amkelley wrote:
20 years ago, hardly anyone recognized any distinction between "sex" and "gender". In fact, a large number of mostly older and/or not-super-woke folks even now think that "gender" is just a more genteel term for "sex". On a Facebook page dedicated to reuniting lost pets with their owners, many posters refer to the "gender" of lost or found dogs. I don't think anyone ever asked the dog about its gender identify (or its pronouns).
That might have been the case 20 years ago amongst the people you know. But it wasn't the case for everyone everywhere. Many people have always known the difference - and some persnickety types as well as many second-wave feminists have long bridled at the custom of using the word "gender" as a proxy for the word "sex."
Also, 30 years when the word "gender" first started to be used as an anodyne, euphemistic replacement for "sex" in the mainstream media in the USA, a lot of people objected. For example, this letter to the editor published in the NY Times on December 27, 1990 is only one of many missives of complaint sent to the "gray lady" once the English-language "paper of record" starting using "gender" when it meant "sex":
To the Editor:
The term "gender" is increasingly misused as a substitute for "sex." Does "gender" appear to reflect a greater sophistication, or reluctance to use a term with a possible indecent connotation?
"The Gender Gulf" by Louis Harris (Op-Ed, Dec. 7) misuses the term three times (not counting the headline), including this: "the generation gap is less evident and the gender gap more acute." Among the same day's letters, one ("Sexism on Sesame St.") misuses gender five times including "gender imbalance."
"The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage" by Theodore M. Bernstein (New York, 1965) states, "gender is a grammatical term, denoting (in English) whether words pertaining to a noun or pronoun are classed as masculine, feminine or neuter. It is not a substitute for 'sex' (but then, what is?). Indeed, in some foreign languages 'gender' often disregards sex. In German, for example, 'Weib,' The word for woman, is neuter; in French 'plume,' the word for pen, a sexless article, is feminine. To use 'gender' as if it were synonymous with 'sex' is an error, and a particularly unpardonable one in scientific writing."
From Fowler's "Modern English Usage" edited by Sir Ernest Gowers (Oxford, second edition, 1965):
"Gender, n., is a grammatical term only. To talk of 'persons' or 'creatures of the masculine or feminine gender,' meaning 'of the male or female sex,' is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder."
I can only assume you have elected to permit this misuse, despite a valid and useful distinction between the terms.
SIDNEY WEINSTEIN Danbury, Conn., Dec. 10, 1990
The writer is editor in chief, International Journal of Neuroscience.