People Who Don't Know the Difference - What should we, as a society, do with them?

hmmm… 'tis true. You learn something new everyday.

Dude, get a dictionary. There’s no such thing as a “male gender”. It seems you’re one of the people to which the OP refers.

As a sociologist (who teaches courses on gender), I have a big “meh” reaction to this. As far as I can tell, the relationship between biology (sex) and culture (gender) is pretty damn murky. Distinguishing between sex and gender is a useful pedagogical tool, but in practice, it’s next to impossible to cleanly separate them. Biology and culture interact with one another to create both sex and gender.

I don’t mean that you have to separate them. I mean that there has to be two words to describe them. If you call both biological and sociological terms “gender”, it’s impossible to have a clear conversation. One guy could say “these people reject their gender” and you could have some asking “So they want sex changes?” and some asking “so they cross-dress?” It’s hard to tell exactly what the guy is saying.

And how exactly does culture influence sex?

Sex is determined by what’s between your legs, gender is determined by what’s between your ears.

Sex can also be short for “sexual intercourse” and gender can also be an attribute words have, even though words don’t have sex. In either sense.

No, you’re right, I meant to say man and woman, not male and female. But my main point was that masculine and feminine are not genders.

If one is talking about grammar, they certainly are.

Since when?

According to M-W, gender is synonymous with sex

Main Entry: 1gen·der
Pronunciation: \ˈjen-dər
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English gendre, from Anglo-French genre, gendre, from Latin gener-, genus birth, race, kind, gender — more at kin
Date: 14th century

1 a : a subclass within a grammatical class (as noun, pronoun, adjective, or verb) of a language that is partly arbitrary but also partly based on distinguishable characteristics (as shape, social rank, manner of existence, or sex) and that determines agreement with and selection of other words or grammatical forms b : membership of a word or a grammatical form in such a subclass c : an inflectional form showing membership in such a subclass
2 a : sex <the feminine gender> b : the behavioral, cultural, or psychological traits typically associated with one sex