To believe that sex is not 'assigned' at birth, but observed?

[Splandy]

I filled in a form for British gymnastics yesterday and was asked whether my child's gender identity matches the sex he was assigned at birth. I started a thread about this elsewhere and other people said that they have also had this question on forms. Upon asking, one person was told that it is a result of new government regulations coming in, meaning they have to ask it.

Does anybody know what these regulations are? Is there anybody who genuinely believes that sex is assigned at birth rather than observed? If so, could you explain why? I am very concerned that something so clearly untrue is being slipped in under the radar. There was no option to disagree with the question and any answer implied that I agree with what the question states: that sex is assigned at birth.

Would be especially interesting to hear from midwives/doctors.

To clarify, I am talking about your biological sex. Not gender.

hhhmmm - I hope I never have to fill in one of these forms. In fact gender is assigned at birth and it can be an absolute nightmare for those parents who do not have a baby's gender assigned at birth. My DS' gender was not as although he had a penis, he did not have two testicles in place and neither were they palpable. Upon leaving the hospital we were told (after having announced birth of baby son) that oh, we couldn't register his birth as his gender would have to be confirmed after blood tests which checked his cromozones (sp?). This took two weeks and it was hell. I thankfully have never seen the question and if I do, I will ignore it rather than have to put DS/me through possible questioning and any further tests. Awful

messy if estimates of intersex run at 2%, then by the law of averages you must have seen some intersex babies, even if you didn't know it at the time.

If it was as common as all that, there would surely be many mothers here on MN who were originally told they were boys, as their vulvas had been mistaken for penises. It would be much harder to sit our children down and explain what was going to happen to their bodies at age 11 or 12. Lots of surprise periods and inexplicable erections.

Those things do happen, but they aren't common, and they certainly aren't what is driving the 'assigned at birth' questioning. The trans lobby is piggybacking on people with biological intersex conditions.

AcademicOwl, in your examples. Let's say a child in the OP's gym class is a girl - but with a biological intersex condition that means the girl's uniform will cause her discomfort.

There's another boy who wants to be a butterfly, in the show where the girls dress as butterflies and the boys dress as dragonflies. But the issue here is not that this child is therefore a girl, and was wrongly 'assigned at birth. The issue is - why the hell should little kids be shoved into boxes anyway? Let butterflies be butterflies. Same goes for pommel horse versus dancing.

All children would be better served by comfortable, non-gendered clothes and activities. In a sporting context, after a certain age, the activities need to be separated by sex, and that will be impossible if we lose all notion of biology.

Intersex is an umbrella term. The most common intersex conditions are a micro penis and the urethra in the wrong place on a penis. Unclear genitalia is incredibly rare.

Intersex at 2% includes people with very minor conditions - fertile XY men with low testosterone and such like.

I think Disorders of Sexual Development is used more than intersex now which is a more descriptive term than intersex. People who have Disorders of Sexual Development are still male or female. (I think there might occasionally be cases of true hermaphrodites but these are even more rare).

I believe people who have one of these conditions don't like their conditions being conflated with trans issues because they are completely different.

Leaving aside those who are born intersex, this whole thing is beyond absurd. You aren't assigned a sex at birth, your sex is either male or female. The doctors can't choose which sex to give you, they observe.

I was born with bright blue eyes. Nobody assigned them as blue at birth, they were blue. (And still are).

No they don't. Here's a post from reddit:

'Hi there, I'm a 24 year old SWYER woman - the usual, xy, (removed) gonads, born outwardly female, need E for periods, etc. and find a lot of trouble in accepting that I will be used as some kind of trump card when it comes to toxic political discourse pertaining to trans issues. Friends seem to think that because they know me they can use all of intersex kind to be their scapegoat in these discussions - like the age old, "I'm not racist, my friend is black!" sort of thing. It will usually go both ways, either someone transphobic will use the existence of our relationship to negate acknowledgment, or someone overly outspoken on trans issues will use me to validate some argument against more gender critical ideas. I feel really undermined as a human being when stuff like this happens. I'm more than my intersex condition, and don't like being used as the token in their little games.
I know I can't ask them to stop, I have and it's been labeled a, "matter of principal." It's not the direction of the politics itself, (left or right,) that bothers me, moreso it's the use at all.
ps. recently someone much younger than I (don't know if that matters) found out about me and sent this really nasty note in my inbox: "you could be so much more, why would you identify with the enemy? You're a self appointed oppressor." I assume it's about calling myself cis, and acknowledging that my intersex condition IS a condition, and that's not relative to my gender identity... '

'EDIT: and toxic political trans issues as in yelling and calling each other out, "kill yourself," from both sides -- basically anything that can result in "youre a tranny/youre a terf - suck a dick and kill yourself, I'm more of a woman than you'll ever be because I try/you have to try because you're NOT a woman nana nana boo boo. etc" identity politics reliant vile toxicity. It's not specifically a "trans" thing, but it's so overwhelmingly everywhere in some trans* forums -'

'My intersex condition is more of a birth defect than anything to do with gender to me. I don't understand "feeling," gender if that makes sense? I've contemplated it, questioned it, but never really cemented my thoughts anywhere between/outside of masc/fem. Obviously I view my behavior as gendered, and I act out feminine gender roles (I'm miss femmy USA,) but the idea that I could "feel" female or intersex or male is foreign. Even the way gender fluid people describe gender is off to me, "can be male or female or a mix or neither..." I just... think? I have thoughts and feelings that feel baseline? I'm sad, but not, like.. "girl sad," or "boy sad." Being XY female does make me wonder if my experiences with gender are different from typical XX women, but everyone's experience in gender is different so I don't sweat it. To have something I see as a birth defect compared to anything to do with trans issues feels strange - like some kind of insult to either party depending on the issue. Trans people and intersex people may go through a lot of similar things (HRT, assignment of sex before conscious rebuttal, perception mishaps, etc) but in my head it feels like these things play out so much differently. I have to take estrogen to get my period, and to have gone through puberty - a transwoman may take estrogen and other HRT hormones to "correct" the outside to match the inside. I feel a very medically sterile way towards anything to do with my condition, whereas a transgirl may cry when receiving her HRT scripts. The attitude feels off. I am not trans, so I can't assume to know what gender means to a trans person, but to me gender is just people saying they think "like a man/woman." I can't say I'm agender either, because I never realized an absence of gendered thinking, I just never thought it existed until I got sucked into an LGBT circle during some dumb argument I was forcefully included in, and made to question the way I view the world, "as an intersex person." I don't know what that means. I'm just intersex, like someone might be diabetic.'

If this is now how forms are, then it's only appropriate there is also a category asking for 'race assigned at birth' and 'race identified as.'

No I am not their gender is female, they got assaigned the wrong sex which doctors are now correcting and will update the birthcert. It's call transsexual for a reason they are correct the wrong assigned sex

yes you are. You saying their gender is female and they got assigned the wrong sex at birth.
But they did not, the person you are referring to was born MALE. They are still male. They have a penis and XY chromosomes. They were correctly determined to be a biological male.

they may have decided they are now female in gender, however their sex is still male and always will be.

messy if estimates of intersex run at 2%, then by the law of averages you must have seen some intersex babies, even if you didn't know it at the time

As pp said, that number of 2% includes very minor conditions. True intersex, with ambiguous genitalia etc is a lot less than 2%. which I am sure you know.

"The most common intersex conditions are a micro penis and the urethra in the wrong place on a penis." I want to pick up on this claim brasty made, because it illustrates the extent to which issues of biology become politicised. I have a young male relative with hypospadias (urethra opening in the wrong place). Men with hypospadias are phenotypically male (they have a functioning, albeit slightly visually unusual penis) and (depending on severity) are generally capable of all the things you'd expect a phenotypically male body to be capable off (barring peeing standing up). They are genomically XY, and can father children. Until recently it was seen as a cosmetic birth defect, rather than "intersex", but now there's considerable pressure to expand the boundaries of what is counted as intersex to encompass men with hypospadias. I think this political pressure is coming from the trans community rather than people with intersex conditions.

(NB the pressure to expand the boundaries seems never-ending: I've even seen some online trans rights activists claim that PCOS, which probably over 20% of natal females have to some degree, is an intersex condition because it typically goes along with very mildly raised testosterone levels, albeit nowhere even close to typical male levels).

The re-interpretation and misinterpretation of biology seems to be part and parcel of a political movement which trades in spreading huge amounts of disinformation and confusion.

My Grandchild's genitalia were / are ambiguous. A blood test on my daughter in pregnancy confirmed the sex the child was / is. Surely a person is either male or female according to chromosomes?

Surely a person is either male or female according to chromosomes?

There are women with XY chromosomes who can give birth to children, so it's far from clear what male or female actually means at a chromosomal level.

The government poorly words most things. All the question is asking whether the child has had a sex change/was incorrectly 'observed' at birth.

PricklyBall Yes these boys/men are clearly male. And agree pressure is coming from Trans community. Because it is only by including fairly common conditions like this that they get the rate of intersex up to 2%. It is abominable really.

SonyaY Hey ho so be it. TBH I've got many more important issues to worry about than being accused of being transphobic so won't lose any sleep over it

SonyaY I think almost everyone here with have a lot of sympathy for both you and your child, and wish you all the best - but do you not know that a lot of current trans activism is really, really homophobic?

That woman on reddit sounds so upset and frustrated at having her physical condition co-opted to justify political agendas.

If there is confusion and no obvious male or female genitals at birth. then it's just a chromosome test XX or XY, so it cannot be assigned. It's science.

I was born with bright blue eyes. Nobody assigned them as blue at birth, they were blue. (And still are).
Its a good thing nobody assigned them as blue at birth, since many brown/green/grey/hazel eyed people also had blue eyes at birth. Only theirs did change ;)
Its a good thing its not a required detail on birth certs.

"If there is confusion and no obvious male or female genitals at birth. then it's just a chromosome test XX or XY, so it cannot be assigned. It's science."

Read the fucking thread. It is not a matter merely of chromosomes but also specific genes.

Ah I understand thank you for explaining.

Yeah OP you are right YANBU

So Sonya let me get this right

You gave birth to a child that was said to be male. He had a penis and XY chromosomes. Scientifically male.

More than likely brought up as a boy too yes?

Then as he got older, he realised he was "in the wrong body" and should have been female all along. That they were born female and the doctor wrote the wrong thing on their birth certificate.

If this is true, this is wrong.

You child is and has always been biologically male. However if he believes he should be a she, fine go ahead and support them, but don't encourage them to see their penis as a clitoris.