Home › Criticism › Sex versus gender

Sex versus gender: an ideologically productive distinction

The distinction between "sex" and "gender" is not an innocent analytical improvement, but a twentieth-century invention that has led step by step to the erasure of the category of woman. First, gender became a freely fillable layer above sex — then sex itself was also declared a "spectrum."

Origin: Money and Stoller, not the feminists

The sex/gender distinction does not originate from feminist literature, but from sexology and child psychiatry. John Money introduced the concept of "gender role" in 1955 so that intersex children could be raised socially as a boy or a girl. In Sex and Gender (1968) Robert Stoller formalised the distinction between physical sex and inner "gender identity". Only later did Ann Oakley (1972) adopt it for a feminist purpose: to show that female roles are socially constructed — see social constructionism . The feminist adoption was strategic, but the concept itself was from the beginning an instrument for medical intervention in children.

The linear blur

The steps are historically traceable:

1. 1968: Stoller distinguishes between sex (body) and gender (psyche).
2. 1972: Oakley uses the feminist distinction: gender is a social role.
3. 1990: Judith Butler turns gender into a performative act — no longer a role, but a continuous construction.
4. 2000s: Gender is re-ontologized into "inner identity" — see what is gender identity .
5. 2010s: "Sex assigned at birth" also makes sex a social act.
6. 2020s: "Trans women are women" — biological womanhood as a category disappears.

Each step seemed limited; cumulatively, the category of woman has been dismantled. See the broader feminist critique of this development.

The incompatible double claim

Contemporary activists simultaneously defend two incompatible claims. On the one hand: "gender is social" (explains why roles are not biology). On the other hand: "gender is who you really are" (explains why a trans woman is truly a woman). The first claim excludes the second — if gender is social, a gender identity is a social role, not an essence . This inconsistency remains undiscussed because it is ideologically useful: both claims are used depending on the political moment.

Sex itself under pressure

As soon as "gender" was declared an inner essence, sex also came under pressure. The phrase "sex assigned at birth" turns observation into attribution. Attempts to explain sex as a spectrum (Fausto-Sterling 1993) were disputed by, among others, Leonard Sax (2002), who arrives at 0.018 per cent intersex births under a strict definition (source) — see biological sex and chromosomes and gametes. The result: in legal texts and medical records, "gender" is used where "sex" is meant, and vice versa.

The practical consequences

In several countries the registered sex can now be changed on the basis of a declaration, for example in Germany since 1 November 2024 (Selbstbestimmungsgesetz) (source). For research that has to record biological sex (for example drug effects or cervical cancer screening), this can mean that data are recorded by gender identity instead of sex. The UK Supreme Court ruled unanimously on 16 April 2025 (For Women Scotland v The Scottish Ministers) that "man", "woman" and "sex" in the Equality Act 2010 refer to biological sex (source).

Why the concept of "gender identity" is suspect afterwards

When gender can exist without sex, and is defined without a measurable marker — view no measurable marker and self-reporting as a source — the entire construct comes down to a metaphysical claim : an immaterial essence that has nothing more to do with the body. That is not science, but faith.