How to respond: been asked what sex I was assigned at birth

I haveacat, it has ten kittens. At some point I will turn those kittens over and check to see what genitalia they have, which is a result of their biological sex. Their biological sex will have been determined in the mother's womb early on in pregnancy, as a result of genetics.

So I turn the kittens over and I realise, the rare 5 male and 5 female.

And that is literally the end of the story.

The end.

It honestly blows my mind how you could go through life for so long and not understand the basic mechanism of mammalian reproduction. HOW? even if you were15 years old and venturing into the deep waters of Mumsnet, you still must have had biology lessons,.or a faint understanding of how babies are made.

BIOLOGY. SEXUAL DIMORPHISM. REPRODUCTION. Look these things up. (ps. absolutely no mention of essences, anywhere)

hahahah THIS user was talking about 'essences' in another thread absolutely bonkers.

@Peasandsweetcorns do you think gender critical people believe in a gender essence that comes from sex?
That's what the trans rights activists think and why they believe they are trans, because they don't match gender stereotypes.
Gender critical doesn't believe your sex has any bearing on your personality or essence, purely testosterone linked male sexual behaviour. No stereotypes required. No essence. Just a mass of individuals with varying personalities and interests who can fulfil almost any role, who also happen to have one or another type of body.

No matching of anything is required because your body is just there, you are you and don't know how anyone else feels either.
I guess in your tra language all gc feminists are definitely non binary because we absolutely do not believe in gender.

@LaughingCat: "I’m asking what, given the potential for variations in genetic or phenotypic sex, it is exactly that determines the differences between interpreting male and female test results"

Practically all the supposed confusion about sex determination arises from the confusion of 'sex' with 'genitalia'. In more than 90% of people, the two things match. Some people are born with malformed genitals, just as some are born with malformed faces (cleft palate is a common deformity), hole in the heart, or an abnormal number of fingers & toes.

There are many possible developmental glitches, but none of them change the body's sex. It's the second most fundamental thing about us, after species. Every cell in your body is sexed. The sex of our cells determines a lot more than the physical layout of our bodies: it affects our entire body chemistry.

A Y chromosome can be detected in a blood sample by a simple, one-step test. If there is a Y chromosome, the sample is male.

Whether a person has the full reproductive capacity of their sex is a different question. If they don't, they have some sort of injury or developmental abnormality - reproduction is an outcome of sex, not the determinant. Their abnormality might make them look like the other sex, and even have most of the reproductive equipment, but no male person produces eggs; no female person produces sperm.

Anyway, as far as blood sampling for general health purposes goes, the question of sex has nothing at all to do with the subject's reproductive organs. It's a simple matter of whether their cells have a Y chromosome or not.

I have some questions for those of you on this thread who believe that babies don’t have a sex until the day (or perhaps minute it’s born, I don’t know your exact belief ).

What do you say when a pregnant friend / colleague says “ We’ve just found out we are expecting / having a boy / girl ! “?

Do you explain to them that they are not, that their baby’s has not been “ assigned a sex “? How do they react ?

If you think the baby is not male or female, do you thinks its neutral in some way ? how do you believe it changes at the moment of birth and who makes that change happen ?

What about babies who sadly are still born ( so they die before they are born )? Do you beloved they never become male/ female as they were never born ? What do you think happens to the male / female essences that were flying around the universe that would have been assigned to the baby but were not ?

Im always wondered about these religious beliefs but I’ve never found so many of you in one place at once, so I’m hoping someone can explain.

No medical professional had any input into my children’s birth certificates. Is there any other document that recorded their “legal” (i.e. their actual, observed) sex?

Let us know who these numpties are so we can avoid.

Note: @Peasandsweetcorns is also pushing this nonsensical line about essences on other threads

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4992043-confused-on-the-concept-of-non-binary

assigning the legal sex category.

The "sex category" isn't an arbitrary bit of bureaucracy.

It's a reflection of what actually IS.

Do you think the time of birth is also "assigned"? Or is it simply a recording of fact?

The only way you’d be observing a baby’s legal sex category would be if it came with a sticker saying M or F, lol. Otherwise you’re observing sex characteristics and then assigning the legal sex category.

Essence????????????????????????????

You work in healthcare communication and don't know the difference between "assigned" and "observed"?

So many of us believe in male and female essences? Really?!

I only have to talk about them because so many of you believe in them! lol

Essence 😂

This is right.

The difficulty some of you have is that you believe signs of a male or female essence are being observed, and that people are absolutely male or female “really” because they either have the relevant essence or they don’t, and that that is what legal sex categories are.

That’s not reality though. The reality is as DadJoke described. Characteristics are observed, and a legal sex category is assigned. That’s why it’s referred to as a category assigned at birth, rather than a category observed at birth.

Exactly as the last posters have said. If a DSD is noted then further tests are carried out to establish the sex (of which there are only 2 - male or female). This questionnaire isn’t asking whether you were (incorrectly) assigned a sex at birth which was corrected later.

It’s this kind of inaccurate, ambiguous and confusing language that results in the kind of errors we saw from the ONS a couple of years back.

yeah, it's stupid.

this language, "... assigned at birth..." has been appropriated from discussion of people with DSD's, but is absolutely the wrong thing to use here. for those exceptionally rare instances whereby a person's sex is indeed wrongly assigned at birth and subsequently cleared up , the questionnaire here isn't at all interested in the initial incorrect assignation, what they want from respondents is their real, inescapable, factual, sex.

What’s with this thread? It’s like being in the 80’s.
Assigned at birth is incorrect and we shouldn’t have to collude with inaccurate and potentially dangerous language. OP is correct to challenge it.
do people on this thread really actually think that OP is confused by the term or the difference between sex and gender??

No, it’s not ‘wrong’ for people with DSDs. If their sex is ambiguous, further tests are done. The idea that they just pluck a sex out of the air is highly offensive to people with DSDs and serves to other them. Someone close to me has a DSD and this whole “assigning” crap has caused them a lot of upset.

No, it’s stealing the language of people with DSDs who are sometimes ‘assigned a sex’.

Sex is determined at conception, usually clear on ultrasounds and merely confirmed at birth. Transgender people also have a sex. Looks like you’re conflating sex and gender, which is transphobic.

They observe the baby and assign it a legal sex based on its observable characteristics. Sometimes it is wrong, particularly in the case of people with certain DSDs, It's a legal process.