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by veidr 1125 days ago
Sorry, but you're just repeating the same misunderstanding as the post I was replying to. The terms "gender" and "gender identity" simply don't mean what you think they mean.

You want them to, I get it. But it's not up to us as individuals. Language is a group thing. You might not be ready to concede the change, but I can't help but think that's based on some irrational attachment you have to the old meanings, for whatever reason.

Regardless, time and language march on. It doesn't really matter if you (or I) like it, or think that the words are therefor "useless" or "don't really exist", etc.

1 comments

I dont care what gender means:

>If gender now means something that doesn't realy exist then it is a useless word.

>As well as the redefinition of "gender" to an extent but "gender" as a term for sex is recent in any event and has been used by acedemics to refer to the sex based behavioral differences between males and females since its begining.

I notice you didn't respond to the rest of the post which is understandable given that you didn't even understand the part that you did reply to.

>but I can't help but think that's based on some irrational attachment you have to the old meanings

Can you point to where I show any attachment to the word "gender?" As I said, "gender" is a recent term for sex in any case, and I don't care about losing "gender" as a word in itself. What I did say is that people are unable to have meaningful conversations because of the confusion caused by the the attempt to redefine these words. I also disagree that the words have truly been redefined, not out of emotional attachment but because I simply do not agree with your claim that the definition has reached a consensus. And to your point about language being "a group thing," I would add that it was the genderists who forced this redefinition, complete with rules to fire people who do not follow it. That doesn't sound like "a group thing" to me at all. An example of a real redefinition is the word "egregious" which originally meant "outstanding."[0] Nobody forced anyone for the meaning to change, it evolved naturaly. In any case, my argument does not even rely on what the definition of "gender" realy is.

>or think that the words are therefor "useless" or "don't really exist", etc.

You have it completly backwords here. The word is useless as it conveys something that does not exist. Therefore we should not use it, but if we did truly use this word I would not say that it doesn't mean that, only that the meaning itself has no meaning. I think your inability to understand that words and meaning are seperate is what is confusing you here. But from the absense of "man" and "woman" from your argument alongside "gender," I think even you know that we will never see a male as a woman.

[0]https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/egregious-word...