Do we say ‘gender’ or ‘sex’?

The following article is by Dr. Judy Meissner, a psychologist and journalist (more information is below). It is posted with her permission.

By Dr. Judy Meissner ~

Why do partisans of the ideology pushing the normalization and macabre “celebration” of biologically aberrant, morally deviant sexual behavior, or aberrosexualism, refer to people’s sex by the inaccurate, unscientific term “gender” rather than the correct, scientific term “sex”? Is there more here than meets the eye? Is this another brazen abuse and manipulation of language by ideological extremists?

Rather than being a means of communicating the truth, language today is being used to control and manipulate people for ideological ends. The mediating character of language is being increasingly corrupted. Extremist ideologies, through propaganda and an unethical mass-media, are systematically destroying and distorting words. They present us apparent realities whose fictive character deceive, misinform, and destroy the very meaning of things.

SEX vs. GENDER

Sex is the objective, scientific name for the biological and physiological reality of male and female. Sex is a precisely determinable genetic fact; a scientifically demonstrable biological reality referring to persons or animals. As such, like it or not, sex can never be altered or changed. While an individual’s physical appearance can be cosmetically changed or modified, or they can change their personal opinion as to their sex; their DNA, or chromosomes, can never be altered.

By contrast, “gender” is the category or class of nouns and pronouns in languages. However, aberrosexualist ideologues have cavalierly morphed the term into an ideological euphemism denoting an individual’s personal opinion or self-perception of their sex. So “gender” is now being pushed as a propaganda term to obscure the objective, biological reality of sex. Even the Oxford English Dictionary admits that “gender” is an ideologically imposed “euphemism” for a human being’s sex, intended “to emphasize the social and cultural, as opposed to the biological distinctions between the sexes.”

SCIENCE vs. SUPERSTITION

In its most recent “Media Reference Guide,” or style manual, the Gay (sic) and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) insists that sex is “the classification of people as male or female” at birth, based on bodily characteristics such as chromosomes, hormones, internal reproductive organs, and genitalia. Gender is “one’s internal, personal sense of being a man or woman (or a boy or a girl).”

To justify their ideological prejudices, biases and superstitions, feminist and aberrosexualist ideologues ludicrously argue that “gender” is totally undetermined by and has absolutely nothing to do with sex. See for example The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution, an important and widely influential aberrosexualist/feminist text.

By using “gender,” aberrosexualist and feminist ideologues impose the superstition that sex depends not on scientifically demonstrable, genetically provable, biological characteristics and features, but on someone’s fantasy to be whatever sex they wish to be or feel they are. This conveniently lets aberrosexualists and feminists acknowledge natural sexual differences they cannot deny without seeming insane, while illogically attacking the so-called “gender inequalities” they claim need to be abolished.

BIOLOGICAL REALITY vs. BEHAVIORAL PREFERENCE

Evolutionary psychologist Michael E. Mills is among the many scientists who have openly condemned the use of the ideological euphemism “gender” rather than the objective words “sex” or “sexual.” Mills suggested in 2011 that the sex/gender distinction is inappropriate, misleading and counter-productive because it erroneously presupposes that an individual’s sex can be partitioned into objective, biological factors, on the one hand, and, freely-chosen behavioral preference or subjective psychological opinions, on the other.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Gender” is the unscientific, ideological euphemism-of-choice of aberro/feminists ideologues; “sex” or “sexual” are the scientific, objective words used by normal, unbiased, plain-speaking people. “Gender identity” and “ gender expression ” are non-scientific, ideological terms, i.e., terms pushing an ideological opinion. Both terms are difficult if not impossible to scientifically interpret and define.

You reinforce your opponents’ lies and confusion whenever you use aberrosexualist propaganda terms or expressions like “biological male,” “biological female,” or “gender.” As far as the facts are concerned, a so-called ‘biological male’ is and always will be a male, and a so-called “biological female” is and always will be a female. Yes, people can cosmetically alter their physical appearance, but they can never change the fact the chromosomes that make them a man or woman until the day they die.

It is contrary to sound public policy to grant people the false “right” to legally disregard and openly misrepresent their sex as this automatically forces on us the insane idea that people can disregard and misrepresent their age, color, race, ethnicity, or any other biological reality.

Just because aberrosexualist ideologues use propaganda terms and expressions to fool people into falling for their lunacy, doesn’t mean we should use them also. Our discourse should be completely free of all aberrosexualist Newspeak. You start winning the Culture War by calling things by their correct name. Your choice of words does matter!

Judy Meissner, Ph.D., MPH, is Professor of psychology, a public health and social welfare expert and an international human rights advocate. She is a director of the International Center for the Study of Aberrosexualism (ICSA), an organization of mental health professionals dedicated to the research of biologically aberrant sexual behavior and practices, or aberrosexualism, and other psico-sexual phenomema.