There's a certain truth about AFAB/AMAB in reference to gender

[JellySlice]

If you think of these acronyms as Assigned Feminine At Birth and Assigned Masculine At Birth then they make sense. As soon as an infant's sex is observed assumptions are made about them and gender stereotypes imposed upon them. A female infant is assigned a feminine gender.

The acronyms mean assigned female/male not assigned feminine/masculine though.

If Afab means assigned feminine gender rather than observed female, TRAs will have no word left meaning biological female.

Yes, In societies view a gender is imposed on recognition of the observed sex

Try getting people not to announce " it's a boy" though, try persuading shops not to stock pink and blue so a child's sex can be readily identified , and why can't people be male or female without any gender assumptions on anyone?

It's no no interest or relevance medically what gender a child is assigned though whereas recording its sexual is important

If they changed them to Feminine/Masculine I'd be on board, absolutely.

You can't change sex, but gender expression being looser and more acceptably varied would be brilliant. It's a shame that instead, the drive is to rigidly trap the sexes in gender norms, by saying those who don't conform may have a 'different brain sex'. Bonkers to pretend that human beings can, let alone should, change sex, instead of widening the range of what society sees as acceptable within their sex. Instead of encouraging people to feel secure and happy with who they are, within the body they have.

Nobody's body is wrong. Society is wrong, in telling people a sex can only be, think, or behave in such limited ways.

I thought 'gender' was meant to be some innate inner feeling. How can it be assigned?

I wasn't assigned anything at birth.

The argument is that it is an inner feeling that people assign / assume until instructed otherwise

It's depressing that the classes of trans people and women could have been close allies if it weren't for the insistence of TRA (who aren't even necessarily trans!) that we must pretend humans actually change sex or were the opposite sex all along. The contortions society must go through to uphold that lie are far reaching and damaging.

This, I think, is what De Beauvoir meant when she said that 'one is not born, but one becomes a woman'. 'Femininity' and all the trappings of 'womanhood' is not something we are born with, but something that is imposed on each female infant. So yes, I would agree that gender roles are oppressively assigned to infants on the basis of their sex. But TRAS must reject this, because for them gender is an inner essence and is very important to their sense of self.

I wonder how everyone experiences being gendered though. I became aware of gendered expectations before I was at school when I didn’t meet them. Or when I saw differences in the way boys are girls were treated.

My reaction was to think that’s wrong or not fair and to ignore it or push past it. Is that my innate identity? Or is that as a result of having parental support to do that alongside exposure to non-conforming role models?

But how can you assign an inner feeling to someone else, and how do you define a baby as feminine or masculine?

Honestly this whole concept is ridiculous and doesn't bare scrutiny.

20 years ago when I was pregnant with my son we weren't allowed to ask the sex of the baby at the 20 week scan because we lived in an area where sex selective abortions were commonplace. This is in the UK.

You cannot give this BS any quarter, you know what happens when we do.

@WeeBisom

This, I think, is what De Beauvoir meant when she said that 'one is not born, but one becomes a woman'. 'Femininity' and all the trappings of 'womanhood' is not something we are born with, but something that is imposed on each female infant. So yes, I would agree that gender roles are oppressively assigned to infants on the basis of their sex. But TRAS must reject this, because for them gender is an inner essence and is very important to their sense of self.

Any stereotype imposed or lived with for long enough becomes internalised. Just the same as women acting upon internalised misogyny. Gendered stereotypes imposed from birth are also internalised. Maybe the natural opposition to someone imposing their will upon you is also an internalised feeling. If you feel oppositional a gender stereotype, one way to interpret those feelings is to assume the opposite position.

But how can you assign an inner feeling to someone else, and how do you define a baby as feminine or masculine?

Assigned Feminine At Birth is my (and everyone else's) inner feeling of what being female is, imposed upon that female baby. Even a female baby cannot be defined as feminine, because she has not learned to perform femininity. But babies' accoutrements can be stereotypically gendered, and observers will treat babies differently according to whether they are dressed in clothing perceived by the observer to be feminine or masculine.

It should be AFSAB/AMSAB.

Assigned feminine/masculine stereotypes. A baby girl gets put in a “Daddy’s Little Princess” too, and a baby boy gets put in a babygro with trucks on it, then the children grow up to want to break free of the rigidly imposed gender stereotypes from parents.

It would be better, make the point that it’s family and society’s boundaries that are the problem, not doctors or midwives.

The whole 'princess' thing for little girls is pernicious, likewise chortling girl babies being read as 'flirting' and little boys being told to be 'brave soldiers' and dry their tears when they hurt themselves or being given way too much leeway to play rough and nasty with other children because: boys 🤷🏼‍♀️.

Let's watch them grow and find their own fascinations without channelling them down narrow, gender-stereoytyped tracks.

Yes, your definitions make more sense than the ridiculous notion of being 'assigned a sex' at birth.

In a somewhat similar vein, although on MN threads about 'gender scans' and 'gender reveal parties' someone usually points out it should be sex not gender, the people throwing such parties really are likely to be starting to set up gender stereotypes.

My mum relates that when my dad brought my going-home clothes to the nursing home after I was born, the nurses told him the outfit was unsuitable. Not because it was a hand-me-down, but because it was blue (and green, with little bunnies embroidered on it - my brothers had worn it). They told him to go and buy something suitable for a girl. He didn't. He went home and fetched a white and yellow outfit instead. Which had also been worn by my brothers - he did not tell them.

Bonkers.

What’s even madder is that the whole “blue for boys, pink for girls” trope is a distinctively modern trope (last 100 years) with its origins in marketing. Lots of articles on the subject.

It's actually older than that. Mid-19th century at least. It is mentioned in Little Women: "Amy put a blue ribbon on the boy and a pink on the girl, French fashion, so you can always tell."

But if it's about clothes then do you change the assignment every time you wear clothes of the opposite sex? When I put baby DS in a red jumper was I assigning him feminine?
I have no time or desire to make the assigned at birth nonsense more palatable. It's rubbish. Sex is observed at birth not assigned and gender is a social construct that is not universally or globally observed because there are different stereotypes in different cultures.

@JellySlice

My mum relates that when my dad brought my going-home clothes to the nursing home after I was born, the nurses told him the outfit was unsuitable. Not because it was a hand-me-down, but because it was blue (and green, with little bunnies embroidered on it - my brothers had worn it). They told him to go and buy something suitable for a girl. He didn't. He went home and fetched a white and yellow outfit instead. Which had also been worn by my brothers - he did not tell them.

Bonkers.

Bonkers indeed. Maybe I hit a sweet spot of sense at the point I had DD (she's 21) - her mothercare babygros apart from the basic white ones were 3-packs of deep rose pink, soft lime green and orange. Friends and neighbours gifted lovely outfits in every colour of the rainbow. Not making any sort of statement, just choosing nice clothes.