Sex vs. Gender - they're not the same!

melly0001

Hi all, while scrolling through this board and reading many posts about baby's gender, the teacher in me couldn't help but want to provide some clarification about what that word means. There's an important difference between sex and gender! I teach at the college level and find that most of my students are unaware of the difference, so I wanted to share some information that is helpful to them in hopes that it might be helpful here too.

Sex: the biological characteristics, including chromosomes and reproductive organisms, that make one male or female
Gender: the social characteristics that we associate with being male or female, such as norms and social roles

Your unborn baby has a sex! This is what you find out from your ultrasound or genetic test. It's okay to use the word sex, as this does not mean baby-making - that's sexual intercourse.

Your unborn baby does not have a gender, as this is part of one's identity, developed through socialization in your culture. Your baby won't start displaying gender characteristics until it is older.

So, all of the "gender reveals" you see are really sex reveals. We can start talking about gender in a few years when we see our girls wanting to be princesses and boys wanting to be superheroes thanks to the all the gendered toy marketing that happens in the media. The distinction between the terms is important, because there are many social issues concerning both sex and gender.

Interesting fact: until the 1970's, the word gender was only used to denote whether words in some languages were masculine or feminine (such as prima versus primo in Spanish). It started being used in the 1970s as a way to distinguish the social construct of masculine vs. feminine from biological sex. 

yogapants247

I actually cringe every time I read "gender reveal" and I try really hard to use the correct terms.

arbell615

@melly0001 thank you for this. A correction I’ve been making of family members asking if we’re finding out our baby’s gender. To which I say: ‘nope, only they’ll be able to tell us that.’ 

Car0liiine

I'm often the one sharing this information, but I confess that I get complacent sometimes and have probably used gender when I should have said sex on this board. I swear I'm well educated on the subject of gender as a social construct and the existence of many more genders than simply boy/girl across cultures. (Psychology major Anthropology minor.) Forgive me.

natalie115

Yes! I correct people about that all the time

mrsman2018

Thank. You. I am tired or correcting friends and family. No, I do not know their gender, ask them. 

purplepelican

*lurker* 

MandyMost

While I totally agree, I kinda do think it is a "gender reveal" and not a "sex reveal" in most cases. The people who do this USUALLY assign all kinds of gender norms to their unborn babies based on their sex. Have you seen the awful Buzzfeed posts about some of these? They're so gross to me! So many of them are about the female sex being traditionally 'girlie' and the male sex being traditionally masculine and tough. Barf. 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/kristatorres/gender-reveal-cakes-are-confusing-af-and-twitter-has-a-lot?utm_term=.dvzoqL7eW#.gtPwOe1En 

nackie

@MandyMost wow some of those are really terrible 

melly0001

@MandyMost interesting point! I hadn't thought about that - most people ARE already assigning a bunch of gendered characteristics to the baby! I hadn't seen that post, but some of those are really horrifying! 

@Car0liiine I totally get it! I get complacent too, and definitely use the word "gender" sometimes in order to avoid disrupting the flow of a conversation (and because I do want to turn off teacher mode sometimes!). I just wanted to share because many people are totally unaware of the difference, even though they might intend to be accurate.

melly0001

On a related note, why is my avatar a man?   

adirat

@mandymost I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. Those are horrific.

Redpuma119

I bet we could come up with some equally terrible ones...

zuzu43

Just to present an alternative perspective, I am well aware of the difference, but I am still okay referring to and talking about my baby's gender already. Based on current estimates of the prevalence of gender dysphoria in the overall population, there is greater than a 99.9% chance my baby's gender will be congruent with his or her biological sex. I believe sharing information with others about the difference between gender identity and biological sex is very helpful for those who are experiencing difficulty understanding gender dysphoria and the internal experience of people who identify as trans; I do not see the utility in telling people whether they "can" or "can't" refer to the their baby's gender. Although related, gender-stereotyping (e.g., boys like superheroes and play with trucks, while girls like princesses and play with dolls) is a separate topic from the issue of gender identity. It is still possible to refer to a child's gender while making efforts to resist imposing gender stereotypes on a child, if that is what you choose to do. I am not going to ask anyone this question because it is none of my business, and frankly, I don't really care what terms anyone else chooses to use, but I'll just pose the question as a thinking point for those that are interested in the topic: if you do not want to use the term "gender" because you believe this is something you cannot assume before your child is able to verbalize their gender identity, are you also planning to name your child something gender-neutral AND use--as well as ask friends and family members to use--gender-neutral pronouns whenever referring to your child (i.e., instead of his, him, her, use ey, em, eir, eirs, ze, zir, zirs, etc.) until your child is old enough to tell you how he or she would like to be addressed? If not, you are still assuming your child's gender, whether you use the term "gender" or "sex." But again, it is possible to assume or refer to your child's gender while still resisting the gender stereotypes that are presented all around us.

Wishilivedinflorida

@zuzu43 I wholeheartedly agree. It doesn’t bother me any when people use the term gender instead of sex when I know the intentions behind it’s use. I think sometimes people can get a little too nitpicky about the term usage when the intent is not malicious in any way. I think most of us know the difference between these terms, and most, if not all, are planning to use gender-specific names, pronouns, and to some degree, dress their LO according to assumed gender. But there is a big difference between gender stereotyping and gender identity issues, which is what I think the link above refers to (stereotyping). That being said, it’s a good reminder that the terms aren’t interchangeable by definition, but as we know, language evolves over time and not all terms are used strictly by definition. 

zuzu43

@Wishilivedinflorida Absolutely!

melly0001

@zuzu43 and @Wishilivedinflorida, I agree with most of what each of you said, and my post was intended to explain why these terms are not interchangeable, not to demand that people only use one term. I don't plan on using gender-neutral pronouns and names, but at the same time I am sensitive to the issue because when I was a kid, there were a lot of things I was told I shouldn't like or do because I am a girl (and I hear those same family members saying similar things to their grandchildren now), and I do plan on being careful to avoid that.

The only part I disagree with is that most people know the difference between the terms. When I give my students a pre-test on the definitions, about 85% believe that gender refers to the biological characteristics that make one male or female. Of course, people on this forum may have a better grasp on the distinction than my students, but based on conversations with family and friends, I would argue that a large majority don't know the difference.

I do enjoy discussing other perspectives and I am glad you all have shared your thoughts - I think hearing the term "gender reveal" actually bothers me less now, based on this conversation!

starla

I think the gender stereotypes are a bigger issue than the misuse of terms. Yes, equating biological sex and gender is problematic and it reflects society's misunderstanding of the differentiation, which also implies ignorance and carelessness about how those people are treated and recognized. However, that likely affects a small portion of the population.  Stereotypes affect everyone. My little girl is going to rock blue, may or may not wear pink and bows, will play in the dirt if she wants, will play with whatever age-appropriate toys she wants, and will certainly do whatever profession she chooses. F*uck society's rules and expectations. 

Redpuma119

@melly0001

I don't plan on using gender-neutral pronouns and names, but

Out of curiosity, how will you refer to your child?

Wishilivedinflorida

@Redpuma119 I believe she means she will used assumed gendered pronouns. 

@melly0001 I have no problem with your post, but I will admit I kind of gave an initial eye roll when I saw the subject line only because this subject is beat like a dead horse around TB. My post meant no offense in regards to your original post. I do think expecting everyone to use terms perfectly correctly in each and every conversation is a tall order, but a little education never hurt anyone, and hopefully your post helped inform people. 

To the above, yes, F gender stereotypes. If LO is a girl she will rock whatever big bro’s old clothes fit at the moment, and probably play in the dirt alongside him, or whatever the hell she wants to do! Same for DS. I plan on getting him a baby doll closer to my EDD so he can learn to be gentle and nurturing like his awesome dad.

I think gender reveals bother me because of how AWish the seem to me,  as well as the awful stereotypes they seem to usually perpetuate, not because of what they are named. 

zuzu43

@melly0001 I agree most people don't know the difference, and I agree that sharing the knowledge is helpful in raising awareness about gender identity.

I suppose my post is mostly a comment about the way in which people share that knowledge. And this isn't directly a response to your post, @melly0001, but rather my thoughts on the thread in general and the overall culture of people "correcting" others when they use the term "sex." In my experience, it seems like many more people are aware that there is some sort of difference between "gender" and "sex" than maybe ten years ago, but I wouldn't say they understand what that difference is. When talking about my own baby's gender, I've heard a lot of people snicker and sarcastically say, "You mean the SEX?" These people have probably had someone correct them before, and they are expressing their disapproval by sarcastically correcting me, yet they most likely still don't understand the difference between the two terms. I believe the ongoing misunderstanding of these two terms is partially a result of the nature of the "correcting" occurring. Correcting someone when they say "gender reveal" or "I am so excited to find out my baby's gender" likely only makes the person roll their eyes (either internally or externally), and after that, they probably stop listening to any explanation you might offer, if you offer any at all. Furthermore, I think whether people realize it or not, the frustration that comes from being corrected in these situations is because people do mean gender, not sex. Of course, yes, they they are finding out/sharing whether their baby is going to have a penis or a vagina, but their excitement likely comes from knowing whether they are going to be referring to their baby as a little boy or a little girl and, in most cases, whether they will be treating the baby as a boy or a girl. To truly never talk about gender and only about sex would mean to never even say, "I'm having a boy" or "I'm having a girl." Even if someone asks, "Is it a boy or a girl?" we would have to respond by saying, "Well, [they/zhe/e] has a [penis or vagina], but I'm not sure yet if [they/zhe/e] is a boy or girl yet." I view this as extreme, and I think even most people who want to resist gender-stereotypes are still going to refer to their child as a boy or girl and use "he" or "she" when referring to their babies. So not only is it inaccurate in most cases to "correct" people when they use the term "gender reveal" or "I'm finding out my baby's gender," (because they are most likely intending to mean gender rather than sex), it is also somewhat hypocritical (because whether you use the term "gender reveal" or "sex reveal", you are most likely still going to refer to your baby's gender in other ways, whether that is by saying "it's a boy" or "it's a girl" or using terms like he, she, him, her, etc.).

So, basically, without being so wordy, I agree with the sharing of information, but perhaps not the timing or the idea of "correcting" people when they say "gender."

Also, as a separate topic, I completely agree with the efforts of resisting stereotypes, and I intend to do so myself! I want my children to feel comfortable playing with whatever toys they want, engaging in any activities they want, and developing any interests they want. I want my girls to feel comfortable expressing their anger and my boys to feel comfortable expressing their fears and sadness. At the same time, I don't think all stereotypes are harmful. Although most of the baby clothing I gravitate toward is gender-neutral, I won't be able to avoid shirts like, "Handsome like Daddy" for a boy or the occasional girly outfit for a girl, especially for parties and events. I, personally, don't really view this as harmful. I think our generation (assuming we're all around the same age) is going to be much better than our parents, and especially our grandparents, at accepting more and being less gender-stereotyping with our children. Then I think our our children are going to grow up and inevitably challenge all of our stereotypes and raise their children in ways that might push our comfort zones whether we'll want to admit it or not. In my opinion, such is life and the ever-evolving nature of culture.


Wow, I apologize because I didn't mean to write a book. I obviously have a lot of thoughts about the topic and could go on forever, but I'll stop here! Anyways, I don't mean any offense by any of my posts... just a desire to share my thoughts.

spottedginger

Okay, I’ll play just because this is now a thing. Do most people in the general population understand the difference in sex and gender? I actually don’t think so. Do most users on the bump understand it if they’ve been around longer than a day and bothered to read a single thread? Yes. Do regular users get flamed for talking about a gender reveal? Not typically. Do drive bys who want us to comment on their fetus’s us anatomy get flamed for asking about the “gender”? Yes. Absolutely. 

@melly0001 yes I rolled my eyes at your post because the people who might take anything away from it have zero chance in hell of actually reading it. Because they haven’t read anything else on the boards.
@zuzu43 I rolled my eyes twice as hard at your post because... well 

And it seems awful preachy to come and try to educate a bunch of people you have zero other interaction with. Am I going to continue to correct the drive bys who offer no value or support and use it incorrectly? Yes. Am I going to flame a reg who uses the socially conventional phrase “gender reveal”? No. Nor have I ever. 
Thanks but no thanks. 

zuzu43

I'm not trying to educate. I'm just sharing my opinion that I don't believe it is "incorrect" as you keep repeating. I purposely qualified most of my sentences with "I believe" or "I think" to acknowledge that I am sharing my personal views.

I rolled my eyes at the condescending tone of your original post, such as your desire to "educate" or enlighten people and tell them that they "can" use the word sex or when they "can" talk about gender. It's especially a shame if this is the way you teach college students because it perpetuates the idea that there are "right" and "wrong" things to say, discouraging college students from sharing opposing views. My original post was just going to be a snarky, "Thank you for blessing us with your knowledge!" but I refrained and instead posted some food for thought. If you want to take it and consider it, great; if not, whatever.

I do go here, and I don't need your permission to post. I participated quite a bit in the first month but then took a break because I was having a lot of anxiety about miscarriage, and I found that constantly reading, thinking, and talking about the pregnancy wasn't helping. Now that I'm past that point, I have started lurking a lot again, and I'm thankful for the group. I don't have much to contribute because I'm a FTM, but I can lurk all I want, and if everyone wants to roast me or flame me for posting on this thread, so be it... but I wanted to post because I had a lot of thoughts, so I did. Sue me.

stothi

@zuzu43 you used more words and said it better, but the way you describe the common use of the term gender vs sex is basically the same as how I was trying to describe my feelings on the subject when I was talking to someone the other day. When I'm talking about my unborn child I usually actually am talking about his assumed gender and not his biological sex. Because my kiddos are a toddler and a fetus and can't tell me how they actually feel yet, we just roll with an assumed gender that nominally/socially lines up with their biological sex.
In our house our big thing is that we don't force gender stereotypes and we don't allow others to impose that nonsense on our son. I took a babysitter to task once for making a comment something like, "no, you're a boy, you don't like dolls, only little girls like dolls." I shut that down real fast. My son is allowed to pick out any clothes, toys or activities that are age appropriate. Gender norms are not even taken into consideration. However if he's not with me and I'm at the store picking out say a swimsuit, since I don't know what he actually wants, I pick out a stereotypical "boy" suit with trunks and a rash guard. If he's with me and he asks for the pink bikini he can totally have it, but I don't pick out stereotypical "girl" stuff for him. Although I do often buy him shoes or socks or sippy cups or whatever else that come in a pastel color or pink so they are labeled "girl" but there's literally no difference in styling or use. My son has an equal number of pink/purple sippy cups as he does blue/green cause they all work the same and buddy likes all the colors.
If buddy ever tells me that he wants to be a she and wants all pink and baby dolls all the time, then I'll respect his wishes, but for now I call him a he and assume that for the time being that it works for him, while doing my best to give him the freedom to grow and develop his personality and sense of self in a way that feels right to him. If that all makes sense.

zuzu43

@stothi makes tons of sense, and I couldn't agree more!

spottedginger

@zuzu43 I am not the OP of this thread. I do apologize for not recognizing your sn from other posts. Please do participate - plenty of our FTM have lots to add. There have been PGAL and mental health threads that may be a good place to get support for your anxiety. The more you interact the better we “know” you. 

zuzu43

@spottedginger oops, sorry about that then! although I did take offense to your post and will still say that I don't think the use is "incorrect."

And @melly0001, super-duper sorry! I guess it's out of the bag now that your original response irked me... I did work on getting past that though, and I unfortunately let it all come rushing back when I thought @spottedginger's response was you. I'll go back to my thoughts that I shouldn't even assume you use the term "can" with the college students instead of my sassiness in saying it's a shame if you do.  I take all responsibility for my snarkiness that was misdirected at you and apologize from the bottom of my heart!

zuzu43

@spottedginger and thank you for welcoming me now despite the tension. I somewhat didn't feel a right to have the anxiety or participate in the PGAL thread because I hadn't actually had a loss.

spottedginger

@zuzu87 the best part about the bump is that most people who are on it enjoy interacting and learning from people, even when their opinions differ. The true members of the bump club enjoy the diversity of the group and their life experiences. I for one, academically agree with the content of your posts. The delivery is what rubbed me the wrong way. But I also genuinely want to what more from you across the board and to get to know you better. 

However, I won’t be shamed for flaming drive bys about anything and everything including asking me to interpret their ultrasounds. You can’t take that from me. 

stothi

@spottedginger I feel that flaming drive bys, especially ultrasound interpretation requests is basically a right given to us by the universe that no one can take from us, nor should they try. I'll defend you to the end to protect your right to mock any and all Ramzi related posts.

melly0001

Wow, a lot happened in here today. @zuzu43 no hard feelings! As I said before, I found this conversation to be helpful and enlightening, and I am glad you contributed (even if it was a long read!). And I double-appreciate that you engaged in a measured and calm way, even if your initial reaction was to be irked by the post - certainly not something that always happens on the internet, or even on these forums!

As far as "drive-bys" go, there are far too many people in this forum for me to know whether an individual poster is a one-time poster or a regular, and even if they don't post regularly, that doesn't mean they don't read the forums (I read this forum a lot before I started posting). I'm sorry if anyone feels like this topic has already been covered; this is the only forum I follow on TB (it's just too overwhelming otherwise), and I haven't seen this topic covered in here (I searched before posting). My intention was to make people who don't know the definitions aware of the definitions; they can choose what to do with that information. I would prefer to share that information in a way that doesn't call out any individual person, which is why I created a new thread.

BostonBaby1

For the sake of completeness, I’m adding a couple of images but mostly just jumping on to say that @spottedginger and @stothi are on point. No one can take away the right to flame a drive by other than the admins on ban sweeps.