The vernacular, in this case, is obsolete. It needs to catch up. Sex and gender while often happens to be the same are not at all the same thing and we need to speak up against confusing the two for the sake of our trans friends.
But most people will live and die without such a distinction ever being relevant in their lives.
Methinks that this distinction plays an important role in your life, but you must realize that it does not in that of most.
The other difference is that of all the other things I mentioned, the distinction is of a very technical and exact nature, whereas “sex” as is common in biology is bereft of a technical definition, and “gender” as is common in psychology even more so. — I initially used the phrase “technical term”, but I am honestly loathe to do so for concepts so poorly defined as either “sex” or “gender” whereof specialists very frequently disagree on wherein to place objects discussed.
Lives is the keyword. speed vs velocity is of concern to physicists but mixing up gender and sex has been weaponized as a tool against trans people and because of that, we need to push back.
> Methinks that this distinction plays an important role in your life, but you must realize that it does not in that of most.
Yes, most people don't give a damn about other people, I know, after all, Atlas Shrugged is popular in the United States. This is why the United States is heading to, if not already there, to be a failed state. But those who actually care about others, recognize how much a difference they can make by deliberately using two such simple words in their right meaning and so they do.
Such can be said about many such words. — various terms that enjoy more præcise nuance in linguistics have very much been used to weaponize against allowing people to speak in their native registers, similar things can be said about religious nuances. So do you also go about correcting people who use the word “Flemish” as most use it, and rather insist that in technical terms, it only refers to a specific group of Dutch dialects rather than standard Dutch as spoken in Belgium?
> Yes, most people don't give a damn about other people, I know, after all, Atlas Shrugged is popular in the United States. This is why the United States is heading to, if not already there, to be a failed state. But those who actually care about others, recognize how much a difference they can make by deliberately using two such simple words in their right meaning and so they do.
Yes, and I would submit that neither you do, but that you simply insist that a special exception be made for the one thing that seems to be important to you, for if you evenly applied this standard throughout your life, and demanded the same corrections elsewhere, you could not generally allow someone to finish a single sentence without demanding several alternations to the words.
In about every sentence vernacularly spoken, words are used that have a more præcise nuance in technical vocabulary, and in many such cases the lack of distinction has been weaponized, for vagueness is indeed the ultimate tool in politics.
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/jul/26/gender-revea...
https://slate.com/human-interest/2016/05/gender-reveal-celeb...
> the gender-reveal phenomenon pulls off a rousing counter-progressive two-for-one: weapons-grade reinforcement of oppressive gender norms (sorry, feminists!) and blunt-force refusal of the idea that sex assigned at birth does not necessarily equate with gender identity (sorry, trans-rights movement!).
This is how the vernacular gets weaponized.
Preaching these things when it benefits a favored point of view and then rejecting them when it comes to others is actually the definition of weaponizing, and it does more harm and causes everyone to be intolerant.
https://medium.com/thoughts-economics-politics-sustainabilit...
What made it obsolete? Obviously, the GOP did by declaring open season on trans people, especially by denying treatment to trans children. This is sheer evil that will lead to suicidal children -- they might as well just shoot them, same result, just less acceptable (although how much is an open question given how American society have normalized school shootings as well but now I really digress). These laws fit the very definition of genocide as defined by the convention. We can not stand for this. We need to fight back. Every day. Every sentence. Every word if need to be. We need to show that aside from a far right fringe, society stands with trans people. It's civil solidarity. And yes, I asked on /r/trumpsupporters what they think is the difference between society and just living next to each other and of course the reply is there's no difference. But there is. We do live in a society. We do care for the next person and if politicians want to erase we will not let that happen. We can not let that happen.
Do you have a workplace policy where people put in pronouns right in their chat name? We do that because we want to normalize that when you introduce yourself, your pronouns are a normal, everyday part of that.
Do I need to quote Niemöller ?
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
So we do speak out because we learned from history what happens when do not. Especially when all it takes is such a tiny thing as getting the words sex and gender right and using the pronouns a person prefers.
If someone uses the n-slur on a black person, are you just going to preach tolerance of their words or are you going to step up, use your white privilege (most of HN readers are white cis het males) and say "that's not okay"?
They elected an openly nazi person to the highest office of the United States and when he rightly got the boot, they attempted a coup to keep him in power. And one of their chief weapons indeed were -- as they called it -- alternative facts. Yeah, there is a certain part of society which does not want to be part of society and does use words and facts rather arbitrarily. Is this what you want me to accept? Because I will not.
I have not started this, I have not wanted this but if history calls us to task, answer we will. And again, right now, in here, we just need to make sure our speech is precise. Not more. It's a small act but it has serious weight.
Having a different personal definition of a word, or a different opinion or thought does not automatically make someone a -obic, or mean they are "coming for" others. Try to be inclusive and tolerant rather than hostile and divisive and uninclusive.