> No, they aren't. They are distinct axes of variation, but not opposed. I'm only talking about the usage of "gender." This an empirical linguistic question. S

> No, they aren't. They are distinct axes of variation, but not opposed. I'm only talking about the usage of "gender." This an empirical linguistic question. Some people literally mean sex, others literally mean everything but. As a native English speaker, I see both frequently. Hop on Twitter and you can see both within 30 seconds. This doesn't preclude additional usages among laymen and academic disciplines. In the sense that nature is the opposite of nurture, "gender" used in the "everything but" way is completely at odds with sex. Likewise when a male identifies their gender as "female" or as a "woman," we get a different understanding of their gender depending on the meaning of "gender" used. At best we might say that male isn't quite the opposite of female, but in terms of reproduction, those are the exclusive roles. I feel satisfied enough to call these meanings opposites, and "gender" looks similar enough to other auto-antonyms. We have two very different evaluations of "gender" that can shift the meaning of an entire sentence to mean the opposite thing.