(no subject)

[desh]

I'm realizing that I have no idea which of my friends actually wear makeup. I tend to assume that none ever do, or perhaps a few do for special occasions only. But I could be way off base.

[Poll #1481188]

Comments

[msschein.livejournal.com]

I was looking for something between "Never" (which implies an ideological stance) and "Less than once a week" (which implies, to me, more often than the once or twice a year I consider a special enough occasion to bother).

Also, is there a gender identity sensitivity reason to say girl/women rather than female and boy/guy/man rather than male? I'm not as aware of these issues as I should be.

[desh]

My understanding is that "female", etc, refer to genetalia, or some other biological characteristic(s) (i.e. "sex", if you're into the sex/gender distinction); and those other terms refer to "gender", i.e. how someone socially presents themself.

[kezinge.livejournal.com]

I appreciate this explanation, but I don't think I agree. I would use "male" and "female" to refer to either sex or gender. When I want to clarify what I mean by a male-to-female transgendered person, for example, I might say "someone who is sexed male and gendered female." Which is to say that I think "identify as male" is clearly about gender and not sex, and means almost the same thing as "identify as a boy/guy/man" (but not quite, because if I recall correctly there are lesbian subcultures that have female boys, and I have at least one vaguely genderqueer female friend who refers to herself as a guy).