It's not a trend, it's an increase in scientific understanding.
Language is fluid, or we would all be speaking some variant of old German on this forum (try reading Beowulf in the original).
It's not grammar, it's semantics.
Words are social. When one person tries to rewrite the meaning of a word, unless they have significant social clout they are just going to be misunderstood. When many people rewrite the meaning of a word, they change the meaning of that word.
The problem with this argument is that you are using descriptivist reasoning ("Language is fluid", "Words are social.") to support a prescriptivist conclusion ("There's no such thing as a 'biological gender.'") If historically 'gender' and 'sex' were mostly synonymous but recently people have decided to use the words differently then that's fine, but it doesn't make it wrong for people to still use the words the old way.
> If historically 'gender' and 'sex' were mostly synonymous but recently people have decided to use the words differently then that's fine, but it doesn't make it wrong for people to still use the words the old way.
But using the phrase “biological gender” isn't using them in the old way: the way in which they were synonymous is in reference to a idea which conflated sex, gender identity, and socially ascribed gender. If one wants to refer to that meaning, there's really no reason to prefer one or the other, though either will be unclear to many modern audiences without additional explanation referencing the outmoded concept being invoked, because the concept being referred to has lost currency.
But if one is discussing the separated concepts, then one cannot honestly use “sex” for the sociological or psychological components or “gender” for the biological component and say it is the “old way”, as the old way doesn't recognize the there being separate components.
"But using the phrase “biological gender” isn't using them in the old way: the way in which they were synonymous is in reference to a idea which conflated sex, gender identity, and socially ascribed gender."
You just contradicted yourself. If the term 'gender' conflates several ideas, and adding the term 'biological' distinguishes them, then the previous poster hasn't changed the meaning of the word 'gender'. He's incorporated the new understanding but adapted the older language. Either way, the mere fact that nearly every person reading this understood his meaning shows that his expression was adequate to express his meaning.
It doesn't. It, when used in the old sense for which sex was equivalently used, refers to one idea which does not recognize the physical, psychological, and social elements as distinct. It does not conflate different ideas, it predates the idea of a distinction; the idea of the distinction is concurrent with the terminology which incorporates it.
“Biological gender” is neither the new common usage (which labels the biological element “sex") nor the old usage (which refers to an indivisible trait.)
Honestly? Because sex is a borderline bad word in polite company, and can get you into trouble if someone misses context and thinks you're talking about sex sex, while gender isn't a problematic word. The United States is so damned puritan in its culture that it's risky to use words that have a normal context that's problematic.
[For instance, someone could overhear it out of context and think you're being inappropriate. That may not amount to anything in isolation, but then they might start selectively watching for problematic things you say or do based on their initial mistaken impression, and if you look for something hard enough you're likely to find it.]
Also, I've noticed even when I use the word sex in that context, I'm immediately on guard against making any kind of sexual reference or anything that might have double meaning, and that's just exhausting. I'd rather use gender and save myself the trouble.
GP quoted the wrong definition, but the right definition is there too, also from Merriam-Webster:
Well here's the thing: if you're talking about socially presented traits of a person, you're talking about gender.
If you're needing to use the word sex, it means you're talking about the difference in shape of a person's private parts. The word is exactly as socially acceptable as it seems to be.
If you're trying to compare a bunch of people in a room, like to say you should divide up teams by ___, you probably want gender, not sex. It's medical professionals who usually have cause to care about the sex of a person they know. Unless you're dating someone, and then it is sex sex you're talking about...
To support your point: I've seen products avoid using "sex" on a form in favor of "gender", when what they mean is "sex". Like, the difference was brought up in meetings, and they just didn't want to have the word "sex" appear in their program because it seemed more immediately eye-catching and distracting (and they're probably kinda right).
I saw the shift to "gender" as the social side of sex way before I ever heard or read the term "gender identity". Though maybe that is what happened and "gender identity" was just very, very niche at the time (like, 25 years ago, probably) such that its descendent term "gender" outran it, so to speak. However, I got the impression that the distinction between "gender" and "sex" predated my encounter of it by decades.
Webster's 1913 does appear to regard "gender" as exclusively a grammatical quality, so far as definitions related to this topic go. So the modern usage may not be quite that old.
[EDIT] huh, whaddaya know, Garner's Modern English Usage puts the move to "gender" in places where "sex" would previously have been used (to refer to all or to any part of the whole deal, not just the biological bits) as right around when I first encountered it, at least outside an initially-narrow set of academic disciplines. Go figure. It is newer than I thought, by a long shot. I figured it dated to the 60s or so in academia, mainstream by the 80s and I just hadn't encountered anyone who cared to make the distinction until later.
Yeah the shift for social psychologists probably happened 25ish years ago. Though, I'd argue up until 5 or so years ago if you asked the average person the majority would tell you gender == sex. Even today I'd guess close to half couldn't tell you the defined difference between the two.
> Even today I'd guess close to half couldn't tell you the defined difference between the two.
I kinda halfway try to follow this stuff, and honestly, I'd have trouble defining most of the terms involved in a way that didn't step on someone's toes—and I'd be trying not to! No wonder people are put off by it.
If someone wants you to refer to them as $GENDER, then just refer to them as $GENDER. Don't treat people differently because they don't conform to the traditional gender binary. Don't treat attraction between the same sex as being fundamentally different than attraction between opposite sexes.
I don't even mean pronouns. I mean the stuff like elsewhere in this thread where people are stepping in it (depending on the perspective of the reader) re: whether gender identity is wholly a social construct. "Yeah, it's entirely social" is no longer the safe fallback answer for careful liberals (I write, as a careful liberal)
I think you have to accept that gender identity is a contentious issue for a lot of people, even among the liberal/feminist/LGBTQ set, so any possible position you take is probably going to offend someone.
So just be honest and try to be polite, that's the best you can ever do. Whether or not you claim that gender is "entirely social" should depend on what you believe, not what you think the safe answer is.
Well grammar is agreed on. Usage is something we agree on. Don't disagree on someone on the basis that his usage is wrong. His usage is as worthy as yours.
The definition of gender that applies to people is “ the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex”. I don’t see the part you quoted, where is it?
Ah, I see, it’s a quote from the explanation of grammar, not one of the definitions. As the others mentioned, this is explaining grammar, gendered words, not people.
I honestly can't tell if you're joking. If you're serious, do you not believe there's a meaningful distinction between a person's biological sex at birth and the degree to which they self-identify with social constructs of masculinity and femininity?
I don't understand how someone can simply adopt stereotypes of another gender, consider themselves that gender, and then be considered that gender. If I'm a man according to my chromosomes, but my mannerisms, grooming, music and fashion choices are considered feminine, am I woman? Or just a feminine man? And if I'm a woman, but I'm still attracted to other women, am I entitled to represent myself as a lesbian? All I've done is choose to express some preferences, and then consider myself a part of a group based on stereotypes of that group. How is that not stereotyping and appropriation? The only thing left is what label I want to put on myself, which is largely meaningless.
> The only thing left is what label I want to put on myself, which is largely meaningless.
That's... that's the point. I'll refer to you however you want to be referred (inb4 helicopter joke). There's nothing more to it. Just accept other people's preference and move on with your day. It's that simple.
I'm fine with that day-to-day. Has literally never been a problem for me. But when it's affirmative action, sports divisions, or in this case, people discussing if a study is reflecting biological sex differences or things people choose to express in a study, yeah let's be really fucking clear that someone is choosing to express social stereotypes and that's not always the same thing as "being a woman".
You're confusing sex with gender. Sex is biological, gender is cultural, albeit often correlated with biology.
For instance - it was once considered perfectly masculine behavior for men to wear pantyhose, high heels and makeup, and to kiss each another on the mouth. Now, those traits would likely be considered feminine (or at least, not masculine.)
Does that mean men were formerly somehow more biologically female, because they expressed what we would consider feminine traits? Obviously not. Was their gender female, then? Not in the context of their own culture, they were men being what men were considered to be.
It does mean the constructs of "masculinity" and "femininity" are not innately biological, and that the correlation between sex and gender is mostly a manifestation of cultural norms, not biological imperative.
All of the confusion in your comment seems to stem from the assumption that sex and gender are a priori the same. You may find Wikipedia's article on gender to be useful[0].
No, I very intentionally never used the word sex, because everything I mentioned was gender. My concern is when stuff that is entirely social (okay, let's keep calling that gender) starts getting codified or labelled, and I'm still confused why we have discrete labels for things that, according to many of the same people using the most labels, are a completely fluid spectrum. I'm okay with completely fluid spectrum, but here's what happened in this HN discussion: someone commented about the research being about "biological genders", and everyone says they're confused. Do a Ctrl+F of the linked article for "Gender" and "Sex" and then tell me that the research isn't also confused because everyone is confused all of the time, especially people who are "confused".
>and I'm still confused why we have discrete labels for things that, according to many of the same people using the most labels, are a completely fluid spectrum.
Visible light is a spectrum, yet we still use labels for distinct colors, despite "color" being arbitrary (a "social construct".) Labels can still be useful for communicating concepts and establishing a common ground, even if they're imprecise, or if different cultures don't even agree on the difference between "blue" and "green."
>Do a Ctrl+F of the linked article for "Gender" and "Sex" and then tell me that the research isn't also confused because everyone is confused all of the time, especially people who are "confused".
Everyone isn't confused all the time. People do disagree, though, and society is still working out just what gender means in the modern day.
That would be expected identities from society, as opposed to the personal identification to one of them.
If you believe that a persons gender identity is put onto them by the expectation of society, might as well forcibly decide which identities are valuable and supress all the rest. It would have no downside.
The distinction between a social construct and biology is artificial. Reading and writing are a social construct but learning to read and write at a young age has a profound impact on your brain structure.[1] I think what you mean to say is that there is no instinctual sense of gender identity that people are born with... that it is purely a learned identity. I'm not certain that is true as gender distinctions are pretty deeply ingrained nearly every culture around the world including most hunter-gather cultures, (The exact extent and nature of the distinction varies, but mere existence of an distinction is close to a constant.) and there is reason to believe that the sexual division of labor was key to the evolution of human sociality, which would make gender identity distinction hundreds of thousands of years old at the youngest. I'd be interested in any studies demonstrating that there is no instinctual component.
The parent is completely correct, why are you fighting it? This isn’t something you can out-logic, the words have definitions. Sex is the biological part and gender is the social & cultural aspects of sex.
According to Merriam-Webster, gender /includes/ the social & cultural aspects of sex. The exclusion of sex from gender is an extremely recent development that isn't widely accepted yet.
Also, motherhood and fatherhood are biologically gender-linked roles. They are measurable biological phenomena that tie strongly into your definition of gender.
Gender doesn’t exclude sex. Gender relates to sex, but it is not the same thing.
> The exclusion of sex from gender is an extremely recent development that isn’t widely accepted yet.
What are you talking about? The use of gender as a sex “role” was coined in 1955, over 60 years ago. Before that “gender” referred to grammatical gender, not to people. So if you use “gender” relating to people, that form of the word has always meant the social aspects of sex, not the biological aspects. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender
There was never a time when “gender” meant the same thing as “sex”.
> Also, motherhood and fatherhood are biologically gender-linked roles.
You’re confusing yourself. Being a mother & father are sex based facts. Fatherhood and motherhood as words that can mean that someone is factually a mother or father, or it can in context be referring to the gender roles of motherhood and fatherhood. The stereotype of a father playing catch with a son is a gender role, not biology. You’re choosing words which have both meanings, which doesn’t help you understand what sex and gender actually mean.
If there is nothing innate to the human on Gender identity, if its purely a construct, then you can engage in full repression of gender identities with no consequences.
The word you're looking for is "sex." There's no such thing as a "biological gender."