Assigned at birth

[HDDD]

I have a real issue with this phrase. It seems to have crept into common parlance. I've just read it in a news report on SKY. I've seen it in a questionnaire I had to fill in for my local authority. It was in the charity commission doc about LGBA.
It's blatantly not true. Sex is observed, not assigned. I get that some people will 'identify' as different to their sex as observed at birth. I feel the need to 1. collect instances of use of the phrase 2. challenge use of the phrase. Anyone with me?

it doesn't respect the innate gender identity of the children
que ?
babies eat, sleep, scream and shit
they have zero awareness of their own sex until they can talk
let alone "gender"

Nobody is observed at birth. The chromosomal makeup of every cell in your body is determined at the moment your father's sperm penetrates your mother's egg, approximately 9 month ls before the birth, male, female or DSD. That's it, the only 3 outcomes.

"Shizuku, observing a newborn baby’s genitals and announcing what you have seen is NOT “assigning” a sex."

That's literally the term we use for it. Words are defined by usage. ALso, you might want to read this. Scroll down to 2.1:

www.lexico.com/definition/assign

"2.1 (assign something to) Attribute something as belonging to."

@ListeningQuietly

it doesn't respect the innate gender identity of the children que ? babies eat, sleep, scream and shit they have zero awareness of their own sex until they can talk let alone "gender"

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421517/

Your link proves my point

It's just the term we use for the announcement the midwife makes about the child's sex.

But why do you care about the announcement? The announcement (if any) is irrelevant. It's not a magic spell, you know.

(I have no idea if I got one of these special announcements, and I've never met my midwife to ask her, assuming I had one).

@Nodal

Nobody is observed at birth. The chromosomal makeup of every cell in your body is determined at the moment your father's sperm penetrates your mother's egg, approximately 9 month ls before the birth, male, female or DSD. That's it, the only 3 outcomes.

I’m not as knowledgeable as some on the board so apologies if I’m wrong - but this isn’t correct. Biological sex is binary - either male or female. Babies born with DSD are still either male or female but with some disorders in the development of those sex characteristics.

Otherwise - as you say it’s determined from the moment of conception. I had a Harmony test at around 9 weeks of pregnancy and the test showed the developing baby was male. There were no genitals to observe or record. My baby was (and is) male.

Even the years ago on the pregnancy board many women were wearily saying ‘it’s sex not gender’ when posters discussed finding out ‘the gender’.

*even nine years

(Are they even allowed to correct like this on the pregnancy boards nowadays?!)

This is interesting
service-manual.nhs.uk/content/inclusive-language#sex-gender-sexuality

One of the worst things about surgery on babies who have surgery at birth to try and 'correct' their genital appearance is that it doesn't account for internal gender identity?

Right ho

I attended what turned out to be a really interesting training session on trans awareness at work a few years ago. One thing that bugged me (among many things) was the term “assigned at birth” because it felt like they were saying that other people pick and choose what you’re going to be based on their prejudices rather than fact. So at the end, I approached the facilitator and asked them why they were using the term “assigned at birth” as opposed to saying how they were born, the sex they were born etc. and I have to admit their response surprised and amused me. They said that “babies are not actively engaged in the assignment of their gender at birth. It’s decided by other people and the child is passive in the exercise, therefore the midwives and doctors cannot possibly know for sure.” I remember smiling and nodding and thanking them for their time as it was obvious from the tone of the room that I was not to question this any further. I just wish this had happened more recently and I’d have been better able to confidently articulate how bloody daft the whole thing was.

It's like a code phrase, and alarm bells go off for me when I hear it. If you let that slip through without critical thinking, what else are you going to willingly regurgitate?

The danger is it catches on so innocuously (being kind and all) - it's likely the majority of those who parrot it have given any thought at all to what it means.

• have NOT given any thought, obv.

Coffee, that is horrendous!

“Whippet
Assigned is what happens to Hogwarts students by the Sorting Hat.
Perhaps this JKR association might persuade them to stop using it.”

This is so funny, Whippet, and my first response was that it really might work. Unfortunately, on reflection though, I think it might just add grist to the mill of the idea of how arbitrary and wrong, the assignators can be. That they are JK Rowling type henchmen.

The term “assigned at birth” is abhorrent and deeply misleading (outside its original context which I never knew before the poster on this thread explained it- thank you for that).

It doesn't even need ''observed".
Just "sex" will do. Or "sex at birth" if they must.

It's just the term we use for the announcement the midwife makes about the child's sex.
If it's just a term then I presume you'll have no problem if we go back to "observe" and stick to what is actually correct then.

What is good is that all the babies born in the world with no midwife etc have no sex.

Amazing isn't it.

@Shizuku

It's just the term we use for the announcement the midwife makes about the child's sex. They go by what the genitals look like, and that a pretty good guide that works for the majority of cases, but just occasionally, they are wrong.

You honestly don't have to have a tantrum about every single word that trans people use.

Who is we out of interest?

How does anyone know what the midwife actually said about them? Have they actually checked?

How many people have actually asked their parents, who would at least have been there to witness the event?

I certainly haven't. For all I know they could have been wrong. I think it's right on my birth certificate, but if it is, that could be a later post-birth correction...

What should I do if I find out the midwife was wrong? What if my actual sex isn't what I was "assigned at birth"?

That is what Dawn Butler said, iirc, that "babies are born without sex."

And as for midwife announcements, we never had any! We asked, when out three were born, for no comments on sex because we wanted to meet our babies first and discover their sex ourselves. My firstborn, however, got passed over my head to his father as my second born twin was in distress. I learned his sex by seeing his enormous scrotal sac swing by, practically as big as his head. 🤦🏼‍♀️

I can assure you we were spot on with our 'assignments' of all three: M, F, F.

Hmm, that's an interesting point.

What percentage of the population have an actual biological sex that is different from what they were assigned at birth?

It's possible that the number is not insignificant, at least if compared to the number of intersex people or trans people.

How non-inclusive to them is this "assigned at birth" terminology?

For both my children, at the moment of birth there was no announcement or assigning. Just cleaning up and weighing, and someone saying out loud whilst writing it down on a wristband something along the lines of "male baby, 3.75kg born 9.39pm". I knew they were boys from the 20 week scan onwards. The observing of sex is exactly the same as observing the baby's weight.

I can assure you we were spot on with our 'assignments' of all three: M, F, F.

But did you use the special Assigning Words? If you forgot it's probably not too late to do it now. Make a note to do it next time you see them.

(I guess this is a bit like Christening - you need to do it at some point else you go to Gender Hell).

And yet, despite the fact that we do it, everyone's fine.

Well, except the people who are not fine. The people who find their identities and lived experiences being denied by an ideology that says sex is arbitrary and irrelevant, only gender matters.

But hey, that just means they are the wrong sort of people, right? The people who matter are fine.

of "male baby, 3.75kg born 9.39pm"

Hey, can we all stick with the weight we were assigned at birth?