Forms, asking for "gender" not "sex" what can I say?

[MrMrsJones]

I quite often come across forms, sign ups which will ask..

What is your gender, not sex

I did query one which replied "that's what people want no a days"

So how do I reply to that?

Do we just shut up and put up?

I usually click other if it has a free-text box and write My SEX is Female.

And now we can refer them to the EHRC statement made this week. No way to misunderstand that.

Loads of forms are like this. Just go with the flow and tick the box that equates to your sex unless you believe in gender ideology and feel yours is different to your sex and want to declare it as different to your sex

Write or choose 'none' if possible on the form. Or write in sex: female if it's, say, a medical form where the information matters.

@DahliaBlue

Loads of forms are like this. Just go with the flow and tick the box that equates to your sex unless you believe in gender ideology and feel yours is different to your sex and want to declare it as different to your sex

You mean lie ? Pretend you have one?

I usually go with 'prefer not to say' as it's none of their business.

Gender is a perfectly acceptable synonym for sex in these contexts and has been used as such for centuries. Just tick the box that applies to you.

I suppose they are giving people the chance to be liars or heretics. Those that aren't susceptible to indoctrination by this new mythology .

I had to fill in one which had got itself very confused. Intersex was one of the gender choices 🤨

@BlueberryCheezecake

Gender is a perfectly acceptable synonym for sex in these contexts and has been used as such for centuries. Just tick the box that applies to you.

Not any more it isn't

We are trying to be respectful of transgender people here

Making sex and gender the same means they would not have the language to talk about themselves , which is pretty cruel

@BlueberryCheezecake

Gender is a perfectly acceptable synonym for sex in these contexts and has been used as such for centuries. Just tick the box that applies to you.

We can see what you're trying to do here, Blueberry.

So sometimes gender means sex and sometimes it doesn't. How do we we know when, and who decides?

@BlueberryCheezecake

Gender is a perfectly acceptable synonym for sex in these contexts and has been used as such for centuries. Just tick the box that applies to you.

I sometimes wonder why people think they're entitled to tell others what to do based on their own partial interpretations of history. Of course, then I reflect on the usual activities of the commenter in question.

Centuries v. 1945.

The modern academic sense of the word, in the context of social roles of men and women, dates at least back to 1945,[34] and was popularized and developed by the feminist movement from the 1970s onwards….

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender

@BlueberryCheezecake

Gender is a perfectly acceptable synonym for sex in these contexts and has been used as such for centuries. Just tick the box that applies to you.

I know you will ignore this as you never enter into dialogue, but you know full well that isn't true

You've been on enough threads where many posters have taken the time to explain, provide examples, links to actual laws, that show you that your opinion is not universal nor, despite your protestations, that of the majority of UK adults who have expressed an opinion.

@serendipitea

I usually click other if it has a free-text box and write My SEX is Female.

this or prefer not to say

@horseymum

I had to fill in one which had got itself very confused. Intersex was one of the gender choices 🤨

I've seen that maybe we should start taking screenshots and naming and shaming.

@serendipitea

I usually click other if it has a free-text box and write My SEX is Female.

Exactly what I do.

Tick 'prefer not to say' or 'other' and explain why.

Firms can hold data on your sex without your permission. They cannot hold data on your gender without your permission.

I now refuse to give my gender. I am very happy to provide data on my sex, but frankly that is obvious.

Gender is a perfectly acceptable synonym for sex in these contexts and has been used as such for centuries.

I actually tend to go along with that - as long as the only choices are male and female, from which you can reasonably infer that they probably mean sex, rather than assuming they're modern-day genderologists. (But it's still worth nagging them to point out that their use of "gender" to mean "sex" is outdated, so changing to "sex" will align with modern usage.)

The moment there's any other option (aside from maybe "prefer not to say"), then I know they can't mean sex, so I won't answer it with my sex.

I recently wanted to sign up to a service online, quite an expensive service >1K, and the only options were gender male or female (no 'other', no space for comments) . I contacted the company to say I couldn't answer this as I don't conform to gender stereotypes and all I have is my sex. She basically said, oh its alright, just tick the one that corresponds with your sex. Ermm, no I won't. Have decided not to purchase their services.

My employer holds records of our 'gender'. I'm sure it was originally intended as a synonym for sex but the world has changed.

I'm thinking of asking them to delete my record, as I don't have a gender. Alternatively, perhaps they could confirm that their policy is gender=sex, in which case there would be all sorts of ramifications.

Gender looks like a synonym for sex on these forms, but it's not because they usually have options like non-binary, other, etc and they have nothing to do with sex.

If it is a paper form cross out gender & replace with sex; depending on context add note to remind them why this matters.

No, @BlueberryCheezecake, “gender” hasn’t been used as synonym for “sex” on forms “for centuries”. What an absurd claim to make given how many people on this board will remember it never being used; & how many of us have noticed it suddenly being everywhere. Its usage - or not - in this context is something that would, until recently, have been covered by Oxbridge undergraduates (obviously Tripos & Paper dependent but including Historians); but there is simply no way a weekly essay could be set asking a student “What is the difference between sex and gender?*” in the current climate. When there were still Women’s Studies departments this question was closely interrogated too - but there probably wasn’t a need to look at which word was used on paperwork then. It can be great fun to play with counterfactual history & sketch out an alternative timeline, but you’re not meant to then present it as fact.

Incidentally, was it you who mentioned Wollstonecraft using “gender”? A Vindication of the Rights of Woman doesn’t use “gender” once. “Sex”, however, appears 49 times; & “sexes” 41. Thoughts On The Education Of Daughters only mentions “sex” 6 times - but still a big fat 0 for “gender”.

What people who like to argue “it’s been used for centuries!” tend to conveniently leave out is that for the first several of those centuries it had a different meaning. When it first appeared around 1350, “gender” (being derived from genus) was a synonym for “beget”. Hence the now-obsolete meaning “to breed”; & the archaic “to engender”.

This is language evolving.

• Clearly use of sex/gender in this context would have been the tiniest fragment of said essay; but woe betide any student unprepared to discuss & rigorously defend every fleeting thought they included when supervision/tutorial comes round.

Even when the only options are 'male' and 'female', gender can't be be assumed to mean sex.

An example of this is the annual school census. Schools are obliged to collect data on pupils' gender, which they have to report in the school census. They are not obliged to record or report pupils' sex, and I guess most don't.

The management information systems that schools use to record pupil data may not even have a field to record sex: the one I have used (SIMS) certainly doesn't.

Many people probably assume that the word 'gender' is being used as a synonym for sex but the DfE guidance shows that this is not this is definitely not the case:

Gender

We need this data for both on and off roll pupils.

The gender of the pupil in the format of ‘M’ (male) or ‘F’ (female).

Gender should be self-declared and recorded according to the wishes of the parent and / or pupil.

Individuals are free to change the way their gender is recorded.

www.gov.uk/guidance/complete-the-school-census/data-items-2021-to-2022

So how are schools supposed to follow this guidance if a pupil doesn't self-declare any gender, or self-declares a gender other than male or female?

@SamphiretheStickerist

And now we can refer them to the EHRC statement made this week. No way to misunderstand that.

Do you have a link to the report please

Thank you for your replies

I asked for a definition of gender because I didn't understand the question they didn't actually know how to explain it to me apparently its "how you identify" I said I don't usually so? Then it was well how do you feel about yourself I said sick that's why I'm filling out the form her supervisor said are you a man or a woman? I said woman but your asking for my gender based on feelings on a medical questionnaire where my sex matters they adjusted the form eventually to put in gender and birth sex with an explanation why it was needed

I chose not to go with them but I'm hoping my point was heard