There is a problem with gender

and the problem is, like so many other words, a single definition isn't accepted by all those who use it, and those who hear it.

Plain and simple, our language is to blame for much of our social discourse. Until we all agree with the meaning of a word, when used in any conversation, we aren't communicating if both the speaker and the listener don't understand and accept a common meaning.

Like so many in our English language, the definition of a word requires context, can be different by geographical region or social membership, or even usage. Take the word peruse for example. The historical definition of the word, straight from Webster's Unabridged copyright 1983: 

1. to read with attention; to read carefully or thoroughly; to study. 

Surprised? I'd argue most people hold the definition of peruse to mean to scan, or read over quickly. If your boss handed you a 100-page legal document and asked you to peruse it for tomorrow's meeting with the CEO, what would you do? We have collectively come to enjoy the latter meaning. So much so that the third definition in the same 1983 Webster's Unabridged is simply: 3. to read.

Take a look at today's Webster's online definition:

1 a : to examine or consider with attention and in detail : STUDY

   b : to look over or through in a casual or cursory manner

2    : READ
      especially : to read over in an attentive or leisurely manner

attentive OR leisurely? Aren’t those terms contradictory in this context? So, what do we mean when we say peruse? It's anyone’s guess, and that's the problem.

Okay, so what about this word gender? Do you know what it means? Do you? Are you sure?

In the case of gender, it’s so much worse; and iGanja has caught you! Kudos to those who have orchestrated this bit of social discord. The left is having a real field day (and a laugh at the right's expense) with this one. I too was caught up in this ridiculous argument over how many genders there are; knowing all too mater-of-fact(ly) there were only two. How could any reasonable person claim any more than that and keep a straight face. But they did...keep a straight face, and omg how stupid are you? and how stupid must you think the rest of us are?

There are only two genders when using the word to denote biological sex. <- that’s a period.

Anyone who honestly thinks differently need not read any further. You are too stupid to have any meaningful conversation.

However, the word gender is very interesting, and yes, a fluid defined word that requires context, and an incontrovertible understanding of what the subject or topic of conversation is, to know its meaning.

Again, Webster’s Unabridged defines gender:

And Webster’s Online:
1 a : a subclass within a grammatical class (such as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (such as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms
     Latin has three genders: masculine, feminine, and neuter.

  b : membership of a word or a grammatical form in such a subclass

  c : an inflectional form (see inflection sense 2a) showing membership in such a subclass

There you have it. The primary definition of gender clearly states it as grammatical construct. Plain and simple. It denotes subjectivity and requires agreement by the users of the word as to its meaning in any context.

To be fair, Webster’s Online does go on to include a second definition, much like Peruse.

2 a : SEX sense 1a

   b : the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex

   c : gender identity (a link to an entirely new word [phrase] which Webster’s defines as)
        : a person's internal sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female

Nothing to do with biology, only an "internal sense". Interesting how this word has evolved, like peruse, into something completely different, and conveniently obtuse, yet used today to denote a strict definition for all based (incorrectly I might add,) on the sixth derivative. And now we fight, like the left and right love to do, over this sixth derivative definition as if it was the first, and only. No reasonable person would fall into this trap, would they? Well, most of us did. Kudos again to the woke left.

And now iGanja’s take:

A few decades ago, when America was still relatively conservative, and the “moral majority” was censoring everything from how many times the word “darn” could be used in a 30-minute sitcom episode to what color hair your children could go to school with, some church group – I am imagining – decided the word “sex” on a DMV form was just a little too risqué. We needed a different word. We need one that denoted sex without actually using that word. Enter, more pleasing to the conservative world, gender.

Form, after form, after government form, quietly changed over time from Sex: “yes please!” to Gender: That’s it! And you thought it was a conspiracy. Nope. Just the radical conservative right forcing a watered-down word on us to uphold morality and quash a funny joke, for good.

Enter 2020, and the great woke take over. Gender means Sex! Don’t believe us? Why does it say that on our birth certificates? Why is it on our driver’s license? We are assigned our “gender” at birth, and since gender is – by definition – a fluid construct that can change over time, so it is with OUR SEX. Viola! It’s all a matter of how you feel that day. You can be a boy, or a girl, or as my son (youngest offspring) would say, an “attack helicopter”, anytime you want.

So yeah, there is a problem with gender – the word – and it’s the Right’s Fault that it is now a problem for all of us.

"oh I Ganja!"