anatomical descriptor vulva or a pseudonym of noo noo or flower. Boys and girls face different issues around potty training and growth. Girls are taught by society that body hair is wrong and that big breast are right while boys have to be tall and muscular. All of these things are part of why raising a male child is different to raising a female child. As a parent I feel it's my responsibility to protect and educate my daughter about how sexism occurs, how to recognise it and how to challenge it and fight against it. It is also my job as a parent to look after my daughter when she is having female based problems, and teach her about to be proud of who she is and to respect and tolerate others no matter how they are different or the same as she is.

Some of how I treated my daughter differently from day 1 (as you put it) was in order to protect and educate her against how the world treats women and the harmful messages she will be subjected to as a female child. I would have done exactly the same if my child had been a boy.

By which I mean I would have taught my son to look out for how the world sends boys harmful messages and to be whatever kind of man he wanted to be even if it's not necessarily what society dictates.

It is only in the past few decades that people have started to use the word gender when they mean sex. It has nothing whatsoever to do with prudishness.

It is part of the Queer Politics that took over university departments in 1980s as part of the back lash against Women's Liberation. ie Women's Studies were turned into Gender Studies.

This was an important step on the infiltration into social thinking that you can "choose" your identity. If you say choose your sex nearly everyone will now this isn't possible. But is you say choose your gender people are more open to this idea.

So from what started as just a slight change in language use then spread via students who graduated from this indoctrination into the media. (also for instance, the media now says "sex work" rather than prostitution to imply "choice").

But it was only when women started to realise that statistics, appropriate medical treatment, let alone the concept that women are discrimination against because of the sex they are born, that some of us started to realise what was going on.

Even if you believe gender identity is a feeling, rather than a social construct, it doesnot do away with the reality of biological sex.

The trans agenda unfortunately has now taken hold in such an embedded way that I have heard reports of "people" who get cervical cancer.

The fact that universities, the medical profession, political parties and the media have all crumpled to this entryist use of language is one of the reasons so many young children who have only grown up with the idea they are a gender not a sex, are so confused.

(One indication of how stupid and dangerous it is that the medical profession is going along with this emporer's new clothes reality is when a trans man in the US went to hospital as an emergency and no one could work out the pain described. Only for a few hours later for the trans man to give birth, because whatever their identity they were / are biologically female.)

I always cross out or dont answer forms that ask what gender are you.

Yawn😴