Gender assigned at birth

[Ketchup100]

Just applied for dd’s 11+ and the online form asked what was my child’s “gender assigned at birth”. AIBU to find this insulting both to my intelligence and to my daughter? She was not assigned a gender at birth. She is biologically female whether or not she chooses to currently follow any particular gender stereotype. Nobody said at her birth “congratulations, your child will like pink and wear makeup”. They simply looked at her genitals and declared that she was (biologically) female, which she is and will always be.

I read this as accepting trans men which would make sense.
Now I've clocked my mistake I'd be bloody furious with this. What a shitshow the civil service has become.

There is an issue.

My work equalities monitoring form for example - it asks for gender, which could be agender or non-binary - then asks if sex assigned at birth is different to gender identity. This means we cannot monitor sex accurately. If someone refuses to answer the gender identity question, or identifies as a non-binary gender, the sex question becomes meaningless.

Well I am old but this person is half my age. I didn't want to ask questions as none of my business but when they referred to ambiguous genitalia and surgical options I thought it must mean the outcome of surgery would be better if one sex was chosen rather than the other. In this case it seems like they made the wrong choice.

My point was that there are people walking round who were assigned a sex at birth. I did say I assumed it was rare but it is potentially a big issue for the individual concerned.

My son is an adult now, He has severe learning disabilities and is non verbal, very limited understanding. The people that support him know this but I still had a form to fill out (a few years ago) from his respite place asking what he identified as. He possibly doesn’t even know what a girl or a boy is let alone identify . I enclosed a copy of his birth certificate and in the box wrote. “ Not sure what this question means but see attached, I hope this explains it “ .

Bearing in mind my paediatrics experience is limited to medical school, and was in the 90s, there was still an endless (it felt like) learning about DSDs.

At no time was it suggested that the doctors or parents were going to pick the gender that worked best with the anatomy. It was all about getting the correct diagnosis and making sure essential functions such as weeing were possible.

The few DSD patients are have met via work have felt very strongly that they are the sex that goes with their DSD and are very upset at any insinuation they aren't all man or all woman.

I had this on an NHS form just yesterday and there was no option but to answer it or I couldn’t complete the form. It asked me my pronouns as well but at least that gave me the ‘other’ option though I would’ve preferred ‘prefers not to say’.
all this to appease a tiny, tiny minority.

This isn’t what they mean by gender assigned at birth though. They are implying that all babies have gender “assigned” at birth (seemingly arbitrarily) and at the time of filling in this form may now be identifying as a different gender from that.

See also-

‘pregnant people’
‘chest feeding’

the whole thing is ridiculous

To be fair to Iwasafool, the terminology was used by the groups supporting those with differences of sex development. It is the transgender support groups that has taken that terminology and forced it into situations it was never meant for. It is those groups who are leveraging those with differences of sex development to support the destabilisation of the human sex categories.

It isn't what they mean but it is probably what the person I am talking about means, I've never asked as it is obviously a sensitive subject. So implying that all babies are assigned a sex or gender at birth is wrong but so is saying that it never happened, as I said I don't know what would happen now as medicine moves on quite quickly.

So close to getting it!! All this fucking wank about a handful of people who are fundamentally at odds with their birth sex and want to change - it's all been ignited as a distraction from the real issues society is facing and otherwise intelligent people keep falling for it. It's only within the last 5-10 years the existence of trans people has blown up as an "issue". Late-stage capitalism is murdering the planet but you're all pouring your energy into worrying about this. SMH.

Yes but we don't have to deny someone's reality because of that do we. If we deny it has happened aren't we being just as inaccurate as the groups you refer to.

Sorry I am agreeing with you but it doesn't sound like it. I think I need to go and have lunch.

DH and I are part of the NHS Galeri trial. Our latest online forms to book our blood tests asked "sex assigned at birth". DH was spluttering indignantly....he'd never been asked that before. It's everywhere. I will see if I am able to give feedback when I attend my appointment.

I'm not sure it is a handful.if people ,I have friends and family whose offspring are identifying as the opposite sex mainly female to male
My teenage son has friends at college who are identifying as the opposite sex again mainly female to male ,it seems becoming more mainstream alarmingly so.

ok. I am a bit confused, I admit.

Surely though, using the terminology of 'assigned at birth' is incorrect for the rest of the population which is reliably observed at birth. So, using 'assigned at birth' is inaccurate for the rest of the population by the same logic?

My work have started doing this. I refused to answer I told them to take a wild guess and promised to not be offended if they got it wrong.

The world has gone mad.

Yes three biological females in my older dd’s class at a girls secondary school identified as non binary or boys for a year but have since changed back to girls again. This happened not long after their PSHE lessons on the “gender unicorn” and “you can identify as whatever you want to identify as” talk. Schools are encouraging this issue.

Or, if people insist that sex and gender are different, I wish they'd at least use the words properly

See also "gender reveal" or a "gender scan" https://www.ultrasound-direct.com/services/pregnancy/gender-scan It's telling you the baby's SEX, not their GENDER

The signs of a decrease in referral numbers over the past year is perhaps an indication that something is changing again. Particularly as the UK and other countries have now banned the prescribing of puberty blockers. And there is an expectation that the Cass report released tomorrow will also make a clear point that social transitioning will be considered to be a major concern as it is now finally recognised to lock children into their identities.

Good answer !

They used to be interchangeable. These days sex is physical whereas gender is mental. In that sense, gender reveal is meaningless, as is gender assigned at birth.
Definitions of these words need to stop changing. Surely a new word could have been used to describe a person’s preferred stereotype, which seems to be what gender now refers to. Those who don’t conform to either stereotype feel they have to identify as non binary.

"I'm not sure it is a handful.if people ,I have friends and family whose offspring are identifying as the opposite sex mainly female to male
My teenage son has friends at college who are identifying as the opposite sex again mainly female to male ,it seems becoming more mainstream alarmingly so."

How many of them will be growing out of it in a few years? Let's hope they haven't been medicalised in any way.

@Beryls Have you considered joining a SEEN network? Fellow civil servant here.

Tell them that her gender was not assigned at birth. Her sex was determined at the point of conception.

Filled in a survey from the NHS recently, it asked what sex I was assigned at birth. I crossed out assigned and wrote observed.