it vs. him

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CarloSsS

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In the following context, could "it" be used to refer to the baby even though the sex of the baby is known (he)?

While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for Mary to have the baby, and she gave birth to her first son. Because there were no rooms left in the inn, she wrapped the baby with pieces of cloth and laid it/him in a box where animals are fed.

I've heard native speakers (Americans) talk about babies even though they knew their gender, but the speakers didn't have any relationship with the baby.
 

abaka

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Referring to a human infant as "it" was once standard, but today seems affected if not merely callous.

PS. By the way, physical sex; grammatical or behavioral gender. Please don't confuse the two.
 
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5jj

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PS. By the way, physical sex; grammatical or behavioral gender. Please don't confuse the two.
I am afraid that 'gender' is now widely used and accepted where you and I would use 'sex'. It is, unfortunately, no longer incorrect in BrE. I don't know about AmE.
 

SoothingDave

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Yes, no one wants to say "sex" anymore, so they say "gender."
 

abaka

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"It is no longer incorrect" in the new world, either.

To use "gender" for "sex", however, misses the important distinction. Human beings cannot change sex without surgery, but their gender is a consequence of their mental or emotional makeup, and so a male for example can choose to dress and act as a woman. The sex-change operation reassigns their sex to match the gender they wish to live by: idiom notwithstanding, it is not a "gender-reassignment" surgery, but an affirmation and enhancement of gender.

We can still choose to speak correctly and to maintain the subtle shades of meaning.
 

emsr2d2

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In my experience, people still ask expectant mothers "Do you know the sex yet?" not "Have you found out the gender yet?"
 

5jj

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To use "gender" for "sex", however, misses the important distinction. Human beings cannot change sex without surgery, but their gender is a consequence of their mental or emotional makeup, and so a male for example can choose to dress and act as a woman. The sex-change operation reassigns their sex to match the gender they wish to live by: idiom notwithstanding, it is not a "gender-reassignment" surgery, but an affirmation and enhancement of gender.

We can still choose to speak correctly and to maintain the subtle shades of meaning.
I am not sure that I agree that you have used the words 'correctly' in your post

For me, 'sex' is, or used to be, the state of being male or female; a 'gender' is one of a class of nouns, frequently, and usually unhelpfully named 'masculine', 'feminine' and 'neuter', as words denoting males tend to be masculine gender (Latin 'agricola', feminine, is an exception) and words denoting females tend to be feminine gender (German 'Mädchen', neuter, is an exception); inanimate object fall fairly arbitrarily into one of the three or more genders in a language (The word for 'sun' is masculine in French, feminine in German and, I believe, neuter in Slovak).

'Gender is now used not only for noun classes but also for what we used to call 'sex'. Your use of 'gender', which seems to suggest something like 'identification of a humans with their 'real' (perhaps 'inner') sex, regardless of the physical sex they were born with' is not one with which I am familiar.
 

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I am also not sure that the idea of "gender" as some sort of expression of identity which requires progressive institutions like universities to maintain more than 2 types of restrooms is that accepted.
 

alenjones23

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If you are confirm about the gender, it would be preferable to use him instead of it.
 

emsr2d2

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If you are [STRIKE]confirm[/STRIKE] sure/certain [STRIKE]about[/STRIKE] of the gender, it would be preferable to use "him" instead of "it".

I am never going to win any prizes in a "Who likes babies?" competition and consequently, I do tend to have a habit of referring to babies as "it" even when I know their gender and, quite frequently, even when I know the parents! Whilst I wouldn't say to the parents "Is it sleeping through the night yet?" or anything similar, I have been known to say to other friends after the departure of friends with a baby "I got no sleep last night, it kept waking up and crying every half an hour" or "I can't believe they're still letting it sleep in their bedroom with them". I'm far more likely to refer to the baby as "it" in a negative statement. For example, I would probably say "I don't like babies much but she's actually quite sweet".

I must point out that this is nothing to do with grammatical use at all and should not be followed as such! It is simply how I happen to use the language in certain situations, and I am not alone, so you will hear "it" used for babies.
 

CarloSsS

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I am never going to win any prizes in a "Who likes babies?" competition and consequently, I do tend to have a habit of referring to babies as "it" even when I know their gender and, quite frequently, even when I know the parents! Whilst I wouldn't say to the parents "Is it sleeping through the night yet?" or anything similar, I have been known to say to other friends after the departure of friends with a baby "I got no sleep last night, it kept waking up and crying every half an hour" or "I can't believe they're still letting it sleep in their bedroom with them". I'm far more likely to refer to the baby as "it" in a negative statement. For example, I would probably say "I don't like babies much but she's actually quite sweet".

I must point out that this is nothing to do with grammatical use at all and should not be followed as such! It is simply how I happen to use the language in certain situations, and I am not alone, so you will hear "it" used for babies.

Thank you for your view. What would you use in the context I provided?
 

emsr2d2

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In your original context, given that the piece already uses "son", I would use "him".
 

abaka

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Have I misused "sex" and "gender"? I don't think so.

I think we can all agree that sex is a physical attribute, and has always been, whether it is the external sexual organs that determine it, or the XX/XY chromosome pair. (And I know very well the two don't always give the same result -- but they are both physical determinants, that's my point.)

Nor is there any argument about "gender" as a grammatical category.

The issue, then, is what "gender" means when it refers to human beings. I know very well it has come to be a prissy synonym for the sex, male or female; but that is the sloppy usage I am protesting against. Psychology and sociology, on the other hand, have studied the voluntary assumption by individuals of male or female roles, behavior, dress, and so on -- and also the social characteristics of people who have taken the male or female roles, as well as the interaction between the two. The term for the first is something like "gender identity", and for the second, "gender studies". Both refer to self-identification and behavior, not to a physical determinant. It may well be that this behavioral usage of the word "gender" applied to human beings is fairly recent compared to the rather ancient word "sex". But it marks a useful distinction from the physical sex. And this distinction is the foundation of what I said about the so-called gender reassignment surgery in my second post.

Of course all the above is very subjective. So what? We give our opinion on our reading of good English, no more.
 

5jj

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I think we can all agree that sex is a physical attribute
Let's pause there. For many native speakers these days, it's 'gender' that's the word to use about the male/female difference. You and I might not like it, but language changes.
Nor is there any argument about "gender" as a grammatical category.
I agree.
The issue, then, is what "gender" means when it refers to human beings. I know very well it has come to be a prissy synonym for the sex, male or female; but that is the sloppy usage I am protesting against.
Protest as much as you wish, that is the way it's used today. Just google Gender Studies and see how many universities offer courses on ways of looking at the perception of what you and I might call the two sexes.
... this distinction is the foundation of what I said about the so-called gender reassignment surgery in my second post.
Whether we like it or not, 'gender reassignment surgery' is one of several terms used these days for surgically transforming the physical attributes of people. Some surgeons may insist on counselling to deal with the mental/emotional side of the surgery. That doesn't change things. 'Gender reassignment surgery' is what the tabloids used to call 'the sex-change op'.
 

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I haven't been following this thread, but I agree that abaka's distinction is often made. But not consistently.
Coincidentally, I was watching a documentary last night about the South African athlete Caster Semenya, a hermaphrodyte*, who is indisputably female gendered (by culture), but is apparently not quite adequately of the female sex. She has been given approval to run in the women's 800 meters at London Olympics.

In relation to language, all of the tests she's had have been called "gender tests", not "sex tests".

* WARNING: Medical Details: She has overtly female external genitalia, undescended testicles, and no uterus or ovaries. They have not revealed her chromosome profile, as far as I can find.

PS: Whether we like it or not, both 'gender' and 'sex' have more than one meaning; and in one instance, they mean the same thing.
 

5jj

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WARNING. I may be going off-topic here.

There are so many different issues here that it seems to me that that we are unlikely to reach full agreement. For those (probably very few) people who might be interested, I note below two of those issues that I can think of.

* Until fairly recent times (c 1960?) most people (lacking doctors' knowledge/experience) assumed that we were all born clearly either male or female.
* Until fairly recent times (c 1960?) many people seemed to feel that any/all of the following were signs of insanity/criminal perversion/ungodly lust/etc:

.....A desire to dress/behave as a member of the 'opposite sex'.
.....A desire to be treated as a member of the 'opposite sex'.
.....A desire to be surgically/chemically altered to become a member of the 'opposite sex'.
.....Any sympathy with, or understanding of, people who felt one of these desires.

I think, and it's only a personal feeling, that some of those behind the the move from 'sex' to 'gender' as a sign of whether we had dangly bits or an opening was intended to suggest that the presence (or absence) of these physical features did not necessarily suggest our desire (or lack of it) for 'sex' (= coitus). Unfortunately, they chose the word 'gender', a word that linguists had used for noun classes. To add to the confusion, it seems, according to abaka, that some people use 'gender' in a differnt sense.

At present there seems to be no clear answer to questions about the usage of these words.. My advice, for what little it's worth, is:

# Do not use 'sex' to refer to the male/female difference. Use 'gender'.
# Accept that 'gender' is now OK for the male/femal difference.
# Continue to use 'gender' for classes of nouns.
 
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