Thread:User talk:Rua/gender and sex

Please notice that there is a difference between grammatical gender or simply gender and natural gender, biological gender or sex.

A word can have masculine, feminine or neuter gender (e.g. Mensch m., Person f., Kind n.) and still can refer to beings of either sex. A word can also have a gender and refer to a sexless thing (e.g. Löffel m., Gabel f., Messer n.).

Words suffixed with -er m. and -in f. have a grammatical gender, but do not even necessarily denote things with a natural gender. Both can refer to organisations, companies, governments without a natural gender, for example Anklägerin f. refering to a sexless Regierung f., Sammlerin refering to a sexless Gesellschaft f., Hersteller & Herstellerin refering to sexless companies. Additionally, terms in -er m. can also refer to male and female creatures regardless of sex and even to female creatures all alone, as in the case of Ankläger. While Ankläger & Anklägerin, Hersteller & Herstellerin, Sammler & Sammlerin do not necessarily differ depending on the natural gender of the referent, they both obviously have a different gender and that's why they are f= and m= of each other. --Majbef (talk) 20:53, 3 May 2019 (UTC)