Assigned Female at Birth - AFAB

[ShugarTits]

AIBU to get the actual rage every time I see this written down? Often in reputable sources.

Obviously this has come about due to people differentiating between gender and sex - I understand needing clarity between those two when talking to or questioning people.

but every single bloody time I read it I can only think of the horrific female infanticide statistics. AIBU to think ‘assigned female at birth’ is fucking offensive to women, as so many of us are killed at birth ONLY because we are female. Nobody assigned those infants a female sex, they didn’t just randomly pick half of the babies and murder them.

can’t we agree as a society to call out AFAB and AMAB as being horrific and change it? Happy to hear alternatives. Observed female/male at birth sounds reasonable to me if you need to specify birth sex vs gender.

That poster said she was fine with religious ideology preventing people from entering certain spaces, then brings in the element of causing harm

I did not, I said the harms of trans ideology in the removal of single sex spaces, is more likely to impact on religious minority women when specifically asked if i cared about other minority groups. I also raised autistic young people and sexual abuse victims , but note that Dutch has not picked up on that.

So please stop lying @Dutchairfryer .

But to be clear trans ideology harms women generally, and children.

Out of interest - I know transphobes aren't all religious, but for those of you who are - God is referred to repeatedly in the Bible as a male, but has no corporeal body. Why is there an absolute conviction that god is male normal among people who believe that gender is always and only determined by biology?

And make it very clear what you are choosing to do to your body

@HighonCatnip unfortunately the term has been hijacked by the gender cult. This identity cult is crammed full of lonely, scared confused MRA's and many woman hating misogynists. In amongst the autistic females, gay males with internalised homophobia and some fetishists there are a very small amount of genuine intersex people. The problematic dominant element are keen to radicalise others and twisting the truth to make it a hate crime to describe truth. So, it's very very important that young people understand the Patriarchal forces in the world, for women and girls we must insist on truth and not allow the understanding of this damage to be lessened. Female or male babies are born with a tiny number of ambiguous sexed babies.

<Transphobes metaphorically screaming into the faces of trans women> YOU'RE A MAN! YOU'RE A MAN! YOU'RE A MAN!

That's what Mumsnet's for. Do you feel better now?

Trans people decide that their 'gender' ( in air quotes because I don't believe in gender) doesn't match their sex. Ok, fine. You have to believe in sex for it not to match your innate sense of self in the first place, but let's let that go.

The bit I find weird is that it needed/became "assigned" as a term at all. What was wrong with "observed" if you're going to at a later date decide that it doesn't represent you? What does 'assign' have that 'observed' doesn't if it's all mutable anyway?

Using "Assigned" makes it sound like the midwife looked into your soul at birth and said "Aha! For upon turning 15 they shall like purple hair dye and Anime! I assign them.... Male!"

It's not the fucking Sorting Hat, however much they want it to be.

Yet here you are.

Because some language is inaccessible and inaccurate?

I think some people prefer accurate sex based language, not gender ideology

Religious leanings are one thing but believing in pretend facts is scientifically bizarre. Hence, men are not female and vice versa, cats are not dogs, the tooth fairy doesn't exist but in the myth the tooth fairy is a female. I'm sure plenty MRA's would love the opportunity to embed further untruths in any way possible, sex clown/drag 'queen' nursery story time brainwash anyone?

Shaktism specifically believes God to be a woman.

The trinity in Western culture regards God as male because Jesus is God's corporeal form and I'm pretty sure that it's accepted that he was a man.

I haven't read the whole thread, but it's obviously nonsense.

I wonder why the medical profession are objecting to this kind of fuckwittery. Surely they hold their expertise in higher regard than this.

Well this wouldn't be required if 'transwomen' weren't claiming women's spaces and services and asking to be treated the same as biological women. It's all on them.

But the only way a person can be a trans woman is by being a man.

That the truth is 'transphobic' is not the fault of women.

Perhaps if trans women respected that women need single sex spaces for safety and dignity and stopped demanding access then we wouldn't need to point out the bleeding obvious.

Ex midwife here, I never assigned sex at birth. They were born male or female....thats it.

It's a boy or a girl. Apart from v v rare intersex births. Never saw one in 20 years.

FACTS! FACTS! FACTS!

Imagination, feelings, identity are as nothing. They're irrelevant to our sense of ourselves and the way we move through the world, at least according to the multitudes of angry Gradgrinds here on Mumsnet, most of whom have never met a trans person but are practically incontinent with anger at the thought of their existence, or of anyone actually accepting trans people on their own terms.

That the truth is 'transphobic' is not the fault of women.

Exactly. It's reality that these people have an issue with. Don't shoot those of us who refuse to deny basic facts.

Quit all the DRAMA we're all sick of it.

People can express themselves however they want and no one is objecting to anyone else's existence.

Just stay out of spaces that don't belong to you. Very simple.

You sound like a toddler having a tantrum.

I'm not angry at the existence of trans people.

I'm angry that their demands to be treated in all circumstances as the opposite sex harms women.

I am angry that transactivist say that pointing this out makes a woman a transphobe.

Perhaps if trans women could use their imaginations better they could come up with solutions to their identities that didn't involve women and children being collateral damage. Because women are not acceptable collateral damage and the days of silencing us over it are over.

Enough damage to women and children has been done.

@TheKeatingFive you and I keep cross posting.

You are right, it is so dramatic.

Perhaps if the trans community showed even a modicum of concern over the fact that women and children are being harmed we could have a sensible conversation about this.

But it's all about them. As ever.

Exactly

@Dutchairfryer

I completely understand the OPs point and since you don’t will have a go at explaining.

The concept that sex is assigned by a doctor at north suggests that your sex is chosen for you by someone else.

Since women have been discriminated against in the basis of sex for the last several millennia (in the context of the western world) then the notion of being ‘assigned’ a sex at birth suggests that someone else is putting you into a disadvantaged grouping based on their own observations and not because of inherently who you are. Female infanticide is often based in the value of female infants in that society (often low because girls are seen as costly and a poor investment for the family vs boys). This is sex based oppression. You rightly point out that these societies do not recognise different gender expressions but have not carried that through to understand that gender expression and sex are two separate things.

The suggestion is that any woman at any time can identify out of her oppression by simply choosing not to identify as a woman.

This then suggests that women are identifying into their own oppression- essentially buying into the limitations society places on them.

It is victim blaming at its worst. Being born female and then expressing your gender outside of the narrow confines of social gender norms does not make your any less female. It doesn’t stop you from being raped, or getting pregnant, dying in childbirth, being treated as crazy for having hormone problems or from getting breast, uterine or cervical cancer. The idea that it does is stupid and dangerous and wishful thinking.

I suspect many women would like to opt out of those things but that’s not how bodies or reality works. And it is ultimate in luxury, priviledged thinking to suggest that it could. I’m sure the child brides of Yemen would love the freedom to identify out of their forced marriages.

My point is that the whole concept of "assigned at birth" is ridiculous and is part of a recent ideological movement that is extremely harmful to women and children. Sex is immutable and cannot be assigned or changed. The vast majority of people know this.

You put it so much better than me. Hopefully you won't get a sarcastic reply.

Until you can show me how a form giving an option for AFAB or AMAB has harmed women I’ll just let you shout into the sky