It was refreshing to read such a sensible piece (available for free if you set up an account or also via web.archive.org/ if you put the Economist URL in the box )
This linguistic shift is being driven by both compassion and fear. Compassion, because organisations are keen not to be seen to be excluding those whose sense of their gender does not match their sex, such as people who identify as trans or non-binary. And fear, because they are worried about attracting the wrath of online mobs should they be deemed to have violated a set of rapidly changing taboos about gender and sex that hardly existed five years ago—and which, outside a few rarefied circles, still don’t. Most dictionaries define a woman as an “adult human female”. Among some activists, this is a gross provocation, for they see it as denying that males can be women, too.
Language changes constantly (the word “taboo”, for instance, is an 18th-century import from Polynesia). But doctors, bosses and politicians should think carefully before throwing away widely understood words, or using them in new and radically different ways. In the rush to seem up to date, they risk doing a disservice to their own patients, employees and voters.