CDC gets list of forbidden words

Banning "fetus" and "transgender" is completely indefensible as they're fairly neutral words with no obvious replacement. But for the rest, imagine that rather than a ban this was a style guide recommending against certain words. The common theme in the rest of them is that they don't convey much useful information but have a strong emotional charge.

You don't need to say something is evidence-based, just show the evidence. Coming right out and saying your position is evidence-based just sounds like a way to shut down any objections, even reasoned discussion, by casting the other side as being against science, evidence, or facts in general. This is similar for science-based, vulnerable, and diversity. If you're seen as being "anti-diversity" your argument doesn't matter because you're a misogynistic racist xenophobe.

Entitlements is charged term because you've cemented your position on social welfare pretty clearly just by referring to them as entitlements. It's not quite as bad as Derry/Londonderry , but it's certainly not neutral.

I don't think any of these words should be banned, but I do think it would be reasonable for government agencies to use neutral language and fully explain their thoughts rather than using emotionally charged buzzwords.

No, "evidence-based medicine" is a term of art. Maybe you could argue that it took too generic of a name, but that's the word we have. From Wikipedia:

"Although all medicine based on science has some degree of empirical support, EBM goes further, classifying evidence by its epistemologic strength and requiring that only the strongest types (coming from meta-analyses, systematic reviews, and randomized controlled trials) can yield strong recommendations; weaker types (such as from case-control studies) can yield only weak recommendations."

There's always "transexual", the older word for exactly the same concept.

Frankly, I'd love to know what is the best defense technique for the scenario I outlined. Any ideas?

The reason to ban them from using the word is because you do not like what they say when they do talk about it.

I think you're too absolute there. Certainly many people can talk about mental illness and the mentally ill without hateful intent.

In the 1970s, certain non-scientific branches of academia invented an entirely new concept and attached the label "gender" to it. The concept was that the way one presents themselves in society is "gender". This historically has never been the meaning of gender. The public at large continued to use gender in the original meaning (as you will see with official forms asking for 'gender'. If they asked for 'sex', people would add a box with "yes please" on it and tick it).

In the 2010s this new meaning of gender leaked out of academic circles and into the general vernacular. But it is a concept that is entirely the invention of left-leaning academics, cross citing each other repeatedly in echo chamber journals.

You say there is "great variety in both", but this is not true. There is great variety in "gender as a social construct", that is, the cosmetic way people dress, do their hair etc. But there is not great variety in "sex and I don't mean fucking". Disorders of sex development (DSDs) are extremely rare and do not constitute a new sex and are recognised medically as disorders. For example, XXYY occurs in 1 in 18,000 to 40,000 male births. XXXXY occurs in 1 in 85,000 to 100,000 male births. Compare that to the "normal" male sex characteristics, or the "normal" female sex characteristics, that each occur in about 1 in 2 births.

People erroneously make the claim that other conditions, like triple X syndrome, constitute a DSD (occurs in 1 in 1000 females), but because it causes no health issues or abnormal development it is not considered a DSD by the medical community. The DSD Guideline documents [http://www.dsdguidelines.org] are a trustworthy source of information and definitions.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender#Etymology_and_usage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_gender

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=gender%2Csex&c...

This may already be a lost battle, but "entitlement" is a policy term of art with absolutely no negative connotations. It simply refers to any government benefit that a person or entity is guaranteed to receive if they meet a certain set of criteria (i.e. falling under a certain income, under or over a particular age, being a citizen, etc.). This is as opposed to grant programs (limited benefits dispensed according to an assessment of merit), lotteries (limited benefits distributed at random), first-come-first-serve, etc.

"The "male-or-female sex" sense is attested in English from early 15c."

So 15th century, not 17th.

"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. Gender-bender is from 1977, popularized from 1980, with reference to pop star David Bowie."

And from your own wikipedia links (which I'm assuming didn't fully read)

"In the last two decades of the 20th century, the use of gender in academia has increased greatly, outnumbering uses of sex in the social sciences. While the spread of the word in science publications can be attributed to the influence of feminism, its use as a synonym for sex is attributed to the failure to grasp the distinction made in feminist theory, and the distinction has sometimes become blurred with the theory itself; David Haig stated, "Among the reasons that working scientists have given me for choosing gender rather than sex in biological contexts are desires to signal sympathy with feminist goals, to use a more academic term, or to avoid the connotation of copulation."[2]"

Which is exactly what I said.

While I agree that some scientists are in a kind of echo-chamber, casually accusing everyone who does research involving gender (the social aspect) as politically motivated is uncalled for.

Actually, “gender” historically referred to a feature of grammar, gender for an ascribed social role in the modern sense (sometimes disambiguated as “ascribed gender”) dates from 1955 by John Money. “Gender identity”, which refers to self-perceived association with a gender role dates from the 1960s; both took off in the 1970s. (And I know from personal experience were in wide use when I was a teenager in the 1980s; they certainly didn't enter the popular lexicon in the 2010s.)

“Gender” being applied to humans or other animals in a way equivalent to “sex” actually became popular in modern use later (though it originated earlier), in the 1980s (driven largely by various organizations becoming squeamish about using the word “sex” and seeking an alternative.)

> But there is not great variety in "sex and I don't mean fucking"

Yes, there is; there are lots of biological sex traits, and while there are two modal clusters, there's considerable variation lying outside of them.

Yes, there's a fairly small number of possible configurations of sex chromosomes, but there are sex-related genetic differences at lower levels than whether a chromosome is an X or Y and how many of each are present, and moreover genetics in any case are causal or contributory factors to traits (sex or otherwise), but not themselves the only biological traits of interest (or even usually traits of particular interest except insofar as their contribution to phenotype.)

(And there appears to be a link between the complexity of biological sex and gender identity, because there's research showing that there are particular ways where transgender individuals tend to be more likely to fall outside the two main clusters of how biological sex traits align.)

That would make some sense for documents reporting research results, but this is for budget proposal documents.

That's not referring to its use in academia, that's its use in the general population, which was "at first regarded as colloquial or humorous".

You can also take a look at the Google N-Gram viewer link I posted, which quantifies its use within general publications. Before the 1960s, it barely appeared, and then its use shot up to rival "sex".