I was born in the USA in the mid 1950s, and was very aware of the struggle for women's rights as well as American English language customs in everyday usage, in the press and in more academic contexts from the mid 1960s on. I worked as a journalist and editor in mainstream media in the 1970s, 80s and 90s; published widely in a diverse outlets (women's mags, The Nation, The NYTimes, LA Times); wrote books for major publishers; appeared on TV to talk about sexual politics... The only time in the 60s, 70s and 80s I heard the word "gender" used was when I studied foreign languages.

I have pored through all the journalistic and literary style books (AP, Newsweek, NY Times) I have from the 70s and 80s, all the major second-wave feminist texts , all my own writings and the writings of colleagues & journalists I admired from back then... and nowhere is gender mentioned. Sex is the term everyone used, and all the style guides said to use.

Same goes for my family's vital records: I have birth certificates, death certificates, and extensive health and insurance records for my family going back to the dawn of the 20th century, more than 120 years. All these records say SEX, M or F. None says gender anywhere. There is no difference between the vital documents for a great aunt who died in 1928, my mother who died in 1980 or my sister who died in 1998: their birth certificates and death certificates - issued by different US municipalities or states - all say SEX: F.

To my knowledge, the replacement of sex with gender began in the late 1980s. This exchange of letters from the NYTimes in late 1990, early 1991 sums it up:

Letter from Sidney Weinstein, December 10, 1990:

To the Editor:

The term "gender" is increasingly misused as a substitute for "sex." Does "gender" appear to reflect a greater sophistication, or reluctance to use a term with a possible indecent connotation?

"The Gender Gulf" by Louis Harris (Op-Ed, Dec. 7) misuses the term three times (not counting the headline), including this: "the generation gap is less evident and the gender gap more acute." Among the same day's letters, one ("Sexism on Sesame St.") misuses gender five times including "gender imbalance."

"The Careful Writer: A Modern Guide to English Usage" by Theodore M. Bernstein (New York, 1965) states, "gender is a grammatical term, denoting (in English) whether words pertaining to a noun or pronoun are classed as masculine, feminine or neuter. It is not a substitute for 'sex' (but then, what is?). Indeed, in some foreign languages 'gender' often disregards sex. In German, for example, 'Weib,' The word for woman, is neuter; in French 'plume,' the word for pen, a sexless article, is feminine. To use 'gender' as if it were synonymous with 'sex' is an error, and a particularly unpardonable one in scientific writing."

From Fowler's "Modern English Usage" edited by Sir Ernest Gowers (Oxford, second edition, 1965):"Gender, n., is a grammatical term only. To talk of 'persons' or 'creatures of the masculine or feminine gender,' meaning 'of the male or female sex,' is either a jocularity (permissible or not according to context) or a blunder."

I can only assume you have elected to permit this misuse, despite a valid and useful distinction between the terms. SIDNEY WEINSTEIN Danbury, Conn., Dec. 10, 1990 The writer is editor in chief, International Journal of Neuroscience.

Letter from Sol Steinmetz, December 28, 1990:

To the Editor:

Contrary to Sidney Weinstein's assertion in " 'Gender' Can't Replace 'Sex' (but What Can?)" (letter, Dec. 27), the use of the word "gender" to mean an individual's sex is well established in English and recognized by current dictionaries as standard. The term "gender gap," which Mr. Weinstein deplores in Louis Harris's Dec. 7 Op-Ed article, is itself firmly established; and it is clearer to speak of a "gender imbalance" than of a "sex imbalance," which could be taken for a hormonal disorder.

The two usage guides Mr. Weinstein cites are 25 and 65 years old (the quotation from Fowler is from the first edition, 1926) and have been superseded by guides that have kept pace. Mr. Weinstein might have checked the revised Oxford English Dictionary (second edition, 1989). It shows that "gender" has been used as a synonym for "sex" since the 1300's (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote in 1709: "Of the fair sex . . . my only consolation for being of that gender") and that a use that stresses the social and cultural over the biological differences between the sexes has steadily grown since about 1960.

An O.E.D. citation highlighting current usage is from A. Oakley's "Sex, Gender and Society" (1972): "Sex differences may be 'natural,' but gender differences have their sources in culture."

SOL STEINMETZ Executive Editor Random House Dictionaries New York, Dec. 28, 1990

Perhaps I was asleep then, or I have amnesia now, but I do not recall that in the 1960s, 70s and most of the 80s "gender" was widely used as a substitute for "sex." And none of the books and catalogued periodicals in my library support this claim.