Jaicee said:
If they were "just words", they wouldn't be informing public policy so much as present. It matters because society does not shape its public policies based on both of those definitions (sex and gender) combined, but based on one or the other definition strictly (sex or gender). When the subjective definition (gender) becomes the prevailing one, public policy problems are had, I feel, in the sense that, for instance, single-sex spaces now get disingenuously redefined as a form of discrimination against "certain women" or "certain men", as applicable, with the negative consequences falling one-sidedly on women (by which I mean biological females) across the board. This for me isn't about the semantics of which pronouns to use. It's about whether women specifically will have such basic entitlements as the right to privacy, to safety, to fair play, or to freedom of speech and association going forward. |
The example that I immediately think of is bathrooms, and I find the fear over allowing transgendered individuals into bathrooms corresponding with the identified gender absolutely ridiculous and overblown, so you will have to elaborate a little more if you want to argue that point...
