Wonderful piece... and well crafted. Thank you. Yes. Absolutely. Words matter. A lot. As a woman, a mother, and an adult human female.... I am beyond disturbed at this effort to erase the words that describe our experience in these sexed bodies... and give women a place to stand to describe it. I appreciate your clear and informative article. Sharing.
Insightful article with some excellent points, this is a subject of particular interest to me. Language and more specifically, semantics and pragmatics, are the tools humans use to interface with and describe the world. For this reason, I insist on repeating that a rigorous defense of the biological sex category is inconsistent without equal rigor in defending its definition in law and policy.
Yes, equal rigour should be applied to law and policy!
However, even the fact that we must emphasize that sex is biological is a reflection of the times. Take the example of Chase Strangio's statement: "...the emergence of "biological sex" as a legal category is recent and exclusively for the purposes of excluding trans people from legal protections." The observation misunderstands the origins of the legal category - it rests upon the qualitative difference between women and men.
Personally, I stick with sex. Even though etymological dictionaries point to the erotic quality of the noun, everyone should be able to differentiate between sex (quality of being female or male) and sex (sexual intercourse). No need for 'gender' and no need for 'biological sex.'
I agree. Qualifying the term sex leads to confusion and is entirely unnecessary. What is necessary, and I think you agree, is that sex retain its meaning in all contexts, a view that Colin does not share. My comment was directed at him. Loved your essay!
Rose, your arguments are so well crafted, I have used most of your wording regarding "sex assigned at birth" as I fill out and comment on the 2021 Canadian census. I hope that's ok.
Many thanks, Louise! And absolutely, I hope statisticians will consider your comments.
I recently attended a lecture in which a deputy editor at a medical journal said how the journal follows Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines. The guidelines state that sex = biological factors; male, female and gender = identity, psychosocial or cultural factors; man, woman). I found that statement just bizarre for a medical journal. The reason I mention this is because we must insist that woman/man and girl/boy are terms for *human sex* not 'gender'. I wrote about this in my own submission to the UK census authorities back in April. It must be possible to keep those categories intact as well as collect separate data on the trans/transgender/transsexual population, seeing there is a user need for it as well.
Wonderful piece... and well crafted. Thank you. Yes. Absolutely. Words matter. A lot. As a woman, a mother, and an adult human female.... I am beyond disturbed at this effort to erase the words that describe our experience in these sexed bodies... and give women a place to stand to describe it. I appreciate your clear and informative article. Sharing.
Insightful article with some excellent points, this is a subject of particular interest to me. Language and more specifically, semantics and pragmatics, are the tools humans use to interface with and describe the world. For this reason, I insist on repeating that a rigorous defense of the biological sex category is inconsistent without equal rigor in defending its definition in law and policy.
Yes, equal rigour should be applied to law and policy!
However, even the fact that we must emphasize that sex is biological is a reflection of the times. Take the example of Chase Strangio's statement: "...the emergence of "biological sex" as a legal category is recent and exclusively for the purposes of excluding trans people from legal protections." The observation misunderstands the origins of the legal category - it rests upon the qualitative difference between women and men.
Personally, I stick with sex. Even though etymological dictionaries point to the erotic quality of the noun, everyone should be able to differentiate between sex (quality of being female or male) and sex (sexual intercourse). No need for 'gender' and no need for 'biological sex.'
I agree. Qualifying the term sex leads to confusion and is entirely unnecessary. What is necessary, and I think you agree, is that sex retain its meaning in all contexts, a view that Colin does not share. My comment was directed at him. Loved your essay!
Rose, your arguments are so well crafted, I have used most of your wording regarding "sex assigned at birth" as I fill out and comment on the 2021 Canadian census. I hope that's ok.
Many thanks, Louise! And absolutely, I hope statisticians will consider your comments.
I recently attended a lecture in which a deputy editor at a medical journal said how the journal follows Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines. The guidelines state that sex = biological factors; male, female and gender = identity, psychosocial or cultural factors; man, woman). I found that statement just bizarre for a medical journal. The reason I mention this is because we must insist that woman/man and girl/boy are terms for *human sex* not 'gender'. I wrote about this in my own submission to the UK census authorities back in April. It must be possible to keep those categories intact as well as collect separate data on the trans/transgender/transsexual population, seeing there is a user need for it as well.
Thank you, Rose. I agree and I will continue to insist. I hope they hear me too.