As New Zealand
“Sex” or “Gender”? This prophetic question was raised in the
1993 Human Rights Bill campaign
On 16th February 1993, in Radio New Zealand ’s Morning Comment, Peter Berry, a Hastings Patent Attorney, discussed the use of the word “gender” instead of “sex” in the 1993 Human Rights Bill. The following is an extract from that item.
He began by remarking how much the word “gender” was used those days instead of the word “sex”. He then pointed out that the (then) current Human Rights Bill would prohibit discrimination on the grounds of gender, “but it is not defined”.
“Do ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ mean the same? Well, in short, they don’t. ‘Sex’ is a biological term; ‘gender’ a grammatical term.
“There are two sexes : male and female, and at least three genders : masculine, feminine and neuter. Some grammars add a couple more : common and epicene (having the characteristics of both sexes). If ‘gender’ is to be used to mean ‘biological sex’, how many sexes are we to have?
“The Golden Rule of the legal draughtsman is said to be ‘Never change your language unless you wish to change your meaning’. And the English writer Belloc observed : ‘When people start changing words they want to change ideas.
“Does the change of words from ‘sex’ to ‘gender’ reflect a change of ideas about what sex is?
“Are the biological categories of male and female to be enlarged to include the homosexual, the transsexual, and possibly the paedophilic?
“If so, let’s have it out in the open now, so that the public are aware of what is proposed.” (End of quote)
Surely this has immeasurable relevance for today's debate on the homosexual "marriage" issue?
