[MichaelRDanger]

Up until recently “gender” was the assignment of a sex to an inanimate object for grammatical purposes: i.e. a ship is a she. Radical feminists are changing our language to advance their anti-science agenda.

[exDemMom]

The "male-or-female sex" sense is attested in English from early 15c. As sex (n.) took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be the usual English word for "sex of a human being," in which use it was at first regarded as colloquial or humorous. Later often in feminist writing with reference to social attributes as much as biological qualities; this sense first attested 1963.
Online Etymology Dictionary.

I prefer the word "gender" since it is a way to refer to a biological classification without referring to the sexual act. From the quote above, apparently feminists have tried to remove gender from its biological significance. Which is ludicrous; who you are is directly rooted in biology.