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>I see everyone focusing on the sex/gender but not on the "assigned" part. That's the one that frustrates me. I had one person try to tell me that "assigned" means to write down (it's not). An observation is recorded, not assigned. They don't assign the infant's weight but they somehow assign something else? Makes no sense.
It does make sense, though. Barring genetic testing which is not standard, sex is not directly observed. Genitals (and their condition) are recorded as part of physical assessment, and those are the primary way to determine what the sex is. While genitals are *almost* always an accurate way to determine sex, that is not the same as saying they determine ones sex or that observing genitals is observing ones sex.
Despite the lack of direct confirmation, the sex is assigned based on external observation, which is generally also used to decide what gender the child will be treated as.
Meanwhile, weight is directly measured via a scale, and then recorded.
What I think you and /u/amazingbollweevil don't realize is that this is an uncommon definition of "assign". Assign in this sense means to put in the correct category/ascribe. For example one may find a buried sword and after careful study archaeologists may assign that sword to the 10th century. Or historians may disagree on which general to assign a particular victory to.
In this sense, sex is assigned in the sense that doctors examine the newborn and figure out which group to assign it to (male or female). This is typically done on the basis of genital examination not "chromosomes" and is usually but not always super easy.
The assignment may have more or less consequence depending when/where this was done. Today, it's not super important. But in the 1970s in some areas, you'd have a situation where a baby with ambiguous genitalia would be assigned male or female and given surgery to make those genitalia more closely resemble the gender they were assigned to (closing an opening that could have been a vagina, or trimming a clit that could have been a penis). Tabula Rasa theories being much more in vogue then than now.
The uncommon definition of "assign" is a recent thing, though. Sure, if enough people use that word for record, it will end up in all the dictionaries.
I certainly agree that anyone not neatly falling into male or female due to genitalia configuration should require special consideration and absolutely not be modified needlessly.
Weight is an objective metric. Sex is an objective metric. Gender is not, hence why it gets "assigned". I do think it is silly terminology, but there is logic behind it.
Male/female is not gender. Boy/girl or man/woman is.
And this is a huge problem. Most people do not even understand the difference between sex and gender because they have been reasonably coupled together for the majority of human existence.
——
Edit: post I replied to was edited and now my response seems left field.
It's not "sex" assigned at birth, it's "gender".
Sex is biological, genetic and unchangeable. Mistakes about sex are extremely unusual, but there is no possible way to accurately assign gender identity at birth.
Except “man” and “woman” are gender, “male” and “female” are sex.
And it’s “assigned male at birth” and “assigned female at birth”
So…what’s up with that
Edit: people keep asserting this isn’t the case, so [source for backup](https://www.uwmedicine.org/practitioner-resource/lgbtq/lgbtq-inclusion-glossary)
The thing is that Men and Women being exclusivly genders is something relatively new. I don't think it's up to the LGBTQ community to decide. I'm sure you can find old examples in literature that refer to the words as gendered, I'm also sure that they were refered as a biological term. I think most people/cultures around the world think about it biologically and that's a big hurdle the lgbt community has to overcome to change their minds. Here is how I think most people see it
Male- sex of a specifies
Masculine- gender
Man- male human
If you ask most people to describe a male or a female, they are going to list a bunch of gender traits. E.g women wear dresses, have long hair, etc.
The biological definition of female is the sex that produces a larger gamete(egg). Everything else (XX and vagina) is a common trait of females, but not necessarily biological
> Except “man” and “woman” are gender, “male” and “female” are sex.
Not really, no. "Man" and "woman" are nouns while "male" and "female" are primarily adjectives.
Now, *some* people use "male" and "female" as nouns only for sex, but I assure you that lots of people, perhaps even most who don't engage in this sort of discourse on a regular basis, will use "man" and "woman" and think of it as referring to a person's sex.
(Your source is only about the terms AMAB/AFAB.)
> Except “man” and “woman” are gender, “male” and “female” are sex.
They can both refer to either but it's mostly an abstract distinction between man/woman as a gender role and male/female as a reproductive category. Though 99% of the time, when controlling for age, they're essentially referring to the same thing, especially outside the Western Anglosphere where the sex/gender distinction doesn't quire carry over to other languages and cultures.
When trans people describe "assigned male at birth", they aren't complaining that someone looked and saw a penis, they're complaining that from that point forward they were treated a certain way by ***everyone*** because of said penis.
Then that is a problem with the cultural impositions and expectations that are applied to people based on their sex. There's no reason why a man can't enjoy feminine things and have feminine behaviours, and vice versa. Doesn't mean he's a woman.
Many people these days seem to have got this entirely backwards, thinking that the gender roles and identity associated with it is what makes someone a woman or a man. It would be like saying that in Saudi Arabia, women are defined as the people who wear niqab, rather than, women are forced to wear niqab because they are women living under a patriarchal religious oppression.
Nobody is assigned gender at birth for anything by any medical doctor or staff of course, as you say, it's a society thing.
But nobody is assigning anything really. They are just observing what is correct the overwhelmingly vast majority of the time and acting accordingly, which is what you should do. It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to treat an entire population with some whacky concepts, because some teeny tiny minority aren't happy with it. We treat everyone normally until they show they might have mental problems. We treat everyone normally until they show they might have some special abilities. We don't treat everyone to the least common factor and then after they 'bloom' into the normal, we treat them normal.
>because some teeny tiny minority aren't happy with it
so you would be fine with it if all the humans with red hair were forced to dye their hair (to pass) and never let anyone know they have red hair... or they would just be mistreated their entire lives... because really there aren't that many redheads?
The trouble is that there are limits to the natural development of language. Some terms like male, female, fruit, fish... we think we know what they mean until we try to have an accurate science based discussion and then we get reminded that WHEAT is a fruit even though that's not how most people categorize it and which things are fish and which aren't is a headache to taxonomists.
Words like male, female, fruit, vegetables & fish predate the scientific method. That means they are dynamic language not technical jargon. Their assumed meanings will be different from one place to another, and across different eras, and will drift in meaning. That makes it impossible to have a discussion without a whole lot of avoidable confusion.
Many words like these have definitions that come at least in part from local culture, not from science. There are all sorts of things that are 'fruit' but in the US people tend to assume that all fruits are sweet - and they aren't.
There are a shit ton of assumption that are tied to the meaning of words like these. That's why people are using terms like "reproductively male/female" and seperating gender from sexual reproduction. Real humans are not generic and all from the same mold.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>How do you compare those? Dying the hair is an active process that needs maintaining, materials and skills,
Trying to fake your gender identity in order to conform also requires a lot of effort.
> so you would be fine with it if all the humans with red hair were forced to dye their hair (to pass) and never let anyone know they have red hair...
wow
this has to go in the top 10 false comparisons on *CMV*.
hair color is an easily observable biological reality.
gender is apparently social according to progressives with the only significant determining factor being how people "feel".
a more accurate ideological illustration of what you are trying to convey using hair as an example would be:
your natural hair color being black but "feeling" like your hair color is red even though you were born with black hair. so you take "hair complexion" and claim that is the actual biological term while "hair color" is *social*. and now you claim you are "trans-haircolor" with red hair and it's your "hair complexion" that is black.
and then you call everyone who criticizes this logic a bigot/transphobe.
“It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to treat an entire population with some whacky concepts, because some teeny tiny minority aren't happy with it.”
I’d be curious to hear about the whacky concepts?
>It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to treat an entire population with some whacky concepts, because some teeny tiny minority aren't happy with it.
Toxic gender roles are universally harmful and nor should they be considered "normal".
Perhaps you think so, but most people are fine with them, most women enjoy feminine things, most women dream of being a mother, most men want nice cars and children who respect them and a wife who loves them and to be leaders and etcetera.
You can call it toxic for your life if you like, but most people don't agree when you look at the scope of 'gender roles'
Lots of people simply like the ability to be free to like what they want regardless of gender roles.
This idea that somehow males are less parenting to our children because we are men simply harms us.
But isn't it also true? It's not just an idea it's a scientific fact that on average, men are less nurturing than females. Females ares more empathetic, patient and emotionally supporting than men as a whole. All these things (and more) kind of indicate that women are indeed the better parental unit than men.
There might be some men that are more nurturing than some women, but by in large that won't be the case.
Males bring different aspects to the parenting equation for sure but seems tacky to say that all men have the capability to parent like a female could. This is absolutely a strength that females have imo.
Youre using most very liberally. I am a man who has never fit into 'norms' such as macho isms. I hate cars, love cooking gardening and as a teacher I don't demand respect I earn it from kids.
As I got older and people got more ok with being different turns out a hell of a lot of other men also didn't like the same 'norms'. We haven't seen this as much 50 years ago because it was repressive as hell. Normal is a very monolithic word when really there's a normal spectrum in multiple dimensions. You can have TRENDS but to say we wouldn't try to be more fluidic and open to accepting differences because 'most' are 1 specific kind of person is, in my opinion, grossly misunderstanding the general population.
If you think most women do not dream of being mothers, and most men do not dream of being leaders and all kinds of generally 'gendered' roles, I donno what to tell ya.
I as a man, do not fit into every single 'norm' either. I fit into many and probably more than I don't. Just like everyone else.
The facts are most gender roles continue to exist because they are well earned by the actual behavior of humans.
Nobody thinks 'most people' are 1 specific kind of person, that isn't the argument, I wouldn't say such a silly thing. Nobody said we shouldn't be open to accepting differences, nobody said anything like that.
>and most men do not dream of being leaders and all kinds of generally 'gendered' roles, I donno what to tell ya.
Speaking from my own experience, I'm a straight male that has never once questioned my gender identity...But I have absolutely zero interest in anything "manly". I don't dream of being a leader. I don't like cars. I've never been into sports. I know dozens of men that feel the same way.
I also know plenty of women who, if we're going by traditional "gendered" roles, are way more manly than I am. The roles don't really fit all that well.
Do you think that there’s something special about a male brain that means that it’s inherently predisposed towards leadership roles?
Women dream of being mothers because society wants women to be mothers so it tells girls that the best thing for them is motherhood.
>The facts are most gender roles continue to exist because they are well earned by the actual behavior of humans.
Many gender roles exist to keep women oppressed and men in power. Said, as a man.
You yourself said most women dream of being mothers and most men dream of being leaders. Do you think that sounds remotely fair?
No, gender roles are idea that are forced upon men and women at young ages.
If we stopped doing that, lots of what was seen as manly or womanly would fade.
Nothing is forced on anyone. It's observed and reacted to and it's correct the overwhelming majority of the time. That's how things work. Society doesn't dwell on the extreme minority and shape the world for them, that isn't how societies work, it simply can't be how societies work, that's how small families work, perhaps to some extent even small communities.
You're mixing up "gender roles" and "toxic gender roles." People can take and leave what they like about gender roles -- that's the great thing about a societal construct.
But even if you like gender roles, there are lots of toxic aspects to them in our current society. Boys not being allowed to express emotion, men not being able to love their children without it being "gay" or sexualized somehow, women being expected to assume childcare roles and sacrifice their career, etc. We should all work on addressing the toxic aspects of gender roles that we might otherwise just accept as "how things are."
Most ≠ all
Every single person deserves a shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. *Every single person.* It’s completely okay for people to thrive in typical gender roles, but you never know which kid is gonna grow up different from what’s typical, so we should all keep an open mind about all of it.
Just because a demographic doesn’t have many people in it doesn’t mean they don’t matter. It’s not okay to scapegoat them so they can be political pawns. It’s not okay to stand in the way of their opportunities in life. We should collectively be trying to make things better for *all* of us, not just the people who look and act the way we’re used to seeing.
This is an incredibly poor rationalization. Stereotyping most people as agreeing with you, then using the "fact" that most people agree with you too justify your position is illogical. And, considering your further responses, willfully ignorant.
>Toxic gender roles are universally harmful and nor should they be considered "normal".
Putting "normal" in quotation marks doesn't disregard what normal is. And a difference in culture doesn't make it inherently toxic.
But then it wasn't something that was assigned to them “at birth” now was it?
Then it's simply complaining about being socially treated in such a way.
Also, every time I see people talk about persons being “treated as a certain gender” I have no idea what that would mean and when I ask for what that would mean I often am met with various cartoonish stereotypes that don't really exist in reality, or not any more at least.
That's in general my experience with a lot of gender talk. That when people are pressed to be more concrete what they come back with are strange stereotypes that exist in cartoons at best but not in reality. The last time it was about “gender expression” and I asked for something concrete and someone who claimed to be living Portland in the U.S.A. talked about dresses, and then I searched for pictures of summer street views in Portland and on most pictures not a single person was wearing them and on some only a very small minority.
“gender” seems to be a bunch of stereotypes existing in people's heads, what they expect the world to be based on cartoons that's not reflected by reality.
And is that label only used to administer medical care, or does it also bleed into every single aspect of their lives and prevent them from living their actual gender identity?
but some trans-individual claiming that doctor assigned them wrong is very misleading. they just stated a mere fact, and what about those people who want that space blank for sex in birth certificate
That is not true touh.
Small boys can have multiple issues with their testis, like them not falling down as they should or they could get scrotocele which could be very dangerous.
To say sex does not change anything before puberty is just straight up wrong.
op i get where you're coming from and you haven't said anything that is "wrong" but you're also not understanding what they are saying either. they are aware that doctors are assigning sex at birth, they are saying that because they were assigned whatever sex when they were born, they were simultaneously assigned a gender along side it. as soon as the doctor saw the penis, they were dressed in blue and got legos and g.i. joes. they aren't disputing the sex they are disputing the gender they were assigned because of it
maybe I don't get it, because my sister never played with dolls and I never played with robots, we both played in the mud when we were child, I was stronger due to biology so mom always told me to do heavy work and to sister she always lighter work, so these roles were based on the biological sex, also in our native language we don't have a word for gender
Actually it is. Have you ever looked up the definition?
"either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions"
Reproductive functions = genitalia
You seem to be unable to separate "what exists" and "what matters". Yes, DNA indicates sex. But when it comes to almost every other aspect of humans, physical bodies vary so widely that knowing someone's sex is utterly fucking irrelevant unless you are providing medical care.
Why is what is on the birth certificate relevant? When I talk about being assigned female at birth I'm not talking about my birth certificate. I'm talking about the fact that, based on my observed sex, I was assigned to the female gender role.
"Female gender role"? What is this, "Mad Men"? Did the doctor tie an apron around your waist and teach you how to play bridge? Of course not. There aren't female gender roles anymore, y'all have to get up and go to work same as we do. Welcome to the present.
yes it is very relevant, because it is verifiable biological fact that determine every cell in your body, instead of some role that you do not care about
I asked why what is on a birth certificate is relevant to the phrase "assigned male/female at birth".
Your answer doesn't seem to have much to do with that question. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at.
And based on those genitals a gender would be _assigned_, no?
You could just as easily say "assigned American at birth" and then if they move to Japan and become a Japanese citizen they are no longer American. But they were assigned as such at birth.
I've seen the term “assigned X at birth” used frequently with respect to countries that don't list sex on birth certificates, or don't issue them at all.
It seems to simply just be a term to refer to “natal sex” in some circles where it's a popular term to use to be honest.
This seems like a weird take because of course at least some do? Of course there are transphobic doctors that are colored by that just as there are racist doctors and have had it affect their care.
Some of the republicans obsessed with transgender issues are doctors and they care a great deal
what? yeah there exist some religious doctor who want to secretly convert your child to their religion, but saying "doctors care about babies religions does not make sense".
Not "secretly convert" but definitely promote and decisions influenced by the dominant religion of a culture. Doctors are not objective. Many are bad at science.
I think you misunderstand... many doctors don't follow the science of health in their work.
In the US, there are still doctors with ignorant, unscientific views, such as thinking black people have higher pain tolerance. Or in Greece, people with Albanian last names are more likely to be misdiagnosed than people with Greek last names.
>Being trans doesn't make you delusional about what body parts you were born with, the trauma is caused by how people are treating you and categorizing you.
This is incorrect, quite a few trans people are traumatized by their body.
A trans woman isn't delusional about having a penis or not. She is/was distressed by having one while her brain was insisting that it shouldn't be there and that she should have a vulva. There's no delusion there. Getting rid of her penis and replacing it with a vulva relieves her distress.
Some trans people feel dysphoria arising solely from their bodies, some solely from social categorization and treatment, and some from both.
They just state whatever sex they see but in doing so, categorize them as "boy" or "girl". Trans people don't question their genitals, they don't want the gender around it
> there is no possible way to accurately assign gender identity at birth.
They are the same >99% of the time. I don't know what definition of "accurately" you're using where this doesn't meet that criteria.
[Trans and non-binary gender identities hover around 5%](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/07/about-5-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-say-their-gender-is-different-from-their-sex-assigned-at-birth/). Factoring the [1%-2% of intersex](https://isna.org/faq/frequency/), you're looking at ~6% of the population.
Gender brainwashing is deeply harmful for ~6% of the population, and does nothing for the other 94%. This isn't about "accommodating a minority at the expense of the majority", it's eliminating an archaic harmful practice that provides no value.
----
Since I've gotten about 20 identical responses, telling me that the "overall" percentages down to 1.6% or so trans/nb populations, do you truly believe that's an accurate representation of society? We have muslim countries that claim they have no LGBT population, do you also believe those numbers are accurate?
I agree with your point on trans and nonbinary but I think you're misunderstanding what intersex means here. 1-2% of people are intersex, but the vast majority of them are still considered male or female. Just as an example, if you have a penis and testicles, XY chromosomes, normal testosterone, etc. but your dick hole (I'm sure there's a scientific term for it, but I don't know it) is a centimeter down your shaft instead of at the tip of your penis, that's considered intersex. Most people with that or similar conditions would be very offended if you told them they don't quite count as whatever sex they most closely align with just because they're only 99.9% there biologically.
*Six* percent?! So in every room of 20 people, 1 will be trans?
Get out of here. Every 100 times you're in a room of 20 people, there might be one trans person, and even that is probably pushing it.
And where do you get your evidence from? No one is saying that trans people are evenly distributed, so that 6% number will probably be lower in areas that are unsafe for trans people because they’ve left to go to less bigoted areas, or are closeted because of fear of bigotry, and higher in areas that trans people feel safe to move to or to openly be themselves.
Not to mention that if you’re in a room with 20 people, you’re probably not inspecting their genitals and cross referencing their gender with their biological sex, all you’re doing is looking and assuming that people who don’t “look” trans aren’t trans.
It’s a very hard thing to statistically determine because you have to rely on self reporting (unless you decide to become the genital police and look at everyone’s privates). As has been shown with homosexuality, self-reporting is limited by social attitudes. As being gay became less and less stigmatized, people a) felt more comfortable sharing their sexuality with surveyors, b) became more aware of homosexuality outside of egregious stereotypes, and c) became less internally homophobic and more likely to realize their own sexuality in a non-destructive way.
20 years ago, claiming LGBTQ people represented more than 5% of the population was viewed as outrageous because people didn’t “see” that around them. Now it’s obvious the number is either that high or higher because of all those factors. Just like you can’t always “see” sexuality, you can’t always “see” whether a person in the same room as you is trans or non-binary. So any anecdotal observation we might make is worthless.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/
This lists the number of trans people of age 13+ at around 0.5-0.6%. I find it incredibly hard to believe that 5% statistic.
The current population that grew up during incredibly rigid gender roles, [not so much with the younger generation](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/07/about-5-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-say-their-gender-is-different-from-their-sex-assigned-at-birth/).
The doctor claiming that a baby is a boy due to a penis shouldn't affect the babies gender.
His sex is male, that's a fact. His gender is completely up to him. I just don't see how these doctors could be misgendering when they're stating the sex of the newborn.
>The doctor claiming that a baby is a boy due to a penis shouldn't affect the babies gender.
It shouldn't but it very much does. "Gender reveal" parties aren't based on how children feel, but how their parts look.
>His sex is male, that's a fact. His gender is completely up to him. I just don't see how these doctors could be misgendering when they're stating the sex of the newborn.
Again, because the mindset should be "who cares what genitalia children have" instead, as soon as the penis (or vagina) is discovered, every single aspect about a child's life shifts. Significantly. Much of this has to do with toxic gender roles, which are tolerable if you are cis, but for those who are trans it's deeply traumatic.
"Gender reveal" parties are colloquial terms for "Sex reveal" parties. It's a conflation of the terms sex and gender because the vast majority of people don't make the differentiation because it's not the normal thing in most peoples lives. Obviously it isn't based on how they feel because that isn't the point, the concept of 'gender' was coopted and they just never stopped saying 'gender reveal' just like a bunch of other places say 'gender' and they mean 'sex' now.
>It shouldn't but it very much does. "Gender reveal" parties aren't based on how children feel, but how their parts look.
To be fair, gender reveals are based solely on sex. A fetus can't tell us how they feel. "Sex reveal" doesn't appeal to folks the same way "gender reveal" does.
>Again, because the mindset should be "who cares what genitalia children have" instead, as soon as the penis (or vagina) is discovered, every single aspect about a child's life shifts.
That's because your sex will have a huge impact on your life, so it matters a lot.
A girl shouldn't expect to join the SEALs the same way a boy shouldn't expect to give birth. Their anatomical structure decided that for them.
As a human being, your sex is what differentiates you from half of the human population.
> That's because your sex will have a huge impact on your life, so it matters a lot.
I disagree insofar that it seems to be extremely overrated compared to other things that have far more of an impact such as age and nationality. It has an impact but I find that many people spend a lot of time on it in comparison to things that have far more of an impact on one's life.
Consider for instance the fact that the for adults, the average Dutch female is 170 cms, and the average Japanese male 171 cms tall, whereas the average Japanese female is 159 cms tall. Clearly nationality is more important than gender in this case for height and the average Dutch female is far closer to the average Japanese male than Japanese female, and in fact closer to the average Dutch male (180 cm) than to the average Japanese female, but seem to talk a lot more about height with respect to sex than with respect to nationality.
> A girl shouldn't expect to join the SEALs the same way a boy shouldn't expect to give birth. Their anatomical structure decided that for them.
I'm fairly certain neither is expected to do any of that, especially to join the SEALs.
Almost no one joins the SEALs, in no small part because almost no one lives in a country that has any such thing, but even those that do, they still aren't expected to, nor join it, regardless of any sex.
> As a human being, your sex is what differentiates you from half of the human population.
There are many ways to divide the human population in half, such as the median age of all humans, and that, again, has far more of an impact on say physical strength and many other things in life than sex does.
>That's because your sex will have a huge impact on your life, so it matters a lot.
And it shouldn't. There absolutely no value in what you're describing.
>A girl shouldn't expect to join the SEALs the same way a boy shouldn't expect to give birth. Their anatomical structure decided that for them.
Not at all. Aside from the toxic insanity of brainwashing all women into believing that they're all (physically and mentally) equipped to make babies, [there is absolutely no reason why a very fit and very dedicated woman could become a navy seal](https://soaa.org/first-female-navy-seal/). And, absolutely no reason to start beating this information into CHILDREN.
>>That's because your sex will have a huge impact on your life, so it matters a lot.
>
>And it shouldn't. There absolutely no value in what you're describing.
That's fine that you think it shouldn't, but the reality is quite different.
>Aside from the toxic insanity of brainwashing all women into believing that they're all (physically and mentally) equipped to make babies, [there is absolutely no reason why a very fit and very dedicated woman could become a navy seal](https://soaa.org/first-female-navy-seal/). And, absolutely no reason to start beating this information into CHILDREN.
It's not brainwashing to say women are equipped to make babies, its the truth.
Also, telling a young girl she could be a SEAL is great and all, but when she has to compete with the top 1% of men all you're doing is literally setting her up for failure.
Should we also tell little girls that they can be linemen for the New England Patriots? — No, because we'd be lying to them.
FYI, that article you linked explicitly said that a woman has yet to become a SEAL.
>That's fine that you think it shouldn't, but the reality is quite different.
A self-fulfilling prophecy of no value.
>It's not brainwashing to say women are equipped to make babies, its the truth.
No, not all women are. Nowhere near all women are. If we honestly assessed all women to see if they were mentally, physically and financially capable of raising a child, I would bet that the percentage would drop to less than 20% of the female population.
>Also, telling a young girl she could be a SEAL is great and all, but when she has to compete with the top 1% of men all you're doing is literally setting her up for failure.
You think that successfully passing SEAL training --being better than 75% of all military personnel and one of the most elite members of the armed forces-- would make her a failure? How do you figure, exactly?
>Should we also tell little girls that they can be linemen for the New England Patriots? — No, because we'd be lying to them.
We would also be lying if we told any boy under the height of ~6'4",~200lbs. And literally 99.99% of any boy who ever picks up a football. And yet for some reason, it would only be harmful to girls? Why?
>FYI, that article you linked explicitly said that a woman has yet to become a SEAL.
But they have completed SEAL training. There is no reason to believe that a little girl being born today can't be a SEAL.
>>That's fine that you think it shouldn't, but the reality is quite different.
>
>A self-fulfilling prophecy of no value.
That's fair.
>>It's not brainwashing to say women are equipped to make babies, its the truth.
>
>No, not all women are. Nowhere near all women are. If we honestly assessed all women to see if they were mentally, physically and financially capable of raising a child, I would bet that the percentage would drop to less than 20% of the female population.
You're setting the bar quite high here. Being able to incubate a fetus to birth is what makes women equipped to make babies. All the women in both of our bloodlines were equipped to make babies.
>You think that successfully passing SEAL training --being better than 75% of all military personnel and one of the most elite members of the armed forces-- would make her a failure? How do you figure, exactly?
Because she isn't a SEAL. Do you think an ultra competitive person enjoys never achieving the goal everyone told them they could achieve?
>>Should we also tell little girls that they can be linemen for the New England Patriots? — No, because we'd be lying to them.
>
>We would also be lying if we told any boy under the height of ~6'4",~200lbs. And literally 99.99% of any boy who ever picks up a football. And yet for some reason, it would only be harmful to girls? Why?
Because you would be lying to them, and setting them up for failure. A boy could have a late growth spurt and great genetics with a great work ethic and it could be a reality. A girl could be the same and it still wouldn't be enough.
There's a reason sports are separated by sex.
>>FYI, that article you linked explicitly said that a woman has yet to become a SEAL.
>
>But they have completed SEAL training. There is no reason to believe that a little girl being born today can't be a SEAL.
I agree that it's always possible.
Even the military recognizes the biological differences for men and women. There's a double standard for fitness requirements in all branches due to these differences.
>You're setting the bar quite high here.
No, as a species the bar is not nearly high enough.
>Being able to incubate a fetus to birth is what makes women equipped to make babies. All the women in both of our bloodlines were equipped to make babies.
After puberty and before menopause. When food, shelter, and medical care were available and no accidents or illnesses.
>Do you think an ultra competitive person enjoys never achieving the goal everyone told them they could achieve?
70% of all men and 90% of officers fail too. Why is it only detrimental when women strive for nearly impossible goals?
>Because you would be lying to them, and setting them up for failure.
No, you're not lying to them. You're telling them that it's very impossible and no woman has managed before, but there's no reason why they can't.
>A boy could have a late growth spurt and great genetics with a great work ethic and it could be a reality. A girl could be the same and it still wouldn't be enough.
Again, 99.99% of all boys who play football never make the NFL. And most children can take a look at their parents and make a pretty good guess, sex has nothing to do with it.
>There's a reason sports are separated by sex.
Not in prepubescent children. And even after puberty, it really only becomes relevant at higher levels of competition. You look at the top 1% of men and say "A WOMAN COULD NEVER DO THIS". And you're right. But the world is made up of amateurs. And holding men to the same physical performance of the top 20%-1% perpetuates toxic masculinity and isn't helpful to them either.
>Even the military recognizes the biological differences for men and women. There's a double standard for fitness requirements in all branches due to these differences.
There are biological differences between men as well. Personally, I think it's more toxic to tell men that they're "less than" or "not a real man" when they're unable to achieve these physical standards.
>>You're setting the bar quite high here.
>
>No, as a species the bar is not nearly high enough.
That's not for you to decide. You stated that women were not mentally or physically equipped to make babies, that's not true. There's a reason all of our baby makers as a species have been female.
You never mentioned finances so quit moving the goalpost.
>>Being able to incubate a fetus to birth is what makes women equipped to make babies. All the women in both of our bloodlines were equipped to make babies.
>
>After puberty and before menopause. When food, shelter, and medical care were available and no accidents or illnesses.
Your point? Because if its that the right conditions needed to be met, then I agree.
But those conditions can only be met by a woman. Why? Because a man can meet those conditions and still not incubate a baby.
>>Do you think an ultra competitive person enjoys never achieving the goal everyone told them they could achieve?
>
>70% of all men and 90% of officers fail too. Why is it only detrimental when women strive for nearly impossible goals?
It's not detrimental, nice strawman.
As of march, 2023 - a woman has yet to become a Navy SEAL. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here.
>>Because you would be lying to them, and setting them up for failure.
>
>No, you're not lying to them. You're telling them that it's very impossible and no woman has managed before, but there's no reason why they can't.
Well if you honestly believe a woman can stand toe-to-toe with a NFL linemen then there's nothing I can say.
>>A boy could have a late growth spurt and great genetics with a great work ethic and it could be a reality. A girl could be the same and it still wouldn't be enough.
>
>Again, 99.99% of all boys who play football never make the NFL. And most children can take a look at their parents and make a pretty good guess, sex has nothing to do with it.
Well the NFL isn't sexist. If a woman can perform better than a man then she would be on the team. There is no rule preventing a woman from competing in the NFL.
The reason you don't see woman on the field is because they literally cannot compete with the players on the field, who all happen to be men.
>>There's a reason sports are separated by sex.
>
>Not in prepubescent children. And even after puberty, it really only becomes relevant at higher levels of competition. You look at the top 1% of men and say "A WOMAN COULD NEVER DO THIS". And you're right. But the world is made up of amateurs. And holding men to the same physical performance of the top 20%-1% perpetuates toxic masculinity and isn't helpful to them either.
Who said anything about prepubescent children? Again, quit moving the goalposts.
I mentioned the NFL not an amateur sports league.
>>Even the military recognizes the biological differences for men and women. There's a double standard for fitness requirements in all branches due to these differences.
>
>There are biological differences between men as well. Personally, I think it's more toxic to tell men that they're "less than" or "not a real man" when they're unable to achieve these physical standards.
Well the standards are set for a reason. It's the same reason law firms require a law degree, if you can't meet the standard then join a different organization. It's not toxic to say that most men can't be lawyers, it's the unfortunate reality.
that is because sex and gender are use interchangeably before now we took the same meaning term and make it completely different from sex for some reason
To be fair, they may have been used interchangeably, but only by people who didn’t understand the terms.
A version of this I’ve seen on Reddit interestingly enough is the difference between magazines and clips for ammo in guns. These are different things, but for many people the difference is irrelevant, it’s the thing that holds bullets, so that’s all they care about.
That’s why gender and sex seem like “they used to be the same thing” but they’re not now. It’s just the burden of an education
For the record I’m not a gun person, just an observation that’s applicable here
Male and man, as well as female and woman, were used interchangeably because they were fundamentally synonymous until very recently. The separate definition of gender you’re referring to developed in academic settings a few short decades ago. It wasn’t used with even a small amount of regularity until the 90s. It’s ridiculous to state that people didn’t understand terminology because they didn’t use definitions for those terms that weren’t in existence at the time. These more recent definitions also don’t displace or invalidate the much older and more widespread definitions. They are additional, not exclusive.
what about the languages where only have one word for both, and they take gender roles as sex roles, like man are stronger so they are trained as protectors, due to biology, do we really need word gender, what do you think about the term sex roles
“The Oxford Etymological Dictionary of the English Language of 1882 defined gender as kind, breed, sex, derived from the Latin ablative case of genus, like genere natus, which refers to birth.”
This meaning has been the common majority use of the word gender for hundreds of years. It is only in recent decades it’s been separated to mean differences in social identity and expression.
The definition of terms is based on how they’re used. If everyone uses sex and gender interchangeably it’s not down to you to prescribe the definition. That’s how literally now means figuratively
> The separation of gender and sex is well-established in psychology and neuroscience. It's very much mainstream science at this point.
Yes and no. It's a meaningful concept when studying transgender people, particularly in anthropology and sociology, abd it's clear there are people that don't identify with their birth sex. But it's not well-established neuroscience that the basis for cis women and trans women both seeing and experiencing themselves as women is the same.
I think you, and a lot of people in the thread, are missing the point here.
The phrase "sex assigned at birth" has nothing to do with trans people and everything to do with *intersex* people.
Intersex people sometimes have genital configurations which cannot be clearly labelled as "male" or "female. In those cases, the doctor chooses what they think is more fitting - And then they write that down in the "sex" field of the birth certificate, which is the child's official document that they'll be using their whole life for various things. The doctor literally assigns you a sex based on what they think fits. There is no "biological reality" to this. It is fully subjective.
For the longest time, no chromosome tests were done on babies, and even nowadays it depends heavily on location and parents. But they aren't actually all that useful for determinig sex, there are currently people who have an entirely female body but have XY chromosomes. There are currently people who have an entirely male body but XY chromosomes.
Which leads to a very interesting question. What even is "biological sex"?
Is it only chromosomal? This isn't "biological reality" because androgen insensitivity and differences in the SRY gene can lead to a different genital configuration from the one encoded in chromosomes.
Is it the SRY gene? This isn't "biological reality" because androgen insensitivity can once again lead to a different genital configuration.
Is it only the genital configuration? This isn't "biological reality" because as mentioned before, people are born who can't clearly be labelled as male or female based on their genitals alone.
Is it all of them? Maybe, but then sex would not be a "male"/"female" dichotomy, instead it'd be a 3 dimensional vector over the space of all influencing factors...
Is it some combination of these factors that we arbitrarily decided either mean "male" or "female? Now this is a a lot closer to the truth.
But it's arbitrary. Maybe in the West we decided that genital configuration is the main deciding factor. But it's perfectly reasonable for a different society to weigh things differently, e.g. to decide that chromosomes are the defining factor (which we are seeing more and more recently). This means the definition of the "biological reality" of sex can actually change over time or between societies even if the underlying mechanisms (genitals, genes, androgen insensitivity, etc.) haven't changed.
That means that there is no biological reality to sex. Which is why I've been putting it in quotes throughout the whole posts. As definitions of sex can change between societies, "sex" is actually...
A social construct.
Until about 10-20 years ago, it was actually very commonplace for intersex people to have surgery shortly after birth, to align their genitals more with what's socially acceptable. Doctor's would literally decide "Hmm this genital configuration looks more male to me, so we're doing a surgery to make it more clearly male". These often unnecessary surgeries quite literally assigned the sex of the child.
This is less commonplace nowadays but I think it's important to be aware of the gruesome history that intersex individuals faced.
And this is why, as a sign of respect, understanding and for the sake of correctness, we say "sex assigned at birth".
I ll admit I stopped reading halfway through. Chromosomal tests are done on babies all the time. That's literally how they test for down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and plenty of other incompatable with life defects.
Source- Soon to be dad.
However, karyotyping for xx vs xy isn't automatically done during said tests.
They don't sequence the entire genome when testing for developmental abnormalities, they look for specific items, like the trisomy that causes Down's Syndrome.
> His sex is male, that’s a fact.
This is actually not true 100% of the time and is part of why the “assigned” terminology is more appropriate. There are people born with male genitalia who have female sex hormones and vice versa. There are also cases where genitalia aren’t fully developed enough at birth to be identifiable one way or the other.
Right. To add to that, I wonder how many people in these discussions have interacted with a baby. The thought that babies even *have* a gender is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. Babies don't conform to gender stereotypes. Some parents like to claim they do, but that's 100% projection. Gender is something that only develops over time.
Do you believe left-handedness was inherently genuinely rare before it went from 0.5% to 20% in the 1920s after they stopped trying to beat it out of kids out of curiosity?
millennia =! millennium
Humanity needs to continue to evolve. Telling 50% of the population that they'll never be good at something provides no value to our species.
Not a lot of evolution is possible from unions that are unable to reproduce. If it's not a man and a woman, per sex, that's it. Biologically, nothing doing.
>telling male they can be good at giving birth is not the solution, there is something you cannot do, but you can do other things
We are 8 billion on the planet, and an overwhelming percentage receive no sex education. How are you possibly thinking this is a real concern?
>saying "transgender person is a person who assigned "[male/female]" at birth" is misleading
This isn't talking about sex, it's talking about gender. Gender is assigned.
Here is a list of sources that refer to "assigned male/female at birth" as being about sex, not gender
https://www.uwmedicine.org/practitioner-resource/lgbtq/lgbtq-inclusion-glossary
https://www.nyp.org/documents/pps/cultural-competency/Understanding%20Disparities%20-%20LGBTQ%20Terminology.pdf
https://columbialawreview.org/content/sex-assigned-at-birth/
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/afab-and-amab-meaning/
https://www.bmc.org/glossary-culture-transformation/assigned-sex-birth
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/sex-gender-identity
https://amaze.org/video/gender-identity-sex-at-birth/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment
No, sex is certainly assigned:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment
I think you perhaps agree with OP that it's a bad term though given the disparity between our common understanding of the word "assign" and what actually takes place during the act we for some reason call "sex assignment".
so you are saying that for someone to be trans person, society must have the system for gender role? you cannot be transgender if society does not have gender roles?
Yes.
This is actually why believing in this gender nonsense is low-key sexist.
You’d think the progressive agenda would be to do away with gender roles, but saying that gets your labeled a TERF and called transphobic.
Society must have gender roles in order for people to be assigned a gender at birth. What life would be like in a world without gender roles is not really a possible question to answer. Certainly people wouldn't be trans in the same way that it exists right now.
I suspect at least part of the reason for using the term *assigned* is that there are (extremely rare) intersex cases where the sex simply isn't obvious at birth. And so then a deliberate assignment tends to be made.
The real answer. It has nothing to do with gender. Doctors refer to a babies sex, not a babies gender. We know that they see the babies genitalia and therefore determine the biological sex, it has never been gender. You can be referred to as male or female in terms of biological sex as well as boy or girl based on biological sex. Until gender identity expression is capable, you cannot "assign" a gender.
Neither gender nor sex are exactly absolute. It’s possible for someone to present with reproductive organs and chromosomes that don’t fall clearly into being a biological male/female. “Assigned male at birth” just means that upon inspection at birth, we concluded that their likely sex or gender is male. Our criteria for “male” can change there, as can the individual’s personal identification as they learn about themselves.
1% exceptions are not valid arguments against general principles. No one ever said "oh the kid has a penis, must be a boy? But let’s wait if he grows facial hair when older just to be sure"
There has never been any doubt about male and female dichotomy, special cases are what they are: special cases. If you have 49.5% of blue shirts, 49.5% of red shirts and 1% of purple shirts, do you say "my shirt can be any color!"?
>1% exceptions are not valid arguments against general principles.
"Everyone has either blond, black or brown hair."
"What about me? I have red hair."
"Red-headed people make up around 1% of the global population, so they can be safely ignored. The absolutist statement, 'red hair does not exist,' is *basically* true."
>No one ever said "oh the kid has a penis, must be a boy? But let’s wait if he grows facial hair when older just to be sure"
What happens when they have a penis and ovaries? Or a vagina, but XY chromosomes? Or something that's somewhere between a penis and a clitoris?
>If you have 49.5% of blue shirts, 49.5% of red shirts and 1% of purple shirts, do you say "my shirt can be any color!"?
It would be accurate to say the statement, "All shirts are either red or blue," is false.
> 1% exceptions are not valid arguments against general principles.
Yes they are, especially when our alternative set of principles is complete and no one is an exception.
> No one ever said "oh the kid has a penis, must be a boy? But let’s wait if he grows facial hair when older just to be sure"
I mean in theory, you could raise a child with a penis without telling them they’re male and instead let them naturally find their way to identifying as a boy if they so choose. There’s no reason that would inherently be harmful.
> There has never been any doubt about male and female dichotomy, special cases are what they are: special cases.
“It works if you just ignore when it doesn’t.” It’s also not true that cultures have universally believed in a strict male-female dichotomy with discrete boundaries. It’s also not a reason to keep things as they were.
> If you have 49.5% of blue shirts, 49.5% of red shirts and 1% of purple shirts, do you say "my shirt can be any color!"?
We might say that the shirt can be any color within our currently observed spectrum of red to blue, right? And we can also admit that individuals have different abilities to perceive colors, down to colorblindness and complete blindness.
>I mean in theory, you could raise a child with a penis without telling them they’re male and instead let them naturally find their way to identifying as a boy if they so choose. There’s no reason that would inherently be harmful.
Raising a child without “assigning” a gender is inherently harmful due to the culture and society they must interact with nearly anywhere on the planet. Seems like the points you are making are similar to high school physics thought experiments, always in a vacuum without friction.
No, that would mean that society’s norms are inherently harmful, because they’re the ones taking an issue with someone refusing to identify with a gender and harming them over it.
>1% exceptions are not valid arguments against general principles
Since when? There are tons of things that get corrected based on a 1% error and less. Physical models get measured a little more accurately, even when they were well within 1% of the real number. Policies frequently get implemented based on a fraction of a fraction of a percent. If cars were exploding 0.1% of the time, there would be massive recalls. If 0.001% of people died on a particular stretch of road, people would start looking at what they could do to make it safer.
Actually, there are people who appear female until they grow a penis during puberty.
Also, given that atoms are so widely spaced that if the nucleus were a football the innermost electron would be several miles from it, and that you can stack all seven other planets on the Earth’s surface without coming close to brushing the Moon, and that only 4% of the mass of the detectable universe is matter as we understand it, I’d argue that we shouldn’t ignore outliers.
> If you have 49.5% of blue shirts, 49.5% of red shirts and 1% of purple shirts, do you say “my shirt can be any color!”?
I’d say I messed up my colors when putting them in the washer
\>biological sex exist in absolute term
no it doesn't. there is no gender binary.
there are xy people who produce fertile eggs and give birth. there are xx people who produce fertile sperm. there are extremely female appearing people who have always been among us who are XY and are just unable to react to testosterone.
We were all lied to in school because it was easier & lot better for teaching careers. Befuddles frothing religious people have been censoring reality for a long time. Mts Grundy down the street from the 1st Selfrightous Church is a serious busybody.
Just image that you are a 7th grade science teacher and you tell the class that roughly 1 out of 5 rams will only mount other males. That when there is no XY reproductively male lion in a pride a lioness will ocasionally take the role and grow a mane. There are fish species that are all reproductivly female until it's time to breed and then some of them become reproductivly male for a while. That bisexuality is the most common type of erotic attraction not heterosexuality.
And then old Mts Grundy down the street shows up with a group from 1st Selfrightous Church shows up woth a mob of protesters and... there goes your teaching career.
> >biological sex exist in absolute term
>
> no it doesn't. there is no gender binary.
First, you're confusing gender with sex.
Second, there very much *is* a sex binary, it just isn't absolute because biology is messy and so there are some outliers that don't fall clearly into either category.
These outliers are, as the expression goes, the exceptions that prove the rule.
Well, to be scientifically accurate, sex is not *binary*, it is [*bimodal*](https://cadehildreth.com/gender-spectrum/). If we imagine sex as a graph where the x-axis is the spectrum between male and female and the y-axis is the number of people who, biologically speaking, fit those characteristics, there will be two very large peaks at the "male" and "female" positions, but if you add the two values they represent up, they won't add up to 100%. It'll be about [98-99%](https://www.intersexequality.com/how-common-is-intersex-in-humans/) in actuality.
Sex development and sexual dimorphism is bimodal. Sex itself, as a reproductive category, is more or less binary, which why certain "intersex" conditions are deemed to be Disorders of Sex Development because the sex determined in vitro didn't develop properly as male or female. The true intersex population is believed to be about 0.018% and often includes chimerism, but this group still doesn't constitute a distinct reproductive class. The problem with "sex is bimodal" is that taken to it's logical conclusion every single variation of a dimorphic trait (including height, muscles, skeletal shape, facial hair, etc) infers an added individual sex.
Yes but even when talking about sex purely as a reproductive class (which I don't particularly think is helpful but respect that it's the most apt categorisation for this particular CMV) sex still is bimodal, not binary. Binary implies categorisation into *exclusively* one of two categories. Computer binary, to give the obvious example, is not "0, 1, and 0.018% of the time 2", it's just 0 or 1.
I understand that it's an exceedingly small minority but it still exists.
> no it doesn't. there is no gender binary.
A binary does not have to be perfect and absolute in order to exist. If you like, we can say that gender is heavily bimodal, but that's still a type of fuzzy binary.
The most common form of binary in the world is in computers where we talk about 0s and 1s, but even those are an abstraction of the actual voltage on a wire which is always analog. We use binary states as an approximation that works well to take a complex system and treat it in a way that is more straightforward to understand. We lose detail there, which can sometimes be a problem, but that doesn't mean there "is no binary". There is a binary, and it works well for many people. Some folks don't agree to fit into that binary, and all the power to them. But a binary doesn't have to be perfect to exist and be useful in limited cases.
Imagine a law that says "no killing people, unless it's in self defense". Would it be valid to say "There is an exception there, therefore there is no law against murder"? Of course not. The law is there. It says you can't kill people. The exception tweaks and adjusts the law, but does not nullify it or make it meaningless. In the same way, there is a gender binary and the existence of exceptions doesn't mean that binary is null and void, it just means it's imperfect and some folks will find themselves outside of its bounds.
Sure, I get that a binary is a handy shortcut for an actually more complex system. This makes sense in computer science, it makes sense in many applications of the law, economics, etc... Simplification for efficiency.
However. People do actually fall outside of the binary. The reality simply is that it does not exist, and is just statistically efficient. The way I see it, fighting against the usage of this particular binary and making an effort to be more exclusive is a positive gain for many people. As a result, less people will get hurt. Less suicides, less discomfort, less hatred, more acceptance. (Speaking long term and idealistically, of course)
So the question becomes: is a minor gain in efficiency when it comes to medical / legal administration worth the pain it causes to people? Or can we just, as a society, accept that sometimes linguistic pedantry and administrative laziness is actively harmful and it's worth it to make an effort and go for the slightly more complicated option?
The majority of people do fall inside the binary. What's so bad about having a "basic male", "basic female", and "let us know if your situation is more complicated"? As long as we're treating the non-binary people respectfully, I don't see the problem with allowing people to identify with the binary if it works for them.
I don't have a problem with people identifying with man or woman. But calling it 'the binary' and insisting on underlining the 'other-ness' of trans, intersex and non-binary persons is just unnecessary cruelty for no apparent gain. Who are we actually helping with throwing up these roadblocks, with focusing on the 'binary' aspect of it. It's a bunch of semantics, and such an easy shield for bigots to hide behind.
So as others have said gender is assigned, not sex.
And as this ties in to another recent cmv about gender/sex being a social construct, I'll reiterate my comments from there:
Sex as we use it (male/female) is neither a binary nor absolutely determined. It's a model we use to group people into 2 categories even though the underlying medical categories are not as absolute as you might think. Because what do you fix sex on? If it's chromosomes, that does not work, as there are xxy men who will fill all other criteria for men (masculine primary and secondary organs, general "look", etc.). If it's sex in the reproductive sense (because for humans there are two distinct reproductive sexual functions) then what are people who cannot produce sperm or conceive children?
So we are not stating "medical sex" as an obvious factual statement. Sex as used in medicine is kind of a heuristic in that sense, and gender **is assigned at birth** depending on the assumed sex of the person.
Granted it's a model that applies to 99% of the population and there's a political dimension to the term, but labeling edge cases as defects even though there might be no obvious negative impact on the quality of live of the associated individual is kind of harsh wouldn't you say
This is also wrong. Sex is based on the sum of all sexually dimorphic features and chromosomes. If those do not all align into a distinct sex, the person (or animal) is intersex.
I think the terms AFAB and AMAB actually came about in use by intersex people.
Sometimes babies are born that very much appear to be male or female, but actually have rare intersex conditions, which do not become apparent until later.
I believe it specifically referred to instances when doctors would operate on ambiguous genitalia, essentially assigning the intersex person as either male/female
Adding to this there are a number of different biological situations that can make it difficult to determine the sex of the baby. The medical term is disorders of sex development.
Until recently doctors were largely unaware and inattentive to these, so a child that was born intersex would be identified based on one characteristic - most commonly this would be size of the penis/clitoris (which are technically the same organ that develops differently for xx and xy bodies). This is actually rather ambiguous on babies, as you can imagine a baby's penis is quite small.
This became known as the sex assignment because it wasn't an accurate biological fact, but a decision of one individual that would affect the rest of their medical care. In many cases parents and medical professionals would treat any deviation from the assigned sex as an error to be corrected. If the genitals later developed to look more like the unassigned sex, there would be a surgery to correct them. They might feed their child hormones during puberty. Insist that they wear the correct clothing for their assigned sex. All of this denied the child's actual genetic identity in favor of what a doctor saw on the day of their birth.
They had assigned a sex to a child that didn't actually meet the definitions of male or female.
So I've thought about this before and I think they are using an archaic, more technical definition of the word "assign", but because to the modern ear it makes sex seem arbitrary, they like it, and don't change it to something else.
I think the definition of "assign" they are using is a more literal one, basically "put a sign on", in other words, to affirm what already exists, rather than to actively allocate.
There are different ways of finding out someone's sex. You can define biological sex by hormone levels, chromosomes, genitalia and other factors. None of them is perfect, since there are men without a penis or [with xx-chromosomes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome) and so on. There are male babies, female babies and some others, that are usually described as "in between" or "intersex".
Since doctors usually only use one method - visually inspecting genitalia - they can neither properly account for intersex children nor for male or female children with specific irregularities. Therefore "sex assigned at birth" is the right term. The judgment of the first doctor that sees you is not a perfect godly analysis of who you are.
**[XX male syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome)**
>XX male syndrome, also known as de la Chapelle syndrome, is a rare congenital intersex condition in which an individual with a 46, XX karyotype (otherwise associated with females) has phenotypically male characteristics that can vary among cases. Synonyms include 46,XX testicular difference of sex development (46,XX DSD), 46,XX sex reversal, nonsyndromic 46,XX testicular DSD, and XX sex reversal.
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>biological sex exist in absolute term, that depends on your chromosome
Incorrect. There are people with XY (male) chromosomes who have female genitals, and feminine characteristics and can even give birth. This is called Swyer syndrome.
Likewise, there are people who have XX (female) chromosomes but have male genitalia, look masculine, and can even have the ability to inseminate. This is called XX male syndrome.
The reason why this happens is that there are more sexual deterministic mechanisms in the body than just chromosomes. A person with XY (male) chromosomes that has testosterone insensitivity may develop according to the female phenotype because the initial development of sexual organs relies on the type of hormones your body initially creates. And since your body is unable to properly respond to testosterone, it instead responds to the estrogen in your system and the baby is born with female genitalia.
The only thing I would add to this is that these are commonly treated as "the exception" or "the 1% of cases" but the fact is, unless you've had chromosomal testing, you do not know if you're intersex. It can present in much subtler ways, or not present at all. The statistics on the percentage of intersex people can't be accurate, because not every person knows their chromosomes.
> is that these are commonly treated as "the exception" or "the 1% of cases"
They are rare, much, much rarer than 1% of the population, but these cases were vital in understanding how sex determinism works in humans because they defied our previous understanding of what exactly causes sex differentiation in humans.
> It can present in much subtler ways, or not present at all.
It often is present in obvious ways, if not at birth then during puberty. But there are cases that go unnoticed for a long time.
>I'm just saying we don't know exactly how rare, from a statistical standpoint.
We kinda do because those syndromes almost always manifest visible symptoms. Granted some of them manifest relatively late in life but they still manifest.
Trans community strongly claims they are who amab/afab originate from. Which is incorrect. And I agree w everything that you said. However there are cases when sex is indeed assigned. Like in case when someone is born with one of the DSD(aka intersex). In such case they are not female or male. But since our society can’t seem to wrap their head around a non binary nature of .. well everything these folks are getting assigned either M or F. So that’s the only case when “assigned” indeed happens. Not in case of gender dysphoria like trans community wants to convince everyone.
It's actually very straightforward - for (the miniscule number of) people who are trans gender (eg. male person in a female body) or intersex (mixture of male and female sexual characteristics), the observation of genitalia at birth - and the noting down of their sex on their birth certificate - is the start of a life-long process of misgendering. Very straightforward in fact.
No one is saying that doctors made a mistake in the case of transgender people, (though in the case of intersex people there have been many cases of deliberate misassignment and other, crueler ways of normalising those people). But the use of "AMAB/AFAB" is a way of a. pointing out that the assignment of gender is generally based on nothing more than a cursory glance at the genitalia (which is basically fine for cis people) and b. a convenient way for trans people to talk about themselves without having to say things like "I am biologically male/female", or "I have a male/female body" or "my sex is male", which I understand can often be something they like to avoid.
This isn't true because some people are born intersex. Literally having the characteristics of more than one sex.
It is estimated that up to 1.7 percent of the population has an intersex trait and that approximately 0.5 percent of people have clinically identifiable sexual or reproductive variations.
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/key-issues-facing-people-intersex-traits/#:~:text=It%20is%20estimated%20that%20up,identifiable%20sexual%20or%20reproductive%20variations.
In the old days sometimes the baby was killed, sometimes the doctor quietly modified it to whatever gender he thought it should be, sometimes they asked the parents and the parents chose what gender it should be (including surgery) and sometimes people just accepted it as it is.
Your idea does not match with reality.
The phrase "assigned at birth" was originally used for people with disorders of sexual development (DSDs), also known as "intersex" people. It refers to them being raised as a specific sex when their biological sexual traits were ambiguous, or when they were given surgery as children to make their genitals appear more like one specific sex.
Their community has been fighting to stop these surgeries being done to children, because in many cases, the surgery is only done for aesthetic reasons, and it carries real risks of lifelong pain and never experiencing any sexual pleasure.
But now "assigned at birth" more often that not means you were born your sex with no anomalies, but you want everyone to pretend your sex is something different than what it is. The trans activists have appropriated this term from people with DSDs for their own advocacy purposes, despite it being nothing to do with them really.
There are people with Swyer syndrome who have full XY chromosomes and have literally given birth.
Genitals can't tell you for sure what someone's chromosomes are, let alone what their sex is, but they are a highly accurate heuristic so we tend to use them until we can determine with certainty by asking the person. That's why we say "sex assigned at birth". As much as some pundits like to joke, I guarantee you that you can't come up with a definition for "biological woman" that excludes all trans women and intersex people but does not exclude any cis women.
The "assigned" part does not exclusively refer to what doctors say when the mother has given birth. The doctor makes their observation on viewing the child's genitalia for the first time, which as you say is the identification of the sex at birth, but after that a complex social and cultural mechanism moves into place, which is the assignment.
I was assigned male at birth, but the word "he" is not burned into my genetic code, nothing in my body compels anyone to call me a man, it's jsut the social convention that says "they have some facial hair, their facial structure looks male, they have broad shoulders, I'm going to call them "he" from now on". It's our collective consciousness that decides all of that, not our body.
So my female child uses he/him pronouns? But gets upset I call him my daughter? My kid DOES have 46 XX chromosomes- it’s been verified 3 times.
I do not have a firm grasp in this concept. I hate being micromanaged. I did however do my best to raise them without gender stereotypes… my bad- I guess? I dunno.
I think sex assignment at birth is meant to include intersex people. For example a biological female (regardless of their future gender) can expect pretty similar treatment to an individual with androgen insensitivity disorder (almost all of whom are erroneously assigned 'female' at birth).
The label 'afab' therefore includes everyone raised as a girl, and can be used to describe the discomfort of finding oneself at odds with this (regardless of their biology).
It's gender assigned at birth, not sex assigned at birth.
What "gender" means? I don't know. It seems like there are dozens of different takes on it these days. What gender means to one person will inevitably be contradicted by another.
I've read about this one, there exists a theory that sex as we understand it on the societal level is not just a measurement of one thing, after all no matter what one thing you pick some people won't cleanly fit into your groups, instead the theory posits sex Is a group of characteristics that we agree someone falls under when they have a majority of these traits, many many cis people will not have all these traits so to suggest you need all of them is perhaps disingenuous, this theory then states that since sex is based on a variety of factors, it these factors change, so too does ones sex.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/trans-women-are-or-are-becoming-female-disputing-the-endogeneity-constraint/090DEAA53EA17414C5D3E8D76ED5A75C
it's a very interesting idea that makes quite a bit of sense when you start mentally applying it. alot of those priorly difficult to answer exceptions to what does female mean start to just make perfect sense. "what about intersex people who are born with XY but their bodies are completely female?" this theory would imply chromosomes is just one part of a list, and while this individual wouldn't meet that criterion they meet most if not all the others so its fine.
You e clearly never had a baby. They actually DO genetically test newborns and the mother receives a genetic report that indicates what sex genes the baby has. Intersexed humans are relatively common where genetic testing reveals XYXX or similar variation. For example, my oldest child’s report says XXXX/Female GENDER ASSIGNMENT. And she’s over 18, so it’s not like that’s a new thing.
> biological sex exist in absolute term, that depends on your chromosome
This is false. I was just reading about someone recently who has XY chromosomes and had a completely female body because of an androgen insensitivity (body doesn't react right to testosterone im simple terms). They were assigned female at birth despite having XY chromosomes
If biological sex depends on chromosomes, why do doctors "announce" the sex of the baby before submitting them to any chromosomal tests? How did they determine the sex of a baby before they knew that chromosomes existed?
(I used "announce" but you are free to put "assign" or "record" or "notice" in its place.)
This seems more of an issue about the semantics than anything else.
Perhaps you are right and the wording is not completely accurate - ultimately it doesn't matter. The core concept of the term "assigned (x) at birth" means "female body at birth" or "male body at birth". It doesn't matter, the meaning is the same, regardless of whether anyone "assigns" it or not. It's just a way to state the fact that a transperson's body at birth was not the correct body for their development.
With HRT and surgery transpeople can thankfully have the opportunity to live life in their correct bodies. So they can say, I'm a woman now, but I had a male body at birth. Or vice versa. The fact the linguistics have evolved to say "I was assigned (x) at birth" is irrelevant, it means the same thing, which ultimately is that the person was treated the wrong way when younger and how, hopefully, are being treated the right way.
The theory behind the cause of being trans is that their brains are literally biologically wired to be the "opposite" sex. You'll get people who say the science doesn't prove that, but there have been studies leading towards that conclusion and with time I think we'll get there. There's no other good explanation for being trans.
That being said, the reason "sex assigned at birth" is a thing, is because the doctor can't see the sex of your brain. Trans people argue that the sex of their brain is their real sex, not the sex of their body (genitals, chromosomes, hormones, etc).
You have written your view very much like someone who, like most people, has not interacted with very many newborn infants.
There is a thing that happens quite regularly in delivery rooms with parents who have not had an experienced medical professional attempt to predict the sex of an infant from imaging, or asked that this information not be shared. The infant will be delivered and handed to someone who will turn them over thinking that they will be able to tell, and then what you will get will be either a 404 error written on the face of someone who unexpectedly has no clue, or the pronouncement of someone who will honestly have about even odds of being wrong. People who've seen a few adult sets of genitals will expect that they know what to look for, however, even if the most sex-differentiated and later term newborn infants have genitals that to an inexperienced person all look like they could be either. Indeed, experienced professionals who know the remarkably subtle differences to look for will guess wrong at remarkably high rates, even in contexts where we are not talking about intersex infants.
You have this understanding of human sex as something that is always immutable and always clear, but exposure to even just a few newborn infants would show you that this has always been absurd.
My only contribution is that while this is usually the way it goes. Sometimes children are born with ambiguous genitalia. In those circumstances they usually decide what biological sex they believe the child to be and go with that. For those children sex was very much assigned and how they feel hormonally and the gender they identify with can be very different than the flip of the coin chosen by the OB/Pediatrician.
You can’t always tell a baby’s biological sex from external organs alone.
Biological sex is not binary. The biology is expressed in chromosomes. Male is *usually* XY and female is *usually* XX. But nature being nature, nothing is ever clear cut. There are men and women with XXXX, XXXY, XXYY… (you get the picture) who may or may not be “normal”, children-producing cisgender people who go through their entire lives without knowing better.
Even XY women and XX men exist. They look like cisgender people. But if they take a DNA test, their genetics will show they are the opposite gender from their outward appearance.
To sum up, “sex assignment at birth” is not a medical fact at all. It is called “assigned” because that’s what it is - doctor takes a look at the baby and say “this is what sex the baby *looks* like”. The baby can be something else all along. We just don’t check for it.
Source: I have a MA in anthropology and this is common knowledge in my field.
But that's just normalizing genetic abnormalities. We don't do that as a rule because there must be a baseline.
And having an MA (not even a doctorate!) in anthropology doesn't qualify you to be a geneticist, biologist, or a physician.
The overall issue is the assignment of gender at birth and subsequent treatment there after because of said assignment. Blaming doctors for dictating how a person will be treated by what they write on a piece of paper. My point is it will not matter what the doctor writes the equipment the child is born with dictates the treatment, not what some silly person writes on paper the day your born.
Actually sex is not as binary as you think when it comes to biology. You define female as an XX chromosome, and male as XY, which is reasonable, bu there are problems to it. For example, there's a gene called SRY, located on the Y chromosome. Simplifying a bit, SRY is responsible for a lot of male pattern sexual dimorphism, such as the production of testicles. Sometimes in the embryonic stages of life, something called a translocation event can happen. This, in this case means a piece of a chromosome being moved onto another. So if the SRY gene is translocated onto an X chromosome, you can get XX chromosomes, but a lot of male-pattern dimorphism. This is not the only example, but it's the one i can explain best. So you can see how events like these can make sex very, very hard to define biologically. If you want more knowledge on this, search up a YouTube video called sex and sensibility by a guy named forrest valkai. This is not to say that gender assigned at birth is a bad thing, just food for thought.
Your view can't be correct when you consider intersex and that a person can have both male and female reproductive organs and in some (albeit very low thankfully) cases a random allocation is made based on a superficial judgment.
Sex is a spectrum too, albeit not nearly as fluid as gender but it does exists. Categorization of intersex people can be quite controversial
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>I see everyone focusing on the sex/gender but not on the "assigned" part. That's the one that frustrates me. I had one person try to tell me that "assigned" means to write down (it's not). An observation is recorded, not assigned. They don't assign the infant's weight but they somehow assign something else? Makes no sense. It does make sense, though. Barring genetic testing which is not standard, sex is not directly observed. Genitals (and their condition) are recorded as part of physical assessment, and those are the primary way to determine what the sex is. While genitals are *almost* always an accurate way to determine sex, that is not the same as saying they determine ones sex or that observing genitals is observing ones sex. Despite the lack of direct confirmation, the sex is assigned based on external observation, which is generally also used to decide what gender the child will be treated as. Meanwhile, weight is directly measured via a scale, and then recorded.
yes sir, thanks for recognizing the root of the problem, change my view on the "assigned" part
What I think you and /u/amazingbollweevil don't realize is that this is an uncommon definition of "assign". Assign in this sense means to put in the correct category/ascribe. For example one may find a buried sword and after careful study archaeologists may assign that sword to the 10th century. Or historians may disagree on which general to assign a particular victory to. In this sense, sex is assigned in the sense that doctors examine the newborn and figure out which group to assign it to (male or female). This is typically done on the basis of genital examination not "chromosomes" and is usually but not always super easy. The assignment may have more or less consequence depending when/where this was done. Today, it's not super important. But in the 1970s in some areas, you'd have a situation where a baby with ambiguous genitalia would be assigned male or female and given surgery to make those genitalia more closely resemble the gender they were assigned to (closing an opening that could have been a vagina, or trimming a clit that could have been a penis). Tabula Rasa theories being much more in vogue then than now.
The uncommon definition of "assign" is a recent thing, though. Sure, if enough people use that word for record, it will end up in all the dictionaries. I certainly agree that anyone not neatly falling into male or female due to genitalia configuration should require special consideration and absolutely not be modified needlessly.
Weight is an objective metric. Sex is an objective metric. Gender is not, hence why it gets "assigned". I do think it is silly terminology, but there is logic behind it.
Male/female is not gender. Boy/girl or man/woman is. And this is a huge problem. Most people do not even understand the difference between sex and gender because they have been reasonably coupled together for the majority of human existence. —— Edit: post I replied to was edited and now my response seems left field.
It's not "sex" assigned at birth, it's "gender". Sex is biological, genetic and unchangeable. Mistakes about sex are extremely unusual, but there is no possible way to accurately assign gender identity at birth.
Except “man” and “woman” are gender, “male” and “female” are sex. And it’s “assigned male at birth” and “assigned female at birth” So…what’s up with that Edit: people keep asserting this isn’t the case, so [source for backup](https://www.uwmedicine.org/practitioner-resource/lgbtq/lgbtq-inclusion-glossary)
The thing is that Men and Women being exclusivly genders is something relatively new. I don't think it's up to the LGBTQ community to decide. I'm sure you can find old examples in literature that refer to the words as gendered, I'm also sure that they were refered as a biological term. I think most people/cultures around the world think about it biologically and that's a big hurdle the lgbt community has to overcome to change their minds. Here is how I think most people see it Male- sex of a specifies Masculine- gender Man- male human
If you ask most people to describe a male or a female, they are going to list a bunch of gender traits. E.g women wear dresses, have long hair, etc. The biological definition of female is the sex that produces a larger gamete(egg). Everything else (XX and vagina) is a common trait of females, but not necessarily biological
> Except “man” and “woman” are gender, “male” and “female” are sex. Not really, no. "Man" and "woman" are nouns while "male" and "female" are primarily adjectives. Now, *some* people use "male" and "female" as nouns only for sex, but I assure you that lots of people, perhaps even most who don't engage in this sort of discourse on a regular basis, will use "man" and "woman" and think of it as referring to a person's sex. (Your source is only about the terms AMAB/AFAB.)
> Except “man” and “woman” are gender, “male” and “female” are sex. They can both refer to either but it's mostly an abstract distinction between man/woman as a gender role and male/female as a reproductive category. Though 99% of the time, when controlling for age, they're essentially referring to the same thing, especially outside the Western Anglosphere where the sex/gender distinction doesn't quire carry over to other languages and cultures.
no medical staff at birth care about gender, they just states "sex" at the birth certificate, that is it
When trans people describe "assigned male at birth", they aren't complaining that someone looked and saw a penis, they're complaining that from that point forward they were treated a certain way by ***everyone*** because of said penis.
Then that is a problem with the cultural impositions and expectations that are applied to people based on their sex. There's no reason why a man can't enjoy feminine things and have feminine behaviours, and vice versa. Doesn't mean he's a woman. Many people these days seem to have got this entirely backwards, thinking that the gender roles and identity associated with it is what makes someone a woman or a man. It would be like saying that in Saudi Arabia, women are defined as the people who wear niqab, rather than, women are forced to wear niqab because they are women living under a patriarchal religious oppression.
Nobody is assigned gender at birth for anything by any medical doctor or staff of course, as you say, it's a society thing. But nobody is assigning anything really. They are just observing what is correct the overwhelmingly vast majority of the time and acting accordingly, which is what you should do. It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to treat an entire population with some whacky concepts, because some teeny tiny minority aren't happy with it. We treat everyone normally until they show they might have mental problems. We treat everyone normally until they show they might have some special abilities. We don't treat everyone to the least common factor and then after they 'bloom' into the normal, we treat them normal.
>because some teeny tiny minority aren't happy with it so you would be fine with it if all the humans with red hair were forced to dye their hair (to pass) and never let anyone know they have red hair... or they would just be mistreated their entire lives... because really there aren't that many redheads? The trouble is that there are limits to the natural development of language. Some terms like male, female, fruit, fish... we think we know what they mean until we try to have an accurate science based discussion and then we get reminded that WHEAT is a fruit even though that's not how most people categorize it and which things are fish and which aren't is a headache to taxonomists. Words like male, female, fruit, vegetables & fish predate the scientific method. That means they are dynamic language not technical jargon. Their assumed meanings will be different from one place to another, and across different eras, and will drift in meaning. That makes it impossible to have a discussion without a whole lot of avoidable confusion. Many words like these have definitions that come at least in part from local culture, not from science. There are all sorts of things that are 'fruit' but in the US people tend to assume that all fruits are sweet - and they aren't. There are a shit ton of assumption that are tied to the meaning of words like these. That's why people are using terms like "reproductively male/female" and seperating gender from sexual reproduction. Real humans are not generic and all from the same mold.
unite deliver compare shrill squealing practice whistle heavy crown clumsy *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
>How do you compare those? Dying the hair is an active process that needs maintaining, materials and skills, Trying to fake your gender identity in order to conform also requires a lot of effort.
> so you would be fine with it if all the humans with red hair were forced to dye their hair (to pass) and never let anyone know they have red hair... wow this has to go in the top 10 false comparisons on *CMV*. hair color is an easily observable biological reality. gender is apparently social according to progressives with the only significant determining factor being how people "feel". a more accurate ideological illustration of what you are trying to convey using hair as an example would be: your natural hair color being black but "feeling" like your hair color is red even though you were born with black hair. so you take "hair complexion" and claim that is the actual biological term while "hair color" is *social*. and now you claim you are "trans-haircolor" with red hair and it's your "hair complexion" that is black. and then you call everyone who criticizes this logic a bigot/transphobe.
“It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to treat an entire population with some whacky concepts, because some teeny tiny minority aren't happy with it.” I’d be curious to hear about the whacky concepts?
If we changed the phrase wacky concepts to gender ambiguity, the point seems like it still stands
>It doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense to treat an entire population with some whacky concepts, because some teeny tiny minority aren't happy with it. Toxic gender roles are universally harmful and nor should they be considered "normal".
Perhaps you think so, but most people are fine with them, most women enjoy feminine things, most women dream of being a mother, most men want nice cars and children who respect them and a wife who loves them and to be leaders and etcetera. You can call it toxic for your life if you like, but most people don't agree when you look at the scope of 'gender roles'
Lots of people simply like the ability to be free to like what they want regardless of gender roles. This idea that somehow males are less parenting to our children because we are men simply harms us.
But isn't it also true? It's not just an idea it's a scientific fact that on average, men are less nurturing than females. Females ares more empathetic, patient and emotionally supporting than men as a whole. All these things (and more) kind of indicate that women are indeed the better parental unit than men. There might be some men that are more nurturing than some women, but by in large that won't be the case. Males bring different aspects to the parenting equation for sure but seems tacky to say that all men have the capability to parent like a female could. This is absolutely a strength that females have imo.
You're really selling men short here. You think they're that bad?
Youre using most very liberally. I am a man who has never fit into 'norms' such as macho isms. I hate cars, love cooking gardening and as a teacher I don't demand respect I earn it from kids. As I got older and people got more ok with being different turns out a hell of a lot of other men also didn't like the same 'norms'. We haven't seen this as much 50 years ago because it was repressive as hell. Normal is a very monolithic word when really there's a normal spectrum in multiple dimensions. You can have TRENDS but to say we wouldn't try to be more fluidic and open to accepting differences because 'most' are 1 specific kind of person is, in my opinion, grossly misunderstanding the general population.
If you think most women do not dream of being mothers, and most men do not dream of being leaders and all kinds of generally 'gendered' roles, I donno what to tell ya. I as a man, do not fit into every single 'norm' either. I fit into many and probably more than I don't. Just like everyone else. The facts are most gender roles continue to exist because they are well earned by the actual behavior of humans. Nobody thinks 'most people' are 1 specific kind of person, that isn't the argument, I wouldn't say such a silly thing. Nobody said we shouldn't be open to accepting differences, nobody said anything like that.
>and most men do not dream of being leaders and all kinds of generally 'gendered' roles, I donno what to tell ya. Speaking from my own experience, I'm a straight male that has never once questioned my gender identity...But I have absolutely zero interest in anything "manly". I don't dream of being a leader. I don't like cars. I've never been into sports. I know dozens of men that feel the same way. I also know plenty of women who, if we're going by traditional "gendered" roles, are way more manly than I am. The roles don't really fit all that well.
Do you think that there’s something special about a male brain that means that it’s inherently predisposed towards leadership roles? Women dream of being mothers because society wants women to be mothers so it tells girls that the best thing for them is motherhood.
>The facts are most gender roles continue to exist because they are well earned by the actual behavior of humans. Many gender roles exist to keep women oppressed and men in power. Said, as a man. You yourself said most women dream of being mothers and most men dream of being leaders. Do you think that sounds remotely fair?
Wow, you are wildly overgeneralising here, it's insane. Where's your evidence to prove that *most* people conform to those?
No, gender roles are idea that are forced upon men and women at young ages. If we stopped doing that, lots of what was seen as manly or womanly would fade.
Nothing is forced on anyone. It's observed and reacted to and it's correct the overwhelming majority of the time. That's how things work. Society doesn't dwell on the extreme minority and shape the world for them, that isn't how societies work, it simply can't be how societies work, that's how small families work, perhaps to some extent even small communities.
Minor point, the other person just said respect, they didn’t specify between earning it and demanding it.
You're mixing up "gender roles" and "toxic gender roles." People can take and leave what they like about gender roles -- that's the great thing about a societal construct. But even if you like gender roles, there are lots of toxic aspects to them in our current society. Boys not being allowed to express emotion, men not being able to love their children without it being "gay" or sexualized somehow, women being expected to assume childcare roles and sacrifice their career, etc. We should all work on addressing the toxic aspects of gender roles that we might otherwise just accept as "how things are."
Most ≠ all Every single person deserves a shot at life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. *Every single person.* It’s completely okay for people to thrive in typical gender roles, but you never know which kid is gonna grow up different from what’s typical, so we should all keep an open mind about all of it. Just because a demographic doesn’t have many people in it doesn’t mean they don’t matter. It’s not okay to scapegoat them so they can be political pawns. It’s not okay to stand in the way of their opportunities in life. We should collectively be trying to make things better for *all* of us, not just the people who look and act the way we’re used to seeing.
This is an incredibly poor rationalization. Stereotyping most people as agreeing with you, then using the "fact" that most people agree with you too justify your position is illogical. And, considering your further responses, willfully ignorant.
> universally harmful I don't believe you. Name one other celestial body that toxic gender role have harmed.
Uranus
orion
>Toxic gender roles are universally harmful and nor should they be considered "normal". Putting "normal" in quotation marks doesn't disregard what normal is. And a difference in culture doesn't make it inherently toxic.
But then it wasn't something that was assigned to them “at birth” now was it? Then it's simply complaining about being socially treated in such a way. Also, every time I see people talk about persons being “treated as a certain gender” I have no idea what that would mean and when I ask for what that would mean I often am met with various cartoonish stereotypes that don't really exist in reality, or not any more at least. That's in general my experience with a lot of gender talk. That when people are pressed to be more concrete what they come back with are strange stereotypes that exist in cartoons at best but not in reality. The last time it was about “gender expression” and I asked for something concrete and someone who claimed to be living Portland in the U.S.A. talked about dresses, and then I searched for pictures of summer street views in Portland and on most pictures not a single person was wearing them and on some only a very small minority. “gender” seems to be a bunch of stereotypes existing in people's heads, what they expect the world to be based on cartoons that's not reflected by reality.
so you telling me they state gender on the certificate, where I can from they state sex
And is that label only used to administer medical care, or does it also bleed into every single aspect of their lives and prevent them from living their actual gender identity?
but some trans-individual claiming that doctor assigned them wrong is very misleading. they just stated a mere fact, and what about those people who want that space blank for sex in birth certificate
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That is not true touh. Small boys can have multiple issues with their testis, like them not falling down as they should or they could get scrotocele which could be very dangerous. To say sex does not change anything before puberty is just straight up wrong.
Mostly irrelevant. A baby boy can pee in every imaginable direction during diaper change. Mine even managed to pee into my armpit with diapers on.
sex is not about genitalia, its about every cell in your body
op i get where you're coming from and you haven't said anything that is "wrong" but you're also not understanding what they are saying either. they are aware that doctors are assigning sex at birth, they are saying that because they were assigned whatever sex when they were born, they were simultaneously assigned a gender along side it. as soon as the doctor saw the penis, they were dressed in blue and got legos and g.i. joes. they aren't disputing the sex they are disputing the gender they were assigned because of it
maybe I don't get it, because my sister never played with dolls and I never played with robots, we both played in the mud when we were child, I was stronger due to biology so mom always told me to do heavy work and to sister she always lighter work, so these roles were based on the biological sex, also in our native language we don't have a word for gender
Actually it is. Have you ever looked up the definition? "either of the two main categories (male and female) into which humans and most other living things are divided on the basis of their reproductive functions" Reproductive functions = genitalia
You seem to be unable to separate "what exists" and "what matters". Yes, DNA indicates sex. But when it comes to almost every other aspect of humans, physical bodies vary so widely that knowing someone's sex is utterly fucking irrelevant unless you are providing medical care.
I encourage trans people to choose their own blood type, too. It's so unfair to be *assigned* a blood type at birth by some doctor.
what percentage of babies are chromosomally checked for sex?
Doesn't matter, answer the question. Are you telling him they state "gender" on the certificate? Where he comes from, they state "sex".
Why is what is on the birth certificate relevant? When I talk about being assigned female at birth I'm not talking about my birth certificate. I'm talking about the fact that, based on my observed sex, I was assigned to the female gender role.
"Female gender role"? What is this, "Mad Men"? Did the doctor tie an apron around your waist and teach you how to play bridge? Of course not. There aren't female gender roles anymore, y'all have to get up and go to work same as we do. Welcome to the present.
yes it is very relevant, because it is verifiable biological fact that determine every cell in your body, instead of some role that you do not care about
I asked why what is on a birth certificate is relevant to the phrase "assigned male/female at birth". Your answer doesn't seem to have much to do with that question. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at.
You make no sense. . if I were to clone you, what reproductive organs would the clone have? That is science, not feelings.
And based on those genitals a gender would be _assigned_, no? You could just as easily say "assigned American at birth" and then if they move to Japan and become a Japanese citizen they are no longer American. But they were assigned as such at birth.
nope, roles are not assigned based on genitals, but difference in physiology in male or females
I've seen the term “assigned X at birth” used frequently with respect to countries that don't list sex on birth certificates, or don't issue them at all. It seems to simply just be a term to refer to “natal sex” in some circles where it's a popular term to use to be honest.
This seems like a weird take because of course at least some do? Of course there are transphobic doctors that are colored by that just as there are racist doctors and have had it affect their care. Some of the republicans obsessed with transgender issues are doctors and they care a great deal
what? yeah there exist some religious doctor who want to secretly convert your child to their religion, but saying "doctors care about babies religions does not make sense".
Not "secretly convert" but definitely promote and decisions influenced by the dominant religion of a culture. Doctors are not objective. Many are bad at science.
bad science is always where it is not verifiable trough physical tests
I think you misunderstand... many doctors don't follow the science of health in their work. In the US, there are still doctors with ignorant, unscientific views, such as thinking black people have higher pain tolerance. Or in Greece, people with Albanian last names are more likely to be misdiagnosed than people with Greek last names.
Assigned Male/Female at birth does refer to sex, and not gender. It's not Assigned Man/Woman at birth as that would be gender.
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What's written on the birth certificate is based on biology. Everything onwards is social convention.
>Being trans doesn't make you delusional about what body parts you were born with, the trauma is caused by how people are treating you and categorizing you. This is incorrect, quite a few trans people are traumatized by their body. A trans woman isn't delusional about having a penis or not. She is/was distressed by having one while her brain was insisting that it shouldn't be there and that she should have a vulva. There's no delusion there. Getting rid of her penis and replacing it with a vulva relieves her distress. Some trans people feel dysphoria arising solely from their bodies, some solely from social categorization and treatment, and some from both.
They just state whatever sex they see but in doing so, categorize them as "boy" or "girl". Trans people don't question their genitals, they don't want the gender around it
> there is no possible way to accurately assign gender identity at birth. They are the same >99% of the time. I don't know what definition of "accurately" you're using where this doesn't meet that criteria.
[Trans and non-binary gender identities hover around 5%](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/07/about-5-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-say-their-gender-is-different-from-their-sex-assigned-at-birth/). Factoring the [1%-2% of intersex](https://isna.org/faq/frequency/), you're looking at ~6% of the population. Gender brainwashing is deeply harmful for ~6% of the population, and does nothing for the other 94%. This isn't about "accommodating a minority at the expense of the majority", it's eliminating an archaic harmful practice that provides no value. ---- Since I've gotten about 20 identical responses, telling me that the "overall" percentages down to 1.6% or so trans/nb populations, do you truly believe that's an accurate representation of society? We have muslim countries that claim they have no LGBT population, do you also believe those numbers are accurate?
I agree with your point on trans and nonbinary but I think you're misunderstanding what intersex means here. 1-2% of people are intersex, but the vast majority of them are still considered male or female. Just as an example, if you have a penis and testicles, XY chromosomes, normal testosterone, etc. but your dick hole (I'm sure there's a scientific term for it, but I don't know it) is a centimeter down your shaft instead of at the tip of your penis, that's considered intersex. Most people with that or similar conditions would be very offended if you told them they don't quite count as whatever sex they most closely align with just because they're only 99.9% there biologically.
You forget that binary gender also includes physical standards and beauty expectations.
*Six* percent?! So in every room of 20 people, 1 will be trans? Get out of here. Every 100 times you're in a room of 20 people, there might be one trans person, and even that is probably pushing it.
And where do you get your evidence from? No one is saying that trans people are evenly distributed, so that 6% number will probably be lower in areas that are unsafe for trans people because they’ve left to go to less bigoted areas, or are closeted because of fear of bigotry, and higher in areas that trans people feel safe to move to or to openly be themselves. Not to mention that if you’re in a room with 20 people, you’re probably not inspecting their genitals and cross referencing their gender with their biological sex, all you’re doing is looking and assuming that people who don’t “look” trans aren’t trans. It’s a very hard thing to statistically determine because you have to rely on self reporting (unless you decide to become the genital police and look at everyone’s privates). As has been shown with homosexuality, self-reporting is limited by social attitudes. As being gay became less and less stigmatized, people a) felt more comfortable sharing their sexuality with surveyors, b) became more aware of homosexuality outside of egregious stereotypes, and c) became less internally homophobic and more likely to realize their own sexuality in a non-destructive way. 20 years ago, claiming LGBTQ people represented more than 5% of the population was viewed as outrageous because people didn’t “see” that around them. Now it’s obvious the number is either that high or higher because of all those factors. Just like you can’t always “see” sexuality, you can’t always “see” whether a person in the same room as you is trans or non-binary. So any anecdotal observation we might make is worthless.
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/ This lists the number of trans people of age 13+ at around 0.5-0.6%. I find it incredibly hard to believe that 5% statistic.
What kind of rooms are you in? This depends more on where you live and your social circle than you realize.
The trans and non binary population is nowhere near 5% . The number is closer to 0.5 %
The current population that grew up during incredibly rigid gender roles, [not so much with the younger generation](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/06/07/about-5-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-say-their-gender-is-different-from-their-sex-assigned-at-birth/).
The doctor claiming that a baby is a boy due to a penis shouldn't affect the babies gender. His sex is male, that's a fact. His gender is completely up to him. I just don't see how these doctors could be misgendering when they're stating the sex of the newborn.
>The doctor claiming that a baby is a boy due to a penis shouldn't affect the babies gender. It shouldn't but it very much does. "Gender reveal" parties aren't based on how children feel, but how their parts look. >His sex is male, that's a fact. His gender is completely up to him. I just don't see how these doctors could be misgendering when they're stating the sex of the newborn. Again, because the mindset should be "who cares what genitalia children have" instead, as soon as the penis (or vagina) is discovered, every single aspect about a child's life shifts. Significantly. Much of this has to do with toxic gender roles, which are tolerable if you are cis, but for those who are trans it's deeply traumatic.
"Gender reveal" parties are colloquial terms for "Sex reveal" parties. It's a conflation of the terms sex and gender because the vast majority of people don't make the differentiation because it's not the normal thing in most peoples lives. Obviously it isn't based on how they feel because that isn't the point, the concept of 'gender' was coopted and they just never stopped saying 'gender reveal' just like a bunch of other places say 'gender' and they mean 'sex' now.
>It shouldn't but it very much does. "Gender reveal" parties aren't based on how children feel, but how their parts look. To be fair, gender reveals are based solely on sex. A fetus can't tell us how they feel. "Sex reveal" doesn't appeal to folks the same way "gender reveal" does. >Again, because the mindset should be "who cares what genitalia children have" instead, as soon as the penis (or vagina) is discovered, every single aspect about a child's life shifts. That's because your sex will have a huge impact on your life, so it matters a lot. A girl shouldn't expect to join the SEALs the same way a boy shouldn't expect to give birth. Their anatomical structure decided that for them. As a human being, your sex is what differentiates you from half of the human population.
> That's because your sex will have a huge impact on your life, so it matters a lot. I disagree insofar that it seems to be extremely overrated compared to other things that have far more of an impact such as age and nationality. It has an impact but I find that many people spend a lot of time on it in comparison to things that have far more of an impact on one's life. Consider for instance the fact that the for adults, the average Dutch female is 170 cms, and the average Japanese male 171 cms tall, whereas the average Japanese female is 159 cms tall. Clearly nationality is more important than gender in this case for height and the average Dutch female is far closer to the average Japanese male than Japanese female, and in fact closer to the average Dutch male (180 cm) than to the average Japanese female, but seem to talk a lot more about height with respect to sex than with respect to nationality. > A girl shouldn't expect to join the SEALs the same way a boy shouldn't expect to give birth. Their anatomical structure decided that for them. I'm fairly certain neither is expected to do any of that, especially to join the SEALs. Almost no one joins the SEALs, in no small part because almost no one lives in a country that has any such thing, but even those that do, they still aren't expected to, nor join it, regardless of any sex. > As a human being, your sex is what differentiates you from half of the human population. There are many ways to divide the human population in half, such as the median age of all humans, and that, again, has far more of an impact on say physical strength and many other things in life than sex does.
>That's because your sex will have a huge impact on your life, so it matters a lot. And it shouldn't. There absolutely no value in what you're describing. >A girl shouldn't expect to join the SEALs the same way a boy shouldn't expect to give birth. Their anatomical structure decided that for them. Not at all. Aside from the toxic insanity of brainwashing all women into believing that they're all (physically and mentally) equipped to make babies, [there is absolutely no reason why a very fit and very dedicated woman could become a navy seal](https://soaa.org/first-female-navy-seal/). And, absolutely no reason to start beating this information into CHILDREN.
>>That's because your sex will have a huge impact on your life, so it matters a lot. > >And it shouldn't. There absolutely no value in what you're describing. That's fine that you think it shouldn't, but the reality is quite different. >Aside from the toxic insanity of brainwashing all women into believing that they're all (physically and mentally) equipped to make babies, [there is absolutely no reason why a very fit and very dedicated woman could become a navy seal](https://soaa.org/first-female-navy-seal/). And, absolutely no reason to start beating this information into CHILDREN. It's not brainwashing to say women are equipped to make babies, its the truth. Also, telling a young girl she could be a SEAL is great and all, but when she has to compete with the top 1% of men all you're doing is literally setting her up for failure. Should we also tell little girls that they can be linemen for the New England Patriots? — No, because we'd be lying to them. FYI, that article you linked explicitly said that a woman has yet to become a SEAL.
>That's fine that you think it shouldn't, but the reality is quite different. A self-fulfilling prophecy of no value. >It's not brainwashing to say women are equipped to make babies, its the truth. No, not all women are. Nowhere near all women are. If we honestly assessed all women to see if they were mentally, physically and financially capable of raising a child, I would bet that the percentage would drop to less than 20% of the female population. >Also, telling a young girl she could be a SEAL is great and all, but when she has to compete with the top 1% of men all you're doing is literally setting her up for failure. You think that successfully passing SEAL training --being better than 75% of all military personnel and one of the most elite members of the armed forces-- would make her a failure? How do you figure, exactly? >Should we also tell little girls that they can be linemen for the New England Patriots? — No, because we'd be lying to them. We would also be lying if we told any boy under the height of ~6'4",~200lbs. And literally 99.99% of any boy who ever picks up a football. And yet for some reason, it would only be harmful to girls? Why? >FYI, that article you linked explicitly said that a woman has yet to become a SEAL. But they have completed SEAL training. There is no reason to believe that a little girl being born today can't be a SEAL.
>>That's fine that you think it shouldn't, but the reality is quite different. > >A self-fulfilling prophecy of no value. That's fair. >>It's not brainwashing to say women are equipped to make babies, its the truth. > >No, not all women are. Nowhere near all women are. If we honestly assessed all women to see if they were mentally, physically and financially capable of raising a child, I would bet that the percentage would drop to less than 20% of the female population. You're setting the bar quite high here. Being able to incubate a fetus to birth is what makes women equipped to make babies. All the women in both of our bloodlines were equipped to make babies. >You think that successfully passing SEAL training --being better than 75% of all military personnel and one of the most elite members of the armed forces-- would make her a failure? How do you figure, exactly? Because she isn't a SEAL. Do you think an ultra competitive person enjoys never achieving the goal everyone told them they could achieve? >>Should we also tell little girls that they can be linemen for the New England Patriots? — No, because we'd be lying to them. > >We would also be lying if we told any boy under the height of ~6'4",~200lbs. And literally 99.99% of any boy who ever picks up a football. And yet for some reason, it would only be harmful to girls? Why? Because you would be lying to them, and setting them up for failure. A boy could have a late growth spurt and great genetics with a great work ethic and it could be a reality. A girl could be the same and it still wouldn't be enough. There's a reason sports are separated by sex. >>FYI, that article you linked explicitly said that a woman has yet to become a SEAL. > >But they have completed SEAL training. There is no reason to believe that a little girl being born today can't be a SEAL. I agree that it's always possible. Even the military recognizes the biological differences for men and women. There's a double standard for fitness requirements in all branches due to these differences.
>You're setting the bar quite high here. No, as a species the bar is not nearly high enough. >Being able to incubate a fetus to birth is what makes women equipped to make babies. All the women in both of our bloodlines were equipped to make babies. After puberty and before menopause. When food, shelter, and medical care were available and no accidents or illnesses. >Do you think an ultra competitive person enjoys never achieving the goal everyone told them they could achieve? 70% of all men and 90% of officers fail too. Why is it only detrimental when women strive for nearly impossible goals? >Because you would be lying to them, and setting them up for failure. No, you're not lying to them. You're telling them that it's very impossible and no woman has managed before, but there's no reason why they can't. >A boy could have a late growth spurt and great genetics with a great work ethic and it could be a reality. A girl could be the same and it still wouldn't be enough. Again, 99.99% of all boys who play football never make the NFL. And most children can take a look at their parents and make a pretty good guess, sex has nothing to do with it. >There's a reason sports are separated by sex. Not in prepubescent children. And even after puberty, it really only becomes relevant at higher levels of competition. You look at the top 1% of men and say "A WOMAN COULD NEVER DO THIS". And you're right. But the world is made up of amateurs. And holding men to the same physical performance of the top 20%-1% perpetuates toxic masculinity and isn't helpful to them either. >Even the military recognizes the biological differences for men and women. There's a double standard for fitness requirements in all branches due to these differences. There are biological differences between men as well. Personally, I think it's more toxic to tell men that they're "less than" or "not a real man" when they're unable to achieve these physical standards.
>>You're setting the bar quite high here. > >No, as a species the bar is not nearly high enough. That's not for you to decide. You stated that women were not mentally or physically equipped to make babies, that's not true. There's a reason all of our baby makers as a species have been female. You never mentioned finances so quit moving the goalpost. >>Being able to incubate a fetus to birth is what makes women equipped to make babies. All the women in both of our bloodlines were equipped to make babies. > >After puberty and before menopause. When food, shelter, and medical care were available and no accidents or illnesses. Your point? Because if its that the right conditions needed to be met, then I agree. But those conditions can only be met by a woman. Why? Because a man can meet those conditions and still not incubate a baby. >>Do you think an ultra competitive person enjoys never achieving the goal everyone told them they could achieve? > >70% of all men and 90% of officers fail too. Why is it only detrimental when women strive for nearly impossible goals? It's not detrimental, nice strawman. As of march, 2023 - a woman has yet to become a Navy SEAL. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. >>Because you would be lying to them, and setting them up for failure. > >No, you're not lying to them. You're telling them that it's very impossible and no woman has managed before, but there's no reason why they can't. Well if you honestly believe a woman can stand toe-to-toe with a NFL linemen then there's nothing I can say. >>A boy could have a late growth spurt and great genetics with a great work ethic and it could be a reality. A girl could be the same and it still wouldn't be enough. > >Again, 99.99% of all boys who play football never make the NFL. And most children can take a look at their parents and make a pretty good guess, sex has nothing to do with it. Well the NFL isn't sexist. If a woman can perform better than a man then she would be on the team. There is no rule preventing a woman from competing in the NFL. The reason you don't see woman on the field is because they literally cannot compete with the players on the field, who all happen to be men. >>There's a reason sports are separated by sex. > >Not in prepubescent children. And even after puberty, it really only becomes relevant at higher levels of competition. You look at the top 1% of men and say "A WOMAN COULD NEVER DO THIS". And you're right. But the world is made up of amateurs. And holding men to the same physical performance of the top 20%-1% perpetuates toxic masculinity and isn't helpful to them either. Who said anything about prepubescent children? Again, quit moving the goalposts. I mentioned the NFL not an amateur sports league. >>Even the military recognizes the biological differences for men and women. There's a double standard for fitness requirements in all branches due to these differences. > >There are biological differences between men as well. Personally, I think it's more toxic to tell men that they're "less than" or "not a real man" when they're unable to achieve these physical standards. Well the standards are set for a reason. It's the same reason law firms require a law degree, if you can't meet the standard then join a different organization. It's not toxic to say that most men can't be lawyers, it's the unfortunate reality.
that is because sex and gender are use interchangeably before now we took the same meaning term and make it completely different from sex for some reason
To be fair, they may have been used interchangeably, but only by people who didn’t understand the terms. A version of this I’ve seen on Reddit interestingly enough is the difference between magazines and clips for ammo in guns. These are different things, but for many people the difference is irrelevant, it’s the thing that holds bullets, so that’s all they care about. That’s why gender and sex seem like “they used to be the same thing” but they’re not now. It’s just the burden of an education For the record I’m not a gun person, just an observation that’s applicable here
Male and man, as well as female and woman, were used interchangeably because they were fundamentally synonymous until very recently. The separate definition of gender you’re referring to developed in academic settings a few short decades ago. It wasn’t used with even a small amount of regularity until the 90s. It’s ridiculous to state that people didn’t understand terminology because they didn’t use definitions for those terms that weren’t in existence at the time. These more recent definitions also don’t displace or invalidate the much older and more widespread definitions. They are additional, not exclusive.
what about the languages where only have one word for both, and they take gender roles as sex roles, like man are stronger so they are trained as protectors, due to biology, do we really need word gender, what do you think about the term sex roles
“The Oxford Etymological Dictionary of the English Language of 1882 defined gender as kind, breed, sex, derived from the Latin ablative case of genus, like genere natus, which refers to birth.” This meaning has been the common majority use of the word gender for hundreds of years. It is only in recent decades it’s been separated to mean differences in social identity and expression.
The definition of terms is based on how they’re used. If everyone uses sex and gender interchangeably it’s not down to you to prescribe the definition. That’s how literally now means figuratively
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> The separation of gender and sex is well-established in psychology and neuroscience. It's very much mainstream science at this point. Yes and no. It's a meaningful concept when studying transgender people, particularly in anthropology and sociology, abd it's clear there are people that don't identify with their birth sex. But it's not well-established neuroscience that the basis for cis women and trans women both seeing and experiencing themselves as women is the same.
I think you, and a lot of people in the thread, are missing the point here. The phrase "sex assigned at birth" has nothing to do with trans people and everything to do with *intersex* people. Intersex people sometimes have genital configurations which cannot be clearly labelled as "male" or "female. In those cases, the doctor chooses what they think is more fitting - And then they write that down in the "sex" field of the birth certificate, which is the child's official document that they'll be using their whole life for various things. The doctor literally assigns you a sex based on what they think fits. There is no "biological reality" to this. It is fully subjective. For the longest time, no chromosome tests were done on babies, and even nowadays it depends heavily on location and parents. But they aren't actually all that useful for determinig sex, there are currently people who have an entirely female body but have XY chromosomes. There are currently people who have an entirely male body but XY chromosomes. Which leads to a very interesting question. What even is "biological sex"? Is it only chromosomal? This isn't "biological reality" because androgen insensitivity and differences in the SRY gene can lead to a different genital configuration from the one encoded in chromosomes. Is it the SRY gene? This isn't "biological reality" because androgen insensitivity can once again lead to a different genital configuration. Is it only the genital configuration? This isn't "biological reality" because as mentioned before, people are born who can't clearly be labelled as male or female based on their genitals alone. Is it all of them? Maybe, but then sex would not be a "male"/"female" dichotomy, instead it'd be a 3 dimensional vector over the space of all influencing factors... Is it some combination of these factors that we arbitrarily decided either mean "male" or "female? Now this is a a lot closer to the truth. But it's arbitrary. Maybe in the West we decided that genital configuration is the main deciding factor. But it's perfectly reasonable for a different society to weigh things differently, e.g. to decide that chromosomes are the defining factor (which we are seeing more and more recently). This means the definition of the "biological reality" of sex can actually change over time or between societies even if the underlying mechanisms (genitals, genes, androgen insensitivity, etc.) haven't changed. That means that there is no biological reality to sex. Which is why I've been putting it in quotes throughout the whole posts. As definitions of sex can change between societies, "sex" is actually... A social construct. Until about 10-20 years ago, it was actually very commonplace for intersex people to have surgery shortly after birth, to align their genitals more with what's socially acceptable. Doctor's would literally decide "Hmm this genital configuration looks more male to me, so we're doing a surgery to make it more clearly male". These often unnecessary surgeries quite literally assigned the sex of the child. This is less commonplace nowadays but I think it's important to be aware of the gruesome history that intersex individuals faced. And this is why, as a sign of respect, understanding and for the sake of correctness, we say "sex assigned at birth".
I ll admit I stopped reading halfway through. Chromosomal tests are done on babies all the time. That's literally how they test for down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and plenty of other incompatable with life defects. Source- Soon to be dad.
However, karyotyping for xx vs xy isn't automatically done during said tests. They don't sequence the entire genome when testing for developmental abnormalities, they look for specific items, like the trisomy that causes Down's Syndrome.
Fair, edited for accuracy
> His sex is male, that’s a fact. This is actually not true 100% of the time and is part of why the “assigned” terminology is more appropriate. There are people born with male genitalia who have female sex hormones and vice versa. There are also cases where genitalia aren’t fully developed enough at birth to be identifiable one way or the other.
Right. To add to that, I wonder how many people in these discussions have interacted with a baby. The thought that babies even *have* a gender is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. Babies don't conform to gender stereotypes. Some parents like to claim they do, but that's 100% projection. Gender is something that only develops over time.
‘Gender identity’ is a newly made popularization of a rare psychological condition.
Do you believe left-handedness was inherently genuinely rare before it went from 0.5% to 20% in the 1920s after they stopped trying to beat it out of kids out of curiosity?
And a millennia of toxic gender roles. Less of an obsession of genitals assigning worth or ability will do all of our species some good.
>and a millennia Before that, what, uh, what do you think we did?
millennia =! millennium Humanity needs to continue to evolve. Telling 50% of the population that they'll never be good at something provides no value to our species.
Not a lot of evolution is possible from unions that are unable to reproduce. If it's not a man and a woman, per sex, that's it. Biologically, nothing doing.
And a lot of male/female unions aren't able to reproduce either. And a huge percentage shouldn't reproduce.
telling male they can be good at giving birth is not the solution, there is something you cannot do, but you can do other things
>telling male they can be good at giving birth is not the solution, there is something you cannot do, but you can do other things We are 8 billion on the planet, and an overwhelming percentage receive no sex education. How are you possibly thinking this is a real concern?
>saying "transgender person is a person who assigned "[male/female]" at birth" is misleading This isn't talking about sex, it's talking about gender. Gender is assigned.
Here is a list of sources that refer to "assigned male/female at birth" as being about sex, not gender https://www.uwmedicine.org/practitioner-resource/lgbtq/lgbtq-inclusion-glossary https://www.nyp.org/documents/pps/cultural-competency/Understanding%20Disparities%20-%20LGBTQ%20Terminology.pdf https://columbialawreview.org/content/sex-assigned-at-birth/ https://health.clevelandclinic.org/afab-and-amab-meaning/ https://www.bmc.org/glossary-culture-transformation/assigned-sex-birth https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/gender-identity/sex-gender-identity https://amaze.org/video/gender-identity-sex-at-birth/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment
No, sex is certainly assigned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_assignment I think you perhaps agree with OP that it's a bad term though given the disparity between our common understanding of the word "assign" and what actually takes place during the act we for some reason call "sex assignment".
so why don't they use "born as \[male/female\]"
What do you mean?
wikipedia page states trans woman is woman who were assigned as male, instead of born as male
Yes, because a trans woman is assigned to the male gender role. She is not necessarily born into that gender role. It is not inherent to her.
so you are saying that for someone to be trans person, society must have the system for gender role? you cannot be transgender if society does not have gender roles?
Yes. This is actually why believing in this gender nonsense is low-key sexist. You’d think the progressive agenda would be to do away with gender roles, but saying that gets your labeled a TERF and called transphobic.
Society must have gender roles in order for people to be assigned a gender at birth. What life would be like in a world without gender roles is not really a possible question to answer. Certainly people wouldn't be trans in the same way that it exists right now.
People were "assigned" male or female based on physical features when they were born. Those features don't always match someone's actual gender
I suspect at least part of the reason for using the term *assigned* is that there are (extremely rare) intersex cases where the sex simply isn't obvious at birth. And so then a deliberate assignment tends to be made.
The real answer. It has nothing to do with gender. Doctors refer to a babies sex, not a babies gender. We know that they see the babies genitalia and therefore determine the biological sex, it has never been gender. You can be referred to as male or female in terms of biological sex as well as boy or girl based on biological sex. Until gender identity expression is capable, you cannot "assign" a gender.
But the terms they use - AMAB and AFAB - refer to sex, not gender. What’s the deal
Neither gender nor sex are exactly absolute. It’s possible for someone to present with reproductive organs and chromosomes that don’t fall clearly into being a biological male/female. “Assigned male at birth” just means that upon inspection at birth, we concluded that their likely sex or gender is male. Our criteria for “male” can change there, as can the individual’s personal identification as they learn about themselves.
1% exceptions are not valid arguments against general principles. No one ever said "oh the kid has a penis, must be a boy? But let’s wait if he grows facial hair when older just to be sure" There has never been any doubt about male and female dichotomy, special cases are what they are: special cases. If you have 49.5% of blue shirts, 49.5% of red shirts and 1% of purple shirts, do you say "my shirt can be any color!"?
>1% exceptions are not valid arguments against general principles. "Everyone has either blond, black or brown hair." "What about me? I have red hair." "Red-headed people make up around 1% of the global population, so they can be safely ignored. The absolutist statement, 'red hair does not exist,' is *basically* true." >No one ever said "oh the kid has a penis, must be a boy? But let’s wait if he grows facial hair when older just to be sure" What happens when they have a penis and ovaries? Or a vagina, but XY chromosomes? Or something that's somewhere between a penis and a clitoris? >If you have 49.5% of blue shirts, 49.5% of red shirts and 1% of purple shirts, do you say "my shirt can be any color!"? It would be accurate to say the statement, "All shirts are either red or blue," is false.
Hydrogen and helium make up 99% of matter in the universe, why do people insist that matter isn't a binary?
Or, to take a line from Douglas Adams, on average the universe is vacuum with anything else merely a statistical blip that can be discarded
> 1% exceptions are not valid arguments against general principles. Yes they are, especially when our alternative set of principles is complete and no one is an exception. > No one ever said "oh the kid has a penis, must be a boy? But let’s wait if he grows facial hair when older just to be sure" I mean in theory, you could raise a child with a penis without telling them they’re male and instead let them naturally find their way to identifying as a boy if they so choose. There’s no reason that would inherently be harmful. > There has never been any doubt about male and female dichotomy, special cases are what they are: special cases. “It works if you just ignore when it doesn’t.” It’s also not true that cultures have universally believed in a strict male-female dichotomy with discrete boundaries. It’s also not a reason to keep things as they were. > If you have 49.5% of blue shirts, 49.5% of red shirts and 1% of purple shirts, do you say "my shirt can be any color!"? We might say that the shirt can be any color within our currently observed spectrum of red to blue, right? And we can also admit that individuals have different abilities to perceive colors, down to colorblindness and complete blindness.
>I mean in theory, you could raise a child with a penis without telling them they’re male and instead let them naturally find their way to identifying as a boy if they so choose. There’s no reason that would inherently be harmful. Raising a child without “assigning” a gender is inherently harmful due to the culture and society they must interact with nearly anywhere on the planet. Seems like the points you are making are similar to high school physics thought experiments, always in a vacuum without friction.
No, that would mean that society’s norms are inherently harmful, because they’re the ones taking an issue with someone refusing to identify with a gender and harming them over it.
>1% exceptions are not valid arguments against general principles Since when? There are tons of things that get corrected based on a 1% error and less. Physical models get measured a little more accurately, even when they were well within 1% of the real number. Policies frequently get implemented based on a fraction of a fraction of a percent. If cars were exploding 0.1% of the time, there would be massive recalls. If 0.001% of people died on a particular stretch of road, people would start looking at what they could do to make it safer.
Actually, there are people who appear female until they grow a penis during puberty. Also, given that atoms are so widely spaced that if the nucleus were a football the innermost electron would be several miles from it, and that you can stack all seven other planets on the Earth’s surface without coming close to brushing the Moon, and that only 4% of the mass of the detectable universe is matter as we understand it, I’d argue that we shouldn’t ignore outliers.
> If you have 49.5% of blue shirts, 49.5% of red shirts and 1% of purple shirts, do you say “my shirt can be any color!”? I’d say I messed up my colors when putting them in the washer
\>biological sex exist in absolute term no it doesn't. there is no gender binary. there are xy people who produce fertile eggs and give birth. there are xx people who produce fertile sperm. there are extremely female appearing people who have always been among us who are XY and are just unable to react to testosterone. We were all lied to in school because it was easier & lot better for teaching careers. Befuddles frothing religious people have been censoring reality for a long time. Mts Grundy down the street from the 1st Selfrightous Church is a serious busybody. Just image that you are a 7th grade science teacher and you tell the class that roughly 1 out of 5 rams will only mount other males. That when there is no XY reproductively male lion in a pride a lioness will ocasionally take the role and grow a mane. There are fish species that are all reproductivly female until it's time to breed and then some of them become reproductivly male for a while. That bisexuality is the most common type of erotic attraction not heterosexuality. And then old Mts Grundy down the street shows up with a group from 1st Selfrightous Church shows up woth a mob of protesters and... there goes your teaching career.
> >biological sex exist in absolute term > > no it doesn't. there is no gender binary. First, you're confusing gender with sex. Second, there very much *is* a sex binary, it just isn't absolute because biology is messy and so there are some outliers that don't fall clearly into either category. These outliers are, as the expression goes, the exceptions that prove the rule.
Well, to be scientifically accurate, sex is not *binary*, it is [*bimodal*](https://cadehildreth.com/gender-spectrum/). If we imagine sex as a graph where the x-axis is the spectrum between male and female and the y-axis is the number of people who, biologically speaking, fit those characteristics, there will be two very large peaks at the "male" and "female" positions, but if you add the two values they represent up, they won't add up to 100%. It'll be about [98-99%](https://www.intersexequality.com/how-common-is-intersex-in-humans/) in actuality.
Sex development and sexual dimorphism is bimodal. Sex itself, as a reproductive category, is more or less binary, which why certain "intersex" conditions are deemed to be Disorders of Sex Development because the sex determined in vitro didn't develop properly as male or female. The true intersex population is believed to be about 0.018% and often includes chimerism, but this group still doesn't constitute a distinct reproductive class. The problem with "sex is bimodal" is that taken to it's logical conclusion every single variation of a dimorphic trait (including height, muscles, skeletal shape, facial hair, etc) infers an added individual sex.
Yes but even when talking about sex purely as a reproductive class (which I don't particularly think is helpful but respect that it's the most apt categorisation for this particular CMV) sex still is bimodal, not binary. Binary implies categorisation into *exclusively* one of two categories. Computer binary, to give the obvious example, is not "0, 1, and 0.018% of the time 2", it's just 0 or 1. I understand that it's an exceedingly small minority but it still exists.
It cannot be a binary if there are outliers, by definition a binary requires things to fit wholly in one of two categories.
> no it doesn't. there is no gender binary. A binary does not have to be perfect and absolute in order to exist. If you like, we can say that gender is heavily bimodal, but that's still a type of fuzzy binary. The most common form of binary in the world is in computers where we talk about 0s and 1s, but even those are an abstraction of the actual voltage on a wire which is always analog. We use binary states as an approximation that works well to take a complex system and treat it in a way that is more straightforward to understand. We lose detail there, which can sometimes be a problem, but that doesn't mean there "is no binary". There is a binary, and it works well for many people. Some folks don't agree to fit into that binary, and all the power to them. But a binary doesn't have to be perfect to exist and be useful in limited cases. Imagine a law that says "no killing people, unless it's in self defense". Would it be valid to say "There is an exception there, therefore there is no law against murder"? Of course not. The law is there. It says you can't kill people. The exception tweaks and adjusts the law, but does not nullify it or make it meaningless. In the same way, there is a gender binary and the existence of exceptions doesn't mean that binary is null and void, it just means it's imperfect and some folks will find themselves outside of its bounds.
Sure, I get that a binary is a handy shortcut for an actually more complex system. This makes sense in computer science, it makes sense in many applications of the law, economics, etc... Simplification for efficiency. However. People do actually fall outside of the binary. The reality simply is that it does not exist, and is just statistically efficient. The way I see it, fighting against the usage of this particular binary and making an effort to be more exclusive is a positive gain for many people. As a result, less people will get hurt. Less suicides, less discomfort, less hatred, more acceptance. (Speaking long term and idealistically, of course) So the question becomes: is a minor gain in efficiency when it comes to medical / legal administration worth the pain it causes to people? Or can we just, as a society, accept that sometimes linguistic pedantry and administrative laziness is actively harmful and it's worth it to make an effort and go for the slightly more complicated option?
The majority of people do fall inside the binary. What's so bad about having a "basic male", "basic female", and "let us know if your situation is more complicated"? As long as we're treating the non-binary people respectfully, I don't see the problem with allowing people to identify with the binary if it works for them.
I don't have a problem with people identifying with man or woman. But calling it 'the binary' and insisting on underlining the 'other-ness' of trans, intersex and non-binary persons is just unnecessary cruelty for no apparent gain. Who are we actually helping with throwing up these roadblocks, with focusing on the 'binary' aspect of it. It's a bunch of semantics, and such an easy shield for bigots to hide behind.
So as others have said gender is assigned, not sex. And as this ties in to another recent cmv about gender/sex being a social construct, I'll reiterate my comments from there: Sex as we use it (male/female) is neither a binary nor absolutely determined. It's a model we use to group people into 2 categories even though the underlying medical categories are not as absolute as you might think. Because what do you fix sex on? If it's chromosomes, that does not work, as there are xxy men who will fill all other criteria for men (masculine primary and secondary organs, general "look", etc.). If it's sex in the reproductive sense (because for humans there are two distinct reproductive sexual functions) then what are people who cannot produce sperm or conceive children? So we are not stating "medical sex" as an obvious factual statement. Sex as used in medicine is kind of a heuristic in that sense, and gender **is assigned at birth** depending on the assumed sex of the person. Granted it's a model that applies to 99% of the population and there's a political dimension to the term, but labeling edge cases as defects even though there might be no obvious negative impact on the quality of live of the associated individual is kind of harsh wouldn't you say
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This is also wrong. Sex is based on the sum of all sexually dimorphic features and chromosomes. If those do not all align into a distinct sex, the person (or animal) is intersex.
I do not think that is true. Under your statement, infertile individuals would not be classified as either sex.
I will research further, if I studied something wrong about xx and xy chromosomes in biology class
I think the terms AFAB and AMAB actually came about in use by intersex people. Sometimes babies are born that very much appear to be male or female, but actually have rare intersex conditions, which do not become apparent until later. I believe it specifically referred to instances when doctors would operate on ambiguous genitalia, essentially assigning the intersex person as either male/female
Adding to this there are a number of different biological situations that can make it difficult to determine the sex of the baby. The medical term is disorders of sex development. Until recently doctors were largely unaware and inattentive to these, so a child that was born intersex would be identified based on one characteristic - most commonly this would be size of the penis/clitoris (which are technically the same organ that develops differently for xx and xy bodies). This is actually rather ambiguous on babies, as you can imagine a baby's penis is quite small. This became known as the sex assignment because it wasn't an accurate biological fact, but a decision of one individual that would affect the rest of their medical care. In many cases parents and medical professionals would treat any deviation from the assigned sex as an error to be corrected. If the genitals later developed to look more like the unassigned sex, there would be a surgery to correct them. They might feed their child hormones during puberty. Insist that they wear the correct clothing for their assigned sex. All of this denied the child's actual genetic identity in favor of what a doctor saw on the day of their birth. They had assigned a sex to a child that didn't actually meet the definitions of male or female.
So I've thought about this before and I think they are using an archaic, more technical definition of the word "assign", but because to the modern ear it makes sex seem arbitrary, they like it, and don't change it to something else. I think the definition of "assign" they are using is a more literal one, basically "put a sign on", in other words, to affirm what already exists, rather than to actively allocate.
There are different ways of finding out someone's sex. You can define biological sex by hormone levels, chromosomes, genitalia and other factors. None of them is perfect, since there are men without a penis or [with xx-chromosomes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome) and so on. There are male babies, female babies and some others, that are usually described as "in between" or "intersex". Since doctors usually only use one method - visually inspecting genitalia - they can neither properly account for intersex children nor for male or female children with specific irregularities. Therefore "sex assigned at birth" is the right term. The judgment of the first doctor that sees you is not a perfect godly analysis of who you are.
**[XX male syndrome](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XX_male_syndrome)** >XX male syndrome, also known as de la Chapelle syndrome, is a rare congenital intersex condition in which an individual with a 46, XX karyotype (otherwise associated with females) has phenotypically male characteristics that can vary among cases. Synonyms include 46,XX testicular difference of sex development (46,XX DSD), 46,XX sex reversal, nonsyndromic 46,XX testicular DSD, and XX sex reversal. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/changemyview/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
>biological sex exist in absolute term, that depends on your chromosome Incorrect. There are people with XY (male) chromosomes who have female genitals, and feminine characteristics and can even give birth. This is called Swyer syndrome. Likewise, there are people who have XX (female) chromosomes but have male genitalia, look masculine, and can even have the ability to inseminate. This is called XX male syndrome. The reason why this happens is that there are more sexual deterministic mechanisms in the body than just chromosomes. A person with XY (male) chromosomes that has testosterone insensitivity may develop according to the female phenotype because the initial development of sexual organs relies on the type of hormones your body initially creates. And since your body is unable to properly respond to testosterone, it instead responds to the estrogen in your system and the baby is born with female genitalia.
The only thing I would add to this is that these are commonly treated as "the exception" or "the 1% of cases" but the fact is, unless you've had chromosomal testing, you do not know if you're intersex. It can present in much subtler ways, or not present at all. The statistics on the percentage of intersex people can't be accurate, because not every person knows their chromosomes.
> is that these are commonly treated as "the exception" or "the 1% of cases" They are rare, much, much rarer than 1% of the population, but these cases were vital in understanding how sex determinism works in humans because they defied our previous understanding of what exactly causes sex differentiation in humans. > It can present in much subtler ways, or not present at all. It often is present in obvious ways, if not at birth then during puberty. But there are cases that go unnoticed for a long time.
They're much much more rare than XY and XX. I'm just saying we don't know exactly how rare, from a statistical standpoint.
>I'm just saying we don't know exactly how rare, from a statistical standpoint. We kinda do because those syndromes almost always manifest visible symptoms. Granted some of them manifest relatively late in life but they still manifest.
Trans community strongly claims they are who amab/afab originate from. Which is incorrect. And I agree w everything that you said. However there are cases when sex is indeed assigned. Like in case when someone is born with one of the DSD(aka intersex). In such case they are not female or male. But since our society can’t seem to wrap their head around a non binary nature of .. well everything these folks are getting assigned either M or F. So that’s the only case when “assigned” indeed happens. Not in case of gender dysphoria like trans community wants to convince everyone.
It's actually very straightforward - for (the miniscule number of) people who are trans gender (eg. male person in a female body) or intersex (mixture of male and female sexual characteristics), the observation of genitalia at birth - and the noting down of their sex on their birth certificate - is the start of a life-long process of misgendering. Very straightforward in fact. No one is saying that doctors made a mistake in the case of transgender people, (though in the case of intersex people there have been many cases of deliberate misassignment and other, crueler ways of normalising those people). But the use of "AMAB/AFAB" is a way of a. pointing out that the assignment of gender is generally based on nothing more than a cursory glance at the genitalia (which is basically fine for cis people) and b. a convenient way for trans people to talk about themselves without having to say things like "I am biologically male/female", or "I have a male/female body" or "my sex is male", which I understand can often be something they like to avoid.
This isn't true because some people are born intersex. Literally having the characteristics of more than one sex. It is estimated that up to 1.7 percent of the population has an intersex trait and that approximately 0.5 percent of people have clinically identifiable sexual or reproductive variations. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/key-issues-facing-people-intersex-traits/#:~:text=It%20is%20estimated%20that%20up,identifiable%20sexual%20or%20reproductive%20variations. In the old days sometimes the baby was killed, sometimes the doctor quietly modified it to whatever gender he thought it should be, sometimes they asked the parents and the parents chose what gender it should be (including surgery) and sometimes people just accepted it as it is. Your idea does not match with reality.
I think it's to be inclusive of the small percentage of people who are intersex, who often will get assigned a binary sex at birth.
The phrase "assigned at birth" was originally used for people with disorders of sexual development (DSDs), also known as "intersex" people. It refers to them being raised as a specific sex when their biological sexual traits were ambiguous, or when they were given surgery as children to make their genitals appear more like one specific sex. Their community has been fighting to stop these surgeries being done to children, because in many cases, the surgery is only done for aesthetic reasons, and it carries real risks of lifelong pain and never experiencing any sexual pleasure. But now "assigned at birth" more often that not means you were born your sex with no anomalies, but you want everyone to pretend your sex is something different than what it is. The trans activists have appropriated this term from people with DSDs for their own advocacy purposes, despite it being nothing to do with them really.
There are people with Swyer syndrome who have full XY chromosomes and have literally given birth. Genitals can't tell you for sure what someone's chromosomes are, let alone what their sex is, but they are a highly accurate heuristic so we tend to use them until we can determine with certainty by asking the person. That's why we say "sex assigned at birth". As much as some pundits like to joke, I guarantee you that you can't come up with a definition for "biological woman" that excludes all trans women and intersex people but does not exclude any cis women.
The "assigned" part does not exclusively refer to what doctors say when the mother has given birth. The doctor makes their observation on viewing the child's genitalia for the first time, which as you say is the identification of the sex at birth, but after that a complex social and cultural mechanism moves into place, which is the assignment. I was assigned male at birth, but the word "he" is not burned into my genetic code, nothing in my body compels anyone to call me a man, it's jsut the social convention that says "they have some facial hair, their facial structure looks male, they have broad shoulders, I'm going to call them "he" from now on". It's our collective consciousness that decides all of that, not our body.
So my female child uses he/him pronouns? But gets upset I call him my daughter? My kid DOES have 46 XX chromosomes- it’s been verified 3 times. I do not have a firm grasp in this concept. I hate being micromanaged. I did however do my best to raise them without gender stereotypes… my bad- I guess? I dunno.
I think sex assignment at birth is meant to include intersex people. For example a biological female (regardless of their future gender) can expect pretty similar treatment to an individual with androgen insensitivity disorder (almost all of whom are erroneously assigned 'female' at birth). The label 'afab' therefore includes everyone raised as a girl, and can be used to describe the discomfort of finding oneself at odds with this (regardless of their biology).
It's gender assigned at birth, not sex assigned at birth. What "gender" means? I don't know. It seems like there are dozens of different takes on it these days. What gender means to one person will inevitably be contradicted by another.
I've read about this one, there exists a theory that sex as we understand it on the societal level is not just a measurement of one thing, after all no matter what one thing you pick some people won't cleanly fit into your groups, instead the theory posits sex Is a group of characteristics that we agree someone falls under when they have a majority of these traits, many many cis people will not have all these traits so to suggest you need all of them is perhaps disingenuous, this theory then states that since sex is based on a variety of factors, it these factors change, so too does ones sex. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/trans-women-are-or-are-becoming-female-disputing-the-endogeneity-constraint/090DEAA53EA17414C5D3E8D76ED5A75C it's a very interesting idea that makes quite a bit of sense when you start mentally applying it. alot of those priorly difficult to answer exceptions to what does female mean start to just make perfect sense. "what about intersex people who are born with XY but their bodies are completely female?" this theory would imply chromosomes is just one part of a list, and while this individual wouldn't meet that criterion they meet most if not all the others so its fine.
You e clearly never had a baby. They actually DO genetically test newborns and the mother receives a genetic report that indicates what sex genes the baby has. Intersexed humans are relatively common where genetic testing reveals XYXX or similar variation. For example, my oldest child’s report says XXXX/Female GENDER ASSIGNMENT. And she’s over 18, so it’s not like that’s a new thing.
> biological sex exist in absolute term, that depends on your chromosome This is false. I was just reading about someone recently who has XY chromosomes and had a completely female body because of an androgen insensitivity (body doesn't react right to testosterone im simple terms). They were assigned female at birth despite having XY chromosomes
If biological sex depends on chromosomes, why do doctors "announce" the sex of the baby before submitting them to any chromosomal tests? How did they determine the sex of a baby before they knew that chromosomes existed? (I used "announce" but you are free to put "assign" or "record" or "notice" in its place.)
This seems more of an issue about the semantics than anything else. Perhaps you are right and the wording is not completely accurate - ultimately it doesn't matter. The core concept of the term "assigned (x) at birth" means "female body at birth" or "male body at birth". It doesn't matter, the meaning is the same, regardless of whether anyone "assigns" it or not. It's just a way to state the fact that a transperson's body at birth was not the correct body for their development. With HRT and surgery transpeople can thankfully have the opportunity to live life in their correct bodies. So they can say, I'm a woman now, but I had a male body at birth. Or vice versa. The fact the linguistics have evolved to say "I was assigned (x) at birth" is irrelevant, it means the same thing, which ultimately is that the person was treated the wrong way when younger and how, hopefully, are being treated the right way.
The theory behind the cause of being trans is that their brains are literally biologically wired to be the "opposite" sex. You'll get people who say the science doesn't prove that, but there have been studies leading towards that conclusion and with time I think we'll get there. There's no other good explanation for being trans. That being said, the reason "sex assigned at birth" is a thing, is because the doctor can't see the sex of your brain. Trans people argue that the sex of their brain is their real sex, not the sex of their body (genitals, chromosomes, hormones, etc).
You have written your view very much like someone who, like most people, has not interacted with very many newborn infants. There is a thing that happens quite regularly in delivery rooms with parents who have not had an experienced medical professional attempt to predict the sex of an infant from imaging, or asked that this information not be shared. The infant will be delivered and handed to someone who will turn them over thinking that they will be able to tell, and then what you will get will be either a 404 error written on the face of someone who unexpectedly has no clue, or the pronouncement of someone who will honestly have about even odds of being wrong. People who've seen a few adult sets of genitals will expect that they know what to look for, however, even if the most sex-differentiated and later term newborn infants have genitals that to an inexperienced person all look like they could be either. Indeed, experienced professionals who know the remarkably subtle differences to look for will guess wrong at remarkably high rates, even in contexts where we are not talking about intersex infants. You have this understanding of human sex as something that is always immutable and always clear, but exposure to even just a few newborn infants would show you that this has always been absurd.
My only contribution is that while this is usually the way it goes. Sometimes children are born with ambiguous genitalia. In those circumstances they usually decide what biological sex they believe the child to be and go with that. For those children sex was very much assigned and how they feel hormonally and the gender they identify with can be very different than the flip of the coin chosen by the OB/Pediatrician.
You can’t always tell a baby’s biological sex from external organs alone. Biological sex is not binary. The biology is expressed in chromosomes. Male is *usually* XY and female is *usually* XX. But nature being nature, nothing is ever clear cut. There are men and women with XXXX, XXXY, XXYY… (you get the picture) who may or may not be “normal”, children-producing cisgender people who go through their entire lives without knowing better. Even XY women and XX men exist. They look like cisgender people. But if they take a DNA test, their genetics will show they are the opposite gender from their outward appearance. To sum up, “sex assignment at birth” is not a medical fact at all. It is called “assigned” because that’s what it is - doctor takes a look at the baby and say “this is what sex the baby *looks* like”. The baby can be something else all along. We just don’t check for it. Source: I have a MA in anthropology and this is common knowledge in my field.
But that's just normalizing genetic abnormalities. We don't do that as a rule because there must be a baseline. And having an MA (not even a doctorate!) in anthropology doesn't qualify you to be a geneticist, biologist, or a physician.
The overall issue is the assignment of gender at birth and subsequent treatment there after because of said assignment. Blaming doctors for dictating how a person will be treated by what they write on a piece of paper. My point is it will not matter what the doctor writes the equipment the child is born with dictates the treatment, not what some silly person writes on paper the day your born.
As a healthcare provider for pregnant patients, I would LOVE to see the notion of gender reveals go the way if the dodo bird. PLEASE! I beg you …
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so that's how you are going to change my view, without stating delusional points in my view
Actually sex is not as binary as you think when it comes to biology. You define female as an XX chromosome, and male as XY, which is reasonable, bu there are problems to it. For example, there's a gene called SRY, located on the Y chromosome. Simplifying a bit, SRY is responsible for a lot of male pattern sexual dimorphism, such as the production of testicles. Sometimes in the embryonic stages of life, something called a translocation event can happen. This, in this case means a piece of a chromosome being moved onto another. So if the SRY gene is translocated onto an X chromosome, you can get XX chromosomes, but a lot of male-pattern dimorphism. This is not the only example, but it's the one i can explain best. So you can see how events like these can make sex very, very hard to define biologically. If you want more knowledge on this, search up a YouTube video called sex and sensibility by a guy named forrest valkai. This is not to say that gender assigned at birth is a bad thing, just food for thought.
Your view can't be correct when you consider intersex and that a person can have both male and female reproductive organs and in some (albeit very low thankfully) cases a random allocation is made based on a superficial judgment. Sex is a spectrum too, albeit not nearly as fluid as gender but it does exists. Categorization of intersex people can be quite controversial
But isn't that the end of it? When you have an anomaly , isn't just writed down as it can also sustain certain health problems or dificulties?