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Re: Rinkworks reader poll
Posted By: gremlinn, on host 24.25.220.173
Date: Saturday, June 30, 2001, at 00:14:48
In Reply To: Rinkworks reader poll posted by Garcia on Friday, June 29, 2001, at 21:45:49:

> You know I've always been wondering something. It's fashionable to use 'gender' instead of 'sex' when asking whether someone's male or female. My english teacher in high school would always make a fuss about it and say that 'sex' should be the proper word because 'gender' only refers to nouns and stuff.
>
> I'm wondering, will the use of gender become commonplace, or do I still need to distinguish between them in case someone gets angry about it?
>

I think the distinction is that 'sex' refers to an actual biological classification between being male and female, and 'gender' refers to which of these one identifies oneself with (see definition #2 of 'gender' at www.dictionary.com). Of course, this is probably only a connotation, and in most circumstances the two words are used interchangeably.

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