For posterity.

I have to tell a story because I cannot see how the plain didactic situation will help given that you haven’t seen it yet. 

I had a friend who was a math professor and he was adamant about Free Market economics. Once he gave me a link to his “behind paywall”guru—a link to one of those YouTube clips that can only be viewed if you have the link, which follows the overall belief he held that humans should pay for valuable things/ideas. 

In the clip, the guru/astrophysicist-teacher-dude said, “Every word should have one and only one meaning.” That caught my attention because it is so asinine. The idea that words should be like numbers or math symbols is just ludicrous. To set that as a goal is ludicrous. Immediately questions like, “Which language would these ‘one meaning only’ words be in?” came to mind.

With me?

This relates to gender because language is where gender starts. There are languages (Hebrew and Greek among myriad others) which, when spoken, seem to add or subtract little suffix sounds (like ee or ish) to what we would call pretty much any non-verbs—so nouns, adjectives, prepositions etc. If I were to do this in English, it might sound like, “Hey, Matt! Throw her the ball-ee. And then, Jill, throw Matt the ball. Then, Matt, when you get the ball back, see those girls over there? Throw the ball-ee–ish to them.” (In this example, ee is female and ish is plural).

Why did these sounds develop? Who knows.

But anyone, including you, who would have been looking at or listening to the language(s) would be inclined to recognize (or be taught) that the “ball” part of the sound is the same concrete item and word, but the suffix sound (or lack thereof) changes depending on whether a female is involved. 

The catch, of course, is that the method isn’t 1-to-1; in other words, there are exceptions to the rule. But the rule still comes to our minds. So words (aloud and written—many of earliest languages were merely copying the sounds, no such thing as proper spelling existed) became known as the idea…drumroll…GENDER!!

What should humans have done? Is the idea/object behind the word “ball” and “ball-ee” the same thing? Or not? I suppose you could argue that they are two different things. But that seems overly complex. In the end, there is one ball. But for some reason, when it is thrown to a human with boobs and a va-jay-jay, it is called “ball-ee” (in my example).

Next, fast forward through history until the last century and (I am very earnest and serious here; I have come across other folks who admit the following too) we come to the point where this concept of math symbols (think x and y and π), with their one and only one meaning, are thought of as superior to all the often unclear complications of ordinary language. In short, instead of written language copying sounds, people wanted language to represent ideas and with exactness. 

HERE IS THE JUMP/CONNECTION: One day someone suggests the idea that biological sex (penis vs vagina) is irrelevant. But they immediately confuse everyone listening because the honest response is, “How can I not be a woman/man?” So these people borrow the grammar category (abstract label) “gender” and apply it to their (NEW) idea. (The idea being that the concrete reality of your biological sex is ultimately irrelevant.) 

I offer for your consideration, that even you, friend, must be able to use the word gender when you communicate, both to show you understand grammar, AND to show you understand what time you are living in. There is an idea, however incorrect, called gender now. This is no different than, say, how the ideas psychology and communism are relatively new to the passing scene.

Put in dictionary style, gender (in the context of “ethnicity, class, and gender”) is the IDEA that biological sex is ultimately irrelevant.