A note to the parents of the world:

[conuly]

Gender is not sex. Sex is not a bad word.

You aren't finding out your child's gender before they are born, you are finding out his or her sex. Your batty neighbor does not forget your little baby's gender, she forgets the baby's sex. If it relates to the parts down there, it is the sex. Gender is in the mind. The two often correlate, usually even, I know, but please - let's not conflate them just because everybody seems to think sex has suddenly gained another letter to become a four letter word. Sexx, maybe?

Sex, sex, sex. Start saying that. SEX.

P.S. Angelique is on my lap. She wants to type something. I'm not posting a new entry for this. Hold on:

vipers
zaqwertyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyuiop[
buttdetx77d9or0eep0fele[scykTFGSTFSDOFSC
ana
zzoo

(I helped her spell vipers)trewtdgghjwhdqnuid8eyhfiueeiyyhewuhfuryiey78y7eyriugyeyifyeuify83t78ete68te6erete6

Comments

[neurotica0.livejournal.com]

I have almost made entries very much like this one a thousand times.

[conuly]

Do it once, and let it sit for a while. It really does help to vent sometimes.

[neurotica0.livejournal.com]

Well, a lot of times when I want to make a post about something that has been bugging me, I hold back from doing it because so many people on my friends list are doing the very thing I'd be posting about. (This issue and some grammar pet peeves come to mind.)

[sayga.livejournal.com]

i've bitched about this in my journal before too. even the ultrasound technician asked if we wanted to know the baby's gender. i was like, "really, you can tell THAT from an ultrasound?!" (but really, i didn't say anything, just mentally punched her).

[conuly]

She would not have gotten the sarcasm, most likely, and that's the sad part of it all.

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaank you!

(My sex is female, my gender is mostly female. These are not the same thing!)

Awww. Hi to the kids~

[plaid-slytherin.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. Gender is not a polite word for sex. *headdesk*

[conuly]

That'd be weird. "I want to gender his brains out." "Hey, baby, wanna gender?" "Ooooh, I'd gender with you any day!" :)

[pne.livejournal.com]

"How can people gender chicks? What do they look for?"

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Thank you. I see that done so often, and it annoys me so much.

[literalgirl.livejournal.com]

*applause*

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

She totally nearly got 'buttsex' in there. /two year old

IAWTP

[conuly]

Well, I started out by helping her spell "butters", which she wanted to type. But then she typoed and started typing whatever the frack she wanted.

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

*nods* I just had one of those juvenile moments that strike me the most when I haven't slept enough. :-)

[peaceofpie.livejournal.com]

actually, those definitions are mutable, too. i, for one, do not use "sex" to refer to anything but "getting jiggy with it". i prefer "assigned gender" to refer to the thing you're calling "sex"...the designation that was put on my birth certificate based on my genitals and the gender i was raised to believe i was because of that designation/genital configuration. (kate bornstein explains this much better than i do in her book my gender workbook.)

so, i would say that you can know from an ultrasound what GENITALS your child will have, and what gender assignment will likely result from your child having such genitals. whereas, if you're the parent, you probably won't know too much about your kid's "sex" unless your kid decides to tell you about it when they're old enough to have sex (or you accidentally walk in on them...). ;-)

[conuly]

Fair enough, and you're probably more knowledgeable on the subject than I am, I think :)

I *do* use the word sex to refer to people's dangly (or not) bits, and to the process of identifying animals (including humans) based on said bits, so there's no confusion to me that way.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

thank god that I am not the only person on the planet who knows this fact and becomes pissed off when people get it wrong.

[conuly]

Not exactly pissed off for me... it just builds up and up and up and up and eventually, the steam had to be let off.

[neurotica0.livejournal.com]

I have almost made entries very much like this one a thousand times.

[conuly]

Do it once, and let it sit for a while. It really does help to vent sometimes.

[neurotica0.livejournal.com]

Well, a lot of times when I want to make a post about something that has been bugging me, I hold back from doing it because so many people on my friends list are doing the very thing I'd be posting about. (This issue and some grammar pet peeves come to mind.)

[sayga.livejournal.com]

i've bitched about this in my journal before too. even the ultrasound technician asked if we wanted to know the baby's gender. i was like, "really, you can tell THAT from an ultrasound?!" (but really, i didn't say anything, just mentally punched her).

[conuly]

She would not have gotten the sarcasm, most likely, and that's the sad part of it all.

[wodhaund.livejournal.com]

Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaank you!

(My sex is female, my gender is mostly female. These are not the same thing!)

Awww. Hi to the kids~

[plaid-slytherin.livejournal.com]

THANK YOU. Gender is not a polite word for sex. *headdesk*

[conuly]

That'd be weird. "I want to gender his brains out." "Hey, baby, wanna gender?" "Ooooh, I'd gender with you any day!" :)

[pne.livejournal.com]

"How can people gender chicks? What do they look for?"

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Thank you. Thank you. I see that done so often, and it annoys me so much.

[literalgirl.livejournal.com]

*applause*

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

She totally nearly got 'buttsex' in there. /two year old

IAWTP

[conuly]

Well, I started out by helping her spell "butters", which she wanted to type. But then she typoed and started typing whatever the frack she wanted.

[ser-kai.livejournal.com]

*nods* I just had one of those juvenile moments that strike me the most when I haven't slept enough. :-)

[peaceofpie.livejournal.com]

actually, those definitions are mutable, too. i, for one, do not use "sex" to refer to anything but "getting jiggy with it". i prefer "assigned gender" to refer to the thing you're calling "sex"...the designation that was put on my birth certificate based on my genitals and the gender i was raised to believe i was because of that designation/genital configuration. (kate bornstein explains this much better than i do in her book my gender workbook.)

so, i would say that you can know from an ultrasound what GENITALS your child will have, and what gender assignment will likely result from your child having such genitals. whereas, if you're the parent, you probably won't know too much about your kid's "sex" unless your kid decides to tell you about it when they're old enough to have sex (or you accidentally walk in on them...). ;-)

[conuly]

Fair enough, and you're probably more knowledgeable on the subject than I am, I think :)

I *do* use the word sex to refer to people's dangly (or not) bits, and to the process of identifying animals (including humans) based on said bits, so there's no confusion to me that way.

[sporks5000.livejournal.com]

thank god that I am not the only person on the planet who knows this fact and becomes pissed off when people get it wrong.

[conuly]

Not exactly pissed off for me... it just builds up and up and up and up and eventually, the steam had to be let off.