We need different nouns for gender and sex

[AwesomeHatMan]

What irks me is male/man and female/woman already were in use to describe sex. If people want words to use for gender they shouldn't just say oh these words refer to gender, not sex, now or claim that they always had. The words were fine for their original meaning (referring to sex) if you want new words for gender, make them.

Also when did gender start meaning what it means today? That's a sincere question, I don't actually know. I don't mind people using gender for its current use because it seens redundant as we should be saying sex to refer to sex anyway and the word gender only seems like it was used to avoid stigma around saying sex.

 

[Yan007]

If you really wanted to, why not just use the Japanese honorific suffixes like -chan to imply "feminine" and -kun to imply "masculine"?

Example:
"female-chan"
"male-kun"

Maybe because chan and kun are not used for this reason?

Yeah, thanks - I wasn't sure if I've been getting the entirely wrong idea when watching anime, or was that usage wrong.

Yes an no. Chan is used mostly for kids or cute things. Little girls will be called chan. You'll notice some girls calling their girl crush chama (a compound of chan and sama (lady) ). Chan will be used for men as an endearing thing between friends.

Kun is mostly used on people who are subordinate to you or some kind of rival. It's not a sign that you lack respect, but rather that you think you are higher in the pecking order.

 

[Angelowl]

If you really wanted to, why not just use the Japanese honorific suffixes like -chan to imply "feminine" and -kun to imply "masculine"?

Example:
"female-chan"
"male-kun"

Maybe because chan and kun are not used for this reason?

Yeah, thanks - I wasn't sure if I've been getting the entirely wrong idea when watching anime, or was that usage wrong.

From what I understand it usually refers to girls and boys but is not absolute. It is more like chan = cute and kun = spunky (for lack of better term), a tomboy could easily be called kun and a guy could easily be called chan by a significant other or their elder relatives. It is closer to the femme/butch parity than the woman/man one.

 

[DoPo]

If you really wanted to, why not just use the Japanese honorific suffixes like -chan to imply "feminine" and -kun to imply "masculine"?

Example:
"female-chan"
"male-kun"

Maybe because chan and kun are not used for this reason?

Yeah, thanks - I wasn't sure if I've been getting the entirely wrong idea when watching anime, or was that usage wrong.

Yes an no. Chan is used mostly for kids or cute things. Little girls will be called chan. You'll notice some girls calling their girl crush chama (a compound of chan and sama (lady) ). Chan will be used for men as an endearing thing between friends.

Kun is mostly used on people who are subordinate to you or some kind of rival. It's not a sign that you lack respect, but rather that you think you are higher in the pecking order.

That's what I've gathered, as well. So, in short, it's not solely related to gender, as the other poster suggested. Especially considering there are more than two honorifics, as well - it's not like they correspond to Sir/Madam - it's more than that -san or -sama for respect (I believe the latter is for a higher ranking person, as well) is another example of a honorific.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

We actually had a pretty simple and effective distinction, where sex and gender were synonymous, while what we call "gender" now was split up into "gender identity" and "gender roles," depending on whether you were talking about individuals or society as a whole, but that's all been screwed up in the last decade or so thanks to social science departments trying to redefine the word, and tumblr types picking up on it. Personally, I quite like the old definition. Not only is it less ambiguous (especially since most of the ambiguity today is because the average person is still using the old definition), but it actually has more granularity, since there's a difference acknowledged between gender roles and gender identity.

Now if you want new pronouns, to quote Daystar:

No.

Just no.

English is complicated enough without adding arbitrary pronouns to the mix, the issue isn't one with words, it's one with people's attitudes.

No amount of fiddling with the language is going to change that.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

What irks me is male/man and female/woman already were in use to describe sex. If people want words to use for gender they shouldn't just say oh these words refer to gender, not sex, now or claim that they always had. The words were fine for their original meaning (referring to sex) if you want new words for gender, make them.

Also when did gender start meaning what it means today? That's a sincere question, I don't actually know. I don't mind people using gender for its current use because it seens redundant as we should be saying sex to refer to sex anyway and the word gender only seems like it was used to avoid stigma around saying sex.

That's because it was. Sometime in the last decade social science types started using "gender" on its own to replace both "gender roles" and "gender identity," and prior to this "gender" with no modifier absolutely was a synonym for "sex" that could be used without getting the more immature people in the room snickering.

 

[Signa]

Also when did gender start meaning what it means today? That's a sincere question, I don't actually know.

To me, it might have been around the time this thread was created. Either I have been completely misinformed for a long time, or people are just making shit up again.

 

[Signa]

That's because it was. Sometime in the last decade social science types started using "gender" on its own to replace both "gender roles" and "gender identity," and prior to this "gender" with no modifier absolutely was a synonym for "sex" that could be used without getting the more immature people in the room snickering.

To add to my post above, that's exactly why I use the word "gender." Sex means two different things to me and anyone I'm having a casual conversation with. Gender means only one thing to the same conversation.

 

[Lightspeaker]

If you really wanted to, why not just use the Japanese honorific suffixes like -chan to imply "feminine" and -kun to imply "masculine"?

Example:
"female-chan"
"male-kun"

Maybe because chan and kun are not used for this reason?

Yeah, thanks - I wasn't sure if I've been getting the entirely wrong idea when watching anime, or was that usage wrong.

Yes an no. Chan is used mostly for kids or cute things. Little girls will be called chan. You'll notice some girls calling their girl crush chama (a compound of chan and sama (lady) ). Chan will be used for men as an endearing thing between friends.

Kun is mostly used on people who are subordinate to you or some kind of rival. It's not a sign that you lack respect, but rather that you think you are higher in the pecking order.

That's what I've gathered, as well. So, in short, it's not solely related to gender, as the other poster suggested. Especially considering there are more than two honorifics, as well - it's not like they correspond to Sir/Madam - it's more than that -san or -sama for respect (I believe the latter is for a higher ranking person, as well) is another example of a honorific.

Wikipedia to the rescue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_honorifics

On a somewhat off topic note but continuing with this line of discussion I actually really like the concept of Japanese-style honorifics in general. I feel it very much adds to language and allows for subtlety in phrasing when addressing someone and a way of engaging with them which otherwise might be entirely through tone (and thus possibly lost) or not included at all. Both in terms of showing respect and as terms of endearment.

 

[Reasonable Atheist]

I don't think that'd be a good idea. For one thing, well, if there are two different physical sexes and two basic genders, who decides which gender is male and which one is female?

Gender is not male or female, I think that is the point op is trying to get across, and where the confusion is occurring with some people.

gender is man or woman
sex is male or female.

A male who is trans, is a male woman.
A man who identifies with his own sex, is a male man.
A trans woman, is a male woman

It is kinda confusing, but gender is a confusing thing, I really hope I get to meet some aliens or something.

 

[Queen Michael]

I don't think that'd be a good idea. For one thing, well, if there are two different physical sexes and two basic genders, who decides which gender is male and which one is female?

Gender is not male or female, I think that is the point op is trying to get across, and where the confusion is occurring with some people.

gender is man or woman
sex is male or female.

A male who is trans, is a male woman.
A man who identifies with his own sex, is a male man.
A trans woman, is a male woman

But the word "male" and the word "man" still have ties to each other and are often used synonymously. Like, a plumber who's a man is called a male plumber by most people. It'd be better to give the genders names that can't be misunderstood like that, like "salt" and "pepper" or maybe "gold" and "silver."

Problem is, if we decide that gender is its own thing and basically means "personality type," I don't get why we'd need names for two specific kinds.

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, apparently, people aren't adding words, they're adding definitions to words that already exist. It's all there in the manual, but it is confusing when hit by it without warning. Even knowing it intellectually now, someone demanding that I call her/him a 'they' will put my brain in neutral because it isn't expecting this, no matter how prepared I might seem. Would we be helped by more and different words? Perhaps. But imagine it for anyone who has english as a second language. Must be rough.

 

[Olas]

Maybe, rather than making everything more complicated, we make things simpler by making all pronouns referring to persons neutral and universal. There's no real reason we need to separate pronouns by sex/gender anyway, it's just bleed over from older cultures that placed more emphasis on gender roles than today.

Or maybe people can just learn to deal with small amounts of confusion and/or mislabeling and not treat it like a huge catastrophe if someone who doesn't know any better makes an honest mistake when referring to someone.

I echo the sentiment that it's more important to change attitudes towards trans people and other minorities than working out the semantic minutia.

 

[Notshauna]

Not really, sex is pretty irrelevant, it's only determined by the sexual organs, and it's not like male/female even works for everyone, after all intersex people exist which are ignored by this. And what about transpeople who receive Sex Reassignment Surgery, do they "earn" the sex of their gender, or people who are born with misformed sex organs what about them? It's all a load of hogwash because people are complicated it's kind of pointless to have separate nouns for sex and gender when sex is really only relevant from a medical standpoint.

 

[Mister K]

Ah, it is so great to have a language where every single word is gender-specific. Nobody will have the time to change all of it for pitiful reasons.

 

[False Messiah]

We actually had a pretty simple and effective distinction, where sex and gender were synonymous, while what we call "gender" now was split up into "gender identity" and "gender roles," depending on whether you were talking about individuals or society as a whole, but that's all been screwed up in the last decade or so thanks to social science departments trying to redefine the word, and tumblr types picking up on it. Personally, I quite like the old definition. Not only is it less ambiguous (especially since most of the ambiguity today is because the average person is still using the old definition), but it actually has more granularity, since there's a difference acknowledged between gender roles and gender identity.

Thank you, this is very insightfull to me.

Now if you want new pronouns, to quote Daystar:

No, please no.

 

[ForumSafari]

We do?

Look, the number of people who'd actually make use of this is tiny. It gets blown up because of the Internet and because of LGBT using the far more populous sections to add weight but realistically for almost all people sex and gender are one and the same.

 

[CrystalShadow]

I don't even know what the point would be.

For most practical purposes, even when discussing transgender people, the distinction is irrelevant.

What sex they do or do not have is mostly of no practical meaning most of the time outside of highly technical academic discussions, so what is the point of trying to draw a line in the sand like that?

That's just going to lead to excuses to try and stigmatise people even further.

Just like how redefining sex from something anatomical to chromosomes has needlessly messed things up for no real benefit. (It doesn't even make sense given how we determined the relationship between chromosomes and people in the first place. - We started from a particular set of anatomical features and correlated the chromosomes found in these people with that. Showing that we defined chromosomal sex by reference to physical anatomy, NOT the other way around.)

Most of these distinctions and definitions serve no purpose other than to make the false male/female binary appear more valid, more rigid, and more exclusionary.

Which is really just a form of cultural insecurity.

 

[inmunitas]

If you really wanted to, why not just use the Japanese honorific suffixes like -chan to imply "feminine" and -kun to imply "masculine"?

Example:
"female-chan"
"male-kun"

Maybe because chan and kun are not used for this reason?

Never said they were used for that reason, but I'm sure I have read somewhere that they sometimes can be sort of used in such a way to refer to something that is not an actual person.

 

[Robert Marrs]

No. I already have people trying to get me to call them xir instead of he and crap like that. It was bad enough when facebook decided it needed 40 different bullshit genders. People just need to stop being so sensitive and get a reality check.