I am not a native English speaker and I have sometimes referred to people as male and female (as that is what I have been taught) but I have received some backlash in some cases, especially for the word “female”, is there some negative thought in the word which I am unaware of?
I don’t know if this is the best place to ask, if it’s not appropriate I have no problem to delete it ^^
I understand your pain. My home language doesn’t even have separate words for woman and female, or male and man.
How do you refer to a female animal?
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What language, if you don’t mind me asking? I’m interested in linguistics and this seems like an interesting tangent.
not OP but in Polish there is no word for boyfriend or girlfriend, you just say boy or girl which is kinda funny. however because Polish has grammatical gender, you can say boy friend/girl friend and even enby friend, thanks to neoforms! (przyjaciel, przyjaciółka, przyjacioło)
though note that partner is also gendered (partner, partnerka, partnerze)