[eloff]

Surprisingly, this is a real position of many people today, that gender is entirely a social construct. It's pretty clear there are both social and biological underpinnings to gender - I don't know why some people insist on taking the black or white view.

[empthought]

Gender is an entirely social construct. You and the earlier commenters are using the word “gender” when you mean “sex.”

[daenz]

I think it is closer to the truth to say that gender is a social construct in the same way language is a social construct. The Universal Grammar Theory[0], pioneered by Noam Chomsky, gives evidence that language arises from a biological predisposition that is cross-cultural. The social construct arises from the biological construct.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_grammar

[leereeves]

This is another example of people redefining words then claiming other people are unenlightened because they use the original meaning and not the redefinition.

Gender has been used as a synonym for sex for a long time. Merriam-Webster and The Free Dictionary list that meaning before the more recent meaning.

You're simply wrong to claim the way you use the word is the only way it can be used.

[mcv]

It could be useful to have a way to distinguish between the biological and social aspects of sex/gender, though. Because those are different things, so it kinda makes sense to have different words for it.

[leereeves]

In which case you'll need to invent a new word, not tell people they're wrong to use a word the way it's long been used.

[mcv]

Telling people they're wrong to use a word in an old way is not very constructive, but language changes all the time, and when everybody starts using the words that way, then that's what they will mean.

[leereeves]

The comment that started all this was:

> You and the earlier commenters are using the word “gender” when you mean “sex.”

Clearly not everybody is using the word that way.

[eloff]

Those words are used interchangeably in modern discourse. But it's not like the craziness goes away if you define the terms more carefully. There are people who seriously beleive there is no biological difference between the sexes when it comes to internal characteristics like mind and personality. The external differences are, I hope, obvious to all with eyes to see.