FYI: Why I'm really intentional with using sex VS. gender terms

Mar 15, 2022

content warning: transphobia

If you haven't learned this already through your feminist learning or my page, sex is different from gender, and they both exist on false binaries!

Sex is the scientific label to describe what category you fit into based on a couple of different factors, most commonly your genitalia. Your sex is decided by the doctors present before and after your birth.

Gender is a social identity often (unnecessarily) interconnected with your sex.

For a long time in mainstream Western society, sex and gender have both been considered to be binary. Your sex can either be male or female, and your gender can either be man or woman.

Obviously, these categories don't account for all humans. People that are intersex, trans, non-binary, etc. prove that some inherent binary is not accurate nor effective at describing human sexual and gender identity.

In my opinion, sexual identity is a private matter that we should only be required to disclose to medical practitioners. Our gender identity is what we express to the world, the way that we declare "this is who I am and this is how I want to exist in society."

Especially for people whose sex does not "match" their gender, being able to only publicize your gender identity might be helpful and potentially safer.

How this is incorporated into my writing...

Because I have strong opinions about the sex and gender binary, I try to be as intentional when I'm speaking or writing to use the relevant terms accurately.

For example, the phrase "male nurse" makes no sense to me. You're not trying to say "penis-owners who are also nurses" or "nurses that have one X and one Y chromosome".

And it sounds a little weird to say "men nurses", but I do it anyway! Sometimes I'll try to word it differently like "nurses who are men" to not set off grammatical error noises in my head.

But what matters is deciding whether you actually mean to say "male" or "man", because they're different things.

The feminist community conflating sex and gender...

The conflating of sexual and gender identity can be found through social discourse and media, and it also can be found in feminist/activist communities.

One of the most well-known examples is the "pink pussyhat" wearing at the 2017 Women's March in Washington, D.C.

"The knit pink caps invoking President Trump and his 'Access Hollywood' tape boasts are losing their cache with at least some activists, who argue the female-genitalia imagery excludes transgender people, gender non-binary folks and people of color. Pussyhats are 'white-focused and Eurocentric' and emblematic of 'exclusionary white feminism'...Put another way: Not all women have vaginas, and not all vaginas are pink." (Meera Jagannathan, "The case against pussyhats, ahead of this year's Women's March " with MarketWatch)

This can also be seen in feminist designs that include imagery of a vagina, uterus, or breasts. Not all women have those body parts, and it can make others feel excluded from feminist projects.

Important terms...

AFAB

"Assigned female at birth," most commonly used for people who do not identify as a woman but were categorized female at birth.

AMAB

"Assigned male at birth," most commonly used for people who do not identify as a man but were categorized male at birth.

TERF

"Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminism," a name used to describe self-proclaimed feminists who are transphobic and consider the category of "women" to exclude trans women.