This Mockery of Language II: Gender Redefined

Exposing the Redefinition of Gender for Transgender Ideology

In conjunction with the radical and absurd convention of customizable pronouns advocated by the transgender cult and its allies, (covered in the first part of this series), gender radicals have attempted to transform, with some success, popular understanding and usage of the word “gender.”  Like always, this most pernicious campaign is undertaken to advance destructive ideological ends that advance the transgender agenda as well as the obliteration of society’s recognition of the many, important differences between the sexes—and genders, as the term is properly understood.

Readers are doubtlessly familiar with the tiresome mantra advocated by the gender mousketeers and transgender freaks.  Sex and gender are not the same thing, they claim.  Sex is biological, and gender is either a “made up social construct” or even worse, the innate sense of gender identity that a person feels to be true. Quite rapidly, many authorities on the English language and its usage have signed off on such new definitions of the word.  See for example this entry in Webster’s online dictionary[1]:

2 a: Sex sense 1a

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

c: GENDER IDENTITY

Note this rather unsettling excerpt from the usage guide featured below.

Among those who study gender and sexuality, a clear delineation between sex and gender is typically prescribed, with sex as the preferred term for biological forms, and gender limited to its meanings involving behavioral, cultural, and psychological traits. In this dichotomy, the terms male and female relate only to biological forms (sex), while the terms masculine/masculinity, feminine/femininity, woman/girl, and man/boy relate only to psychological and sociocultural traits (gender). This delineation also tends to be observed in technical and medical contexts, with the term sex referring to biological forms in such phrases as sex hormones, sex organs, and biological sex. But in nonmedical and nontechnical contexts, there is no clear delineation, and the status of the words remains complicated. (emphasis added for “prescribed” and in the last sentence, for reasons expounded on later).

The online edition of The American Heritage Dictionary is a bit more respectable, as least the first and third entries are correct as the term is properly understood, defining gender as

a. Either of the two divisions, designated female and male, by which most organisms are classified on the basis of their reproductive organs and functions; sex.

b. One's identity as female or male or as neither entirely female nor entirely male.

c. Females or males considered as a group: Students lined up with the genders in different lines.

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This radical new definition of “gender” has also become ubiquitous in the medical profession, as demonstrated in this entry on the website for the medical school at Yale University:

the term gender should be used to refer to a person's self-representation as male or female, or how that person is responded to by social institutions on the basis of the individual's gender presentation.

Buttressed by the sanctioning of such lexiconic and academic authorities, these usages are becoming ubiquitous among many institutions and publications that the general populace turns to for information.   Here is a definition provided by Webmd, stating in pertinent part:

Gender is a multi-faceted social system. Gender is largely based on society and culture. There are some consistencies, but it can be concluded that gender is not predetermined based on sex. 

More alarming still, this definition from a psychology website reads as follows:

Gender is a personal identity. It refers to the roles, norms, and relationships associated with masculinity and femininity. Gender expectations vary between societies and can change over time. Many people feel that their sex and gender are aligned — for example, when someone who was assigned female at birth (AFAB) identifies as a woman.  But this isn’t true for everyone. People who feel their sex doesn’t align with their gender may identify as transgender (trans for short) or nonbinary.

Planned parenthood defines gender as follows:

Gender is much more complex: It’s a social and legal status, and set of expectations from society, about behaviors, characteristics, and thoughts. Each culture has standards about the way that people should behave based on their gender. This is also generally male or female. But instead of being about body parts, it’s more about how you’re expected to act, because of your sex.

Many are taking such new definitions at face value.  After all, few would be inclined to argue with definitions proffered by the likes of Webster’s or American Heritage—even though the truly erudite among us know that if one wishes to look a word up, he should do so in the Oxford English Dictionary!

Contrary to these and other such definitions— or rather redefinitions—, common usage of the word “gender” before about 2015, when Bruce “Caitlynn” Jenner announced HE was transgender, used gender synonymously with sex, as it does still today.  Not only is this definition of the word confirmed by a brief survey of how that term has been used throughout this author’s lifetime and before, ie from a “descriptivist lens,” this understanding of the word “gender,” as a synonym largely interchangeable with “sex,” is further validated by this authoritative definition offered by the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary of Historical Principles (The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary) 1993 edition, page 1072.  That definition reads, in pertinent part:

Gender n. LME. 3 The state of being male, female, or neuter; sex; the members of one or other sex.  Now chiefly colloq. or euphem.  LME b Sex as expressed by social or cultural distinctions. (emphasis added).

Defining gender as “Sex as expressed by social or cultural conditions” is still defining it as sex. Somewhat akin to “twelve” and a “dozen” meaning the same thing, gender as a synonym for and interchangeable with sex is even conceded in the passage from the Webster’s online dictionary above, which reads “.in non-medical and nontechnical contexts, there is no clear delineation” between sex and gender.  That passage further reads:

Often when comparisons explicitly between male and female people are made, we see the term gender employed, with that term dominating in such collocations as gender differences, gender gap, gender equality, gender bias, and gender relations.

Astute readers will also note the astonishing admission that this delineation between sex and gender advocated by disciples of the cult of transgenderism is “prescribed:”

a clear delineation between sex and gender is typically prescribed…(as before, emphasis added).

This reveals a moral and intellectual inconsistency, insofar as members of the editorial staff of authorities like Webster are fierce advocates of descriptivist grammar, or so they claim.  As explicated in part one of this series, since the 60s, and even more so since the 80s and 90s, English Departments, humanities departments, and as a consequences bodies like authoritative dictionaries and influential publications like The Atlantic or The New Yorker, have strongly advocated for an overtly descriptivist approach to grammar and language. This approach eschews supposed value judgments of prescriptivist grammar, chiefly out of considerations concerning class and race and, mostly recently, notions of “systemic racism.”

If one were to cite a definition such as the one proffered by the New Shorter OED, the gender radicals would invariably decry such a person as a “prescriptivist,” using that term, somehow, as a pejorative or even insult.  That might hold sway for those convinced or indoctrinated by the descriptivist contagion, except with this admission from Webster’s and elsewhere: definitions making this delineation do so prescriptively—as evidenced by an express, explicit admission stated that “a clear delineation between sex and gender is typically prescribed.”

An observation and review of the rise of the use of the word “gender” in this way could at best seen as practically if not truly concurrent with the sudden change of the term, and it was not done by a sizeable contingent of the population, but by transgender and gender radical activists. Stated another way, these definitions or rather redefinitions of the word “gender” were not made in accordance with the tenets of descriptivism as insisted by those who have infiltrated English departments and the editorial staff of dictionaries.  These changes were made to advance the radical—and incredibly destructive—transgender and radical “gender theory” agenda.

This would not be the first-time leftists have unilaterally changed “the rules of the game,” displaying a jarring lack of moral and intellectual consistency, depending on whether application of a stated principle favors or disfavors them.[2] More importantly, such obvious ideological motivations should discredit such changes to the same or greater degree that a German dictionary from the years 1933-45 attempting to supplant die Friseur with das Haarschneid (hairstyle) or das Telefon with der Fernsprecher(telephone) should be discredited at that time or after. Such ideologically motivated tampering of our language is further reminiscent of other such attempts by radical zealots to transform a language for ideological ends, such as The French Republican Calendar which sought to set the calendar year to one in 1793, or changes Bolsheviks made to the Russian language with varying degrees of success.[3] 

As always, establishment conservatism has hardly bothered to resist this attempt to transform the definition of the word “gender” to advance the insidious agendas of transgenderism and radical gender theory. At the time of this writing, this author is unaware of any rebuttal of this effort to redefine the word “gender” that includes actual discussion of or reference to definitions of this word, in either current editions, or recent editions of authoritative dictionaries before Bruce came out as “Caitlynn.” Conservative pundits have not even bothered to look up the word as part of the faux resistance to this trend they feign.

As with the pronoun debacle, reversing this trend will be difficult, as leftist elements thoroughly pervade our cultural institutions and centers of power. Old school English teachers and English professors actually deserving of the moniker are a dying if not extinct breed, and thus no longer fill, in sufficient quantity, the role of snooty grammar nazi that our society, culture, and education system so desperately need. Over time, likely a very short period of time, if these trends are not counteracted properly, the current generation of young people will be fully indoctrinated to use these and other nefarious changes in our language, without ever encountering any serious rebuttal to this school of thought. And then, very soon generational knowledge of proper usage will have been supplanted by the conventions and usage touted by these insidious radicals.   

The arduous struggle, as always, begins with an understanding of the problem, knowledge of how the word “gender” is properly defined; it begins by referring to definitions not tainted by overt, naked ideological corruption and using the words with those definitions in mind to demonstrate that the consensus desired by our enemies does not exist.  Use “sex” and “gender” as the terms are properly understood, as different words that mean essentially the same thing—"sex, or sex as expressed by social cultural distinctions” as defined by The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Sex and gender, twelve and dozen, such is the richness of the English language. May we all continue to luxuriate and bask in these literary and linguistic flourishes that are imperiled and threatened by powerful but subversive elements in our midst.

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[1] Please note that for the purposes of brevity and clarity, this tract omits all definitions of gender as a grammatical term, the first and original definition of the term.

[2] Compare and contrast how leftists regard the violent George Floyd and Black Lives Matter riots with the harsh treatment meted out for January 6 protestors, or the lawless vandalism and destruction of monuments commemorating Confederate leaders in the Civil War with the veritable manhunts that have been unleashed to find individuals who have left skid marks on so-called pride murals on streets and pedestrian crosswalks.

[3] With no knowledge of the Russian language, the author’s understanding of these language reforms by the Bolsheviks is limited, but the utility of these reforms seems to be lacking with the absurd convention of customizable pronouns.