I had a woman boss who would always refer to women as female (like “you know the manager of that department is a female?!”). I’m still not sure how I feel about it.
I think the best response is always “you don’t know that”. Sex and Gender are not the same thing, and adults should know by now that they can’t tell what’s in someone else’s pants by looking at their face.
Well I did once explain the difference between sex and gender as she seemed confused and was unable to wrap her head around a colleague using they/them, but that led to a slightly vacant yet patronising expression on her face. Also, call me a coward but I’m not going to clap back at my own goddamn boss, I prefer my working days to not be more of a living hell than they already are. Regardless, she’s retired now.
First it doesn’t really matter what’s between their legs unless you intend to date them. It’s easy enough to determine what most people identify as and thus what you ought to treat them as.
That said you can tell what virtually everyone has in there pants. 99.5% of people are cisgender. Of the people who are transgender it is usually not terribly hard to see most of the time both what their birth gender is and what gender they identify as which is why its pretty trivial to be polite. Although it is impossible to tell if someone has had surgery at least in the US you could bet on no and be right most of the time because of cost and inequality around here.
Meanwhile its impossible to tell the difference between coffee and milk just by looking at it! If you disagree I shall declare you an anti-milkist. It’s completely impossible you disagree with my assertion therefore you must be motivated by bigotry!
Creative analogy. However, it’s not even remotely applicable.
You’re falling victim to a basic observation bias. You notice the trans people who don’t pass, but you have no idea how many trans people you see that do pass, and you’d never even consider that they’re trans.
Again, found the “but I’m not even transphobic” transphobe.
You are correct that I might be unclear on how many are passing be virtue of only noticing the portion that do not.
Still 99.5% of people are cisgender. Some portion of those who are transgender don’t pass. So 99.6–99.7 have a discernible gender. I still think my statement is correct numerically. It’s not even clear what position you are defending and what position beyond a picayune one you think I’m attacking.
Man or woman = gender = how they express and identify.
While I recognize that some may use these terms differently, I find that having a strict sex/gender seperation for them in my personal use helps greatly in keeping the concepts distinct and having empathy for those whose gender is not sex-conformant.
That it also leads to a pithy rebuttal to “what is a woman” bigotry is just a nice side effect. Apologies if my usage was not immediately apparent.
Male or female vs man or woman are just adjectives vs nouns they both used to reference both gender. Using one for sex and the other for gender is simply inaccurate. This is why one may say that someone is a transgender woman but one never hears that someone is a male woman unless its M A I L woman.
English is an organic language and can shift subtly with each speaker,. Especially if prior usage makes communication more difficult.
NOT having distinct terms for sex and gender makes communication and understanding harder. If you have alternate terms you think are better I’d love to hear them., but if all you have is an insistence that “incorrect English” is a thing I’ll just have to wish you a good day.
I had a woman boss who would always refer to women as female (like “you know the manager of that department is a female?!”). I’m still not sure how I feel about it.
Gaslight Gatekeep Womanboss
I know it’s a really awkward phrasing, but “I had a boss, who was a woman…” sounded even more awkward to me than just “woman boss” 🤷♂️.
I had a female boss.
Adjective is fine, using it as noun is icky
Sounds like she’s talking about an animal
It would be worrying if the department’s boss was a plant, or fungi…
I think the best response is always “you don’t know that”. Sex and Gender are not the same thing, and adults should know by now that they can’t tell what’s in someone else’s pants by looking at their face.
Well I did once explain the difference between sex and gender as she seemed confused and was unable to wrap her head around a colleague using they/them, but that led to a slightly vacant yet patronising expression on her face. Also, call me a coward but I’m not going to clap back at my own goddamn boss, I prefer my working days to not be more of a living hell than they already are. Regardless, she’s retired now.
First it doesn’t really matter what’s between their legs unless you intend to date them. It’s easy enough to determine what most people identify as and thus what you ought to treat them as.
That said you can tell what virtually everyone has in there pants. 99.5% of people are cisgender. Of the people who are transgender it is usually not terribly hard to see most of the time both what their birth gender is and what gender they identify as which is why its pretty trivial to be polite. Although it is impossible to tell if someone has had surgery at least in the US you could bet on no and be right most of the time because of cost and inequality around here.
Found the awkward “I’m not transphobic” transphobe.
Meanwhile its impossible to tell the difference between coffee and milk just by looking at it! If you disagree I shall declare you an anti-milkist. It’s completely impossible you disagree with my assertion therefore you must be motivated by bigotry!
Creative analogy. However, it’s not even remotely applicable.
You’re falling victim to a basic observation bias. You notice the trans people who don’t pass, but you have no idea how many trans people you see that do pass, and you’d never even consider that they’re trans.
Again, found the “but I’m not even transphobic” transphobe.
You are correct that I might be unclear on how many are passing be virtue of only noticing the portion that do not.
Still 99.5% of people are cisgender. Some portion of those who are transgender don’t pass. So 99.6–99.7 have a discernible gender. I still think my statement is correct numerically. It’s not even clear what position you are defending and what position beyond a picayune one you think I’m attacking.
Keep being ignorant to your own biases, it will do you well in life, pompous jackass.
What bias? I don’t have any negative feelings towards people who are trans.
Male or female = sex = what’s in their pants.
Man or woman = gender = how they express and identify.
While I recognize that some may use these terms differently, I find that having a strict sex/gender seperation for them in my personal use helps greatly in keeping the concepts distinct and having empathy for those whose gender is not sex-conformant.
That it also leads to a pithy rebuttal to “what is a woman” bigotry is just a nice side effect. Apologies if my usage was not immediately apparent.
Male or female vs man or woman are just adjectives vs nouns they both used to reference both gender. Using one for sex and the other for gender is simply inaccurate. This is why one may say that someone is a transgender woman but one never hears that someone is a male woman unless its M A I L woman.
English is an organic language and can shift subtly with each speaker,. Especially if prior usage makes communication more difficult.
NOT having distinct terms for sex and gender makes communication and understanding harder. If you have alternate terms you think are better I’d love to hear them., but if all you have is an insistence that “incorrect English” is a thing I’ll just have to wish you a good day.