Which way?

This morning I met P, a friend I hadn't seen for a long time and, among many other things, we shared our concern at how the words 'sex' and 'gender', so painfully and painstakingly separated by our generation of feminists, have been conflated again.

This evening I watched Petite Fille, a BBC4 Storyville documentary about a young French child, identified male at birth, who wants to be a girl. Over 90 minutes, the key issues are clothing and pronouns. There is almost no reference at all to sex (i.e., from my perspective, biology). The IMDb blurb calls it a 'touching portrait of eight-year-old Sasha, who questions her gender and in doing so, evokes the sometimes disturbing reactions of a society that is still invested in a biological boy-girl way of thinking.'

Biological? Gendered?

If the French language weren't so gendered (and the English language isn't much better), if everyone could dress as they wanted, would Sasha feel OK in their body?

I am very well aware that by even asking such a question I risk being cancelled by several camps. The warfare between those with the least power is vicious. As P wisely asked, who is benefitting from all this internecine strife?

I never thought I would ever want to give up on gender politics but I do. Is that their intention?

Edit: I do believe in dysphoria, and I believe that those who feel that they are born into the wrong body need to be listened to and need support in becoming who they are. But I also believe that in confusing sex and gender we are making those realisations very much harder.