Apologies if this has been done to death, but when did the word sex become gender?

[Boscoforever]

I'm a nurse and doing a course in uni at the minute. Specialist area.
Have noticed that lecturers keep referring to gender when they mean sex.
Example: You need to make sure the patient's gender is on their armband.
What good would that do?? I need their sex, male or female, not their gender.
Has been mentioned in this capacity on lots of powerpoints etc.
I've seen it so many times in other places too recently. Are we not allowed to use the word sex anymore? It's really annoying me! Or do people not notice/understand the difference?

I noticed it several years ago as a US import for the parties were 'gender' is revealed. I thought it was the Americans can be a bit prudish about the word 'sex' and to be fair a 'Sex reveal' party dose have some dodgy connotations.....

Yes, I have always understood the gender reveal, that was what it was always called. As you say, sex reveal does sound a little risqué.
But lately, it seems the word sex is a dirty word when just using it to mean male/female. So they slot in gender.
It's annoying me.

It annoys me too. Find myself yelling 'Sex' in my head.

I do challenge people, just as I challenge those who say someone has 'passed' rather than has died

Historically sex and gender as words were used interchangeably as most people thought they were the same thing. Obviously in some settings they were used appropriately.

Gender was often seen as a more polite word for sex.

It is only in the last 5-10 years that the definition of each word has become important along with the need to use them correctly.

Fortunately the sex discrimination act and subsequent Equality Act correctly use sex. Sadly the Gender Pay Gap regulations incorrectly uses gender, it should be the sex pay gap. Although the actual instructions are clear to use sex.

I know I am guilty of conflating the two words, but I am trying really hard to use sex correctly. There is a lot of pressure to make gender more important than sex hence the push to eradicate certain words e.g. sex, woman etc.

It is therefore important to use the word appropriately.

Sadly the Gender Pay Gap regulations incorrectly uses gender, it should be the sex pay gap

It also presents the data as 'how much less women earn than men' rather than 'how much more men earn than women'. This minimises the difference (e.g. if a woman earns £80 a day and a man earns £100 she earns 20% less than him but he earns 25% more than her).

Perhaps Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

www.npr.org/2020/09/24/916377135/pathmarking-the-way-ruth-bader-ginsburgs-lifelong-fight-for-gender-equality?t=1647433899682

Janina I am not mathematically gifted, and I keep looking at your post and it's blowing my mind!.

You can search on Google the usage of words. I think gender started gaining traction in the 60s.

The change of definition seems to stem from John Money.

But gender is how people tend to interact with society, so it makes sense that it's being used more often. There's certainly a time and place for knowing about the sex of a person (like in a medical setting), but by and large, knowing the shape of someone's genitals/hormonal profile/chromosomes is totally irrelevant and an invasion of privacy.

Janina I am not mathematically gifted, and I keep looking at your post and it's blowing my mind!

Me too! I think I've come across this trick question before but I'm going to have to get the daughter to spell it out for me.

OP another nurse here.
If you haven't seen this paper then you need it. It's brilliant. I've printed copies off to put on the noticeboard in the staff room, sent it to my manager and one of the consultants, posted it on the hospital intranet whilst pointing out the incorrect use of gender in relation to a message about cancer services. (I added examples of sex based cancers and pointed out cancer wasn't interested in gender). I made sure to give a copy to my daughter's friend heading back to uni to study global public health policy.

It's like a passport. I'm determined to push back on this gender neutral language wherever possible. In fact I sent a copy to Sajid David and to Amanda Pritchard who is the new head of NHS England just this week.

Make good use of it.

https://internal-journal.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full?fbclid=IwAR1GmMyg9yC58i3SargXSSpsw1NgaVoD6raB8cz40YuEgx9VxFTr5A4m4OQ

"We suggest consideration of the following questions: How can I be clear? How can I include the people who should be included and exclude the people who should be excluded? How can I ensure that people understand what I mean and can readily recognize themselves? How can I avoid dehumanizing language? Does it make sense to apply a gendered understanding of words or a sexed understanding? Am I engaging in cultural imperialism or improper use of privilege by requiring others to use language in a particular way? How does language usage support or undermine the rights of women and children?"

I'm just longing for the opportunity to accuse someone of cultural imperialism and improper use of privilege.

I don't remember using the word gender much if at all in the 1970s and early 80s, but I definitely remember talking and reading about sex-stereotyping - which I consider synonymous with 'gender'.

Thank you FannyCann that is brilliant.

In fairness I think years ago people were happy to accept the word 'gender' as meaning 'sex' however that has now changed. When my DS was at primary we had a sex ed talk and the teacher referred to gender, I asked afterwards why she didn't use sex and she said that they used gender to make it clear they are not talking about the actual act of sex.

Anyway if I ever have to go into hospital I will be telling the nurses I don't have a gender and that my sex is female. When I complete forms for bookings etc, like I did today, where the field is labelled 'gender' I put 'unknown' or 'prefer not to say' for all my family. I do appreciate in a medical setting it is important they know the sex I am however I will make it clear that I am an adult human female. The more we ignore and just accept this the worse it's going to get, it's like we are enabling the change.

knowing the shape of someone's genitals/hormonal profile/chromosomes is totally irrelevant and an invasion of privacy

Yeah... Mmkay, but we (and dogs and babies) can tell someone's sex within seconds just by looking at their face. No "genital inspections" required.

The sex of a person is rarely irrelevant, it's literally how we procreate and how we all navigate our lives.
Gender, (femininity or masculinity) however is a great big cloud of indefinable woo woo that only the true believers understand and even they can't explain it honestly.

Are dogs doing genital inspections when they sniff each other's rear ends? My young dog is very interested in the backend of every other dog he meets. I am plotting to have him castrated in the hope he will become more civilised. He will still be a male dog though.
Perhaps we should all identify as dogs. Would that make life easier?

Perhaps we should all identify as dogs. Would that make life easier?

My daughter did that for about 6 months when she was a preschooler. Not good for the knees of her tights and trousers.

I thought it was just people saying gender instead of sex because sex was a bit of a naughty word! Its changed considerably since my youth and now more controversial.

@ElaineFuchs

But gender is how people tend to interact with society, so it makes sense that it's being used more often. There's certainly a time and place for knowing about the sex of a person (like in a medical setting), but by and large, knowing the shape of someone's genitals/hormonal profile/chromosomes is totally irrelevant and an invasion of privacy.

Is this the part we pretend that 'bodies with penises' aren't responsible for, what is it, 95% of the rapes, sexual assaults and other sex crimes committed against women and girls.

It takes some gall to come to a forum set up by and for women, where not a day goes by where at least one woman opens up about her horrific experiences of abuse at the hands of a male, and to tell us that knowing the sex of a male person is ''irrelevant and an invasion of privacy''.

Gender ideologue logic. It is an invasion of privacy to know a male person has a penis, but not an invasion of privacy for that male person to walk in to a communal changing room when you're completely naked. Because knowing the sex of someone only matters in a medical setting, and not when women are likely to be naked, undressing or vulnerable in some other way. Great stuff there.

Some time between the 60s and the 80s. Before that the primary meaning of gender was a grammatical category. The word was first co-opted to refer to the social aspects of sex (social roles) and then as more people started to write "yes, please" in the place marked "sex" on forms, form producers started using the term "gender" instead. At least, that's my "lived experience" of it, and as we all know lived experience trumps everything else.

@Linguini

knowing the shape of someone's genitals/hormonal profile/chromosomes is totally irrelevant and an invasion of privacy

Yeah... Mmkay, but we (and dogs and babies) can tell someone's sex within seconds just by looking at their face. No "genital inspections" required.

The sex of a person is rarely irrelevant, it's literally how we procreate and how we all navigate our lives.
Gender, (femininity or masculinity) however is a great big cloud of indefinable woo woo that only the true believers understand and even they can't explain it honestly.

People are less good at identifying sex/gender than you might think actually, if I remember correctly people are only about 95% accurate at judging gender from faces.

I also didn't propose genital inspections, I'm saying that even asking for people to self declare this information is the invasion, because usually there's no good reason to know.

Obviously having children with a partner is one of those times when it's important to know! But it's got as much relevance in day to day life as knowing whether or not someone is fertile, totally irrelevant most of the time.

People are less good at identifying sex/gender than you might think actually, if I remember correctly people are only about 95% accurate at judging gender from faces. - @ElaineFuchs

This is the "she looked older" defense in gender woowoo terms.

@ElaineFuchs

But gender is how people tend to interact with society, so it makes sense that it's being used more often. There's certainly a time and place for knowing about the sex of a person (like in a medical setting), but by and large, knowing the shape of someone's genitals/hormonal profile/chromosomes is totally irrelevant and an invasion of privacy.

Why is it an “invasion of privacy” for a form to ask for a fact not a fiction?

It doesn’t lead to people having their sex tattooed on their forehead; nor their having to wear sandwich boards declaring it; nor their being forced into performative gender-conformity. If it should bar them from a space that is single-sex, that only serves to highlight the importance of using sex not gender: wanting access to a space is not the same thing as having the right to access it.

The point of collecting data is accuracy; & the current use of gender, no longer a simple synonym for sex, is anything but - & indeed it is actively unhelpful when it comes to monitoring the pay gap, & for anything related to sex-based provisions.

@Boscoforever - those with a gender agenda will talk about “gender” having been “used for centuries”. It has, but the genderists are choosing to ignore that for the first few hundred years it meant something else: 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”.) Someone on here once tried to claim Wollstonecraft had used it - spoiler alert, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman doesn’t use “gender” once while “sex” appears 49 times & “sexes” 41. (Thoughts On The Education Of Daughters only mentions “sex” 6 times - but still a big fat 0 for “gender”.) It’s John Money who “invented gender” & it spread like any cancer from being an academic concept to a force that’s trying to reshape reality.