"Assigned at birth" - challenging it at school

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Has anyone successfully challenged the use of this terminology in a school? I teach science in a secondary school and I've just overheard a non-science teacher explaining to children in PSHE that biological sex is assigned at birth. I need to challenge it, but wondered if anyone has managed to get that particular terminology changed.

Good on you for challenging this.

A doctor doesn’t assign your sex why on earth is this what is being taught?

Semantics I know, but an important distinction that TRAs etc have taken advantage of to obfuscate the facts

This is BS. Assigned at birth existed in medical literature long before the TRA movement even existed.

Oh such a quibble.

So the choice is

"Are those testes? Then it is male"
"Is that a boy without a winkle - God be praised, it's a miracle!"
"A boy with no winkle? That's a girl"

Even Sir Thomas More knew the truth of sex at birth!

Yes, with DSDs, as explained. For non-DSDs it has always been wrong, and has been used by TRAs since for their advantage.

Yes. That's why I said TRAs took advantage of it!

Knowing what something you observe means before you record it doesn’t mean you’re assigning

Yes it does. Knowing what something you observe means or what something you observe is requires an internal decision making thought process. Your brain observes penis, testicles and then it assigns the label of boy, which you then record. You cannot observe “boy” or “moon” because that is skipping the internal functions of your brain of processing the sensory data from your observations and then making sense of it all.

But that 'choice' is determined by what genitals there are. The HCP doesn't make a decision. They observe the genitals.

There's a big round thing in the sky at the moment. It might be the sun. It might be the moon. Do I get to decide which one it is?
Or is it in fact the sun. On account of it being the sun?

Sex is determined at conception. Is isn't at any point assigned. There are exponentially fewer cases where sex cannot be immediately known than the internet would let us believe!

Oh dear god

Trying to ignore the derail 🙄

Good on you OP, I hope you get some specific advice here.

Specifically you state the facts.

Zygote to zygote. Scans, genitalia,etc. All done and dusted way before the formal paperwork is completed, before the foetus is even known about.

No they’ve really made people aware that assigning sex at birth is the process used and that errors do rarely happen. And even if TRAs are “taking advantage” of this pre-existing process which is described most accurately by using the term “assigned” how is it going to change that by insisting on less accurate terms of “observe and record”? Because obviously you can still have errors in both observations and recording?

Congratulations, you’ve successfully had “assigned at birth” changed to “observed and recorded”. Nothing changes because trans can still have their birth certificate changed to show the opposite sex from what was “observed and recorded”

It just a silly quibble over nothing. It’s the very definition of futility.

It doesn’t sound like you have any children. I could see my daughter’s sex quite clearly myself on scans way before her birth. Nobody did any “assigning”. Amnio and increasingly NIPT testing will also show the baby’s genetic sex. It’s vanishingly rare these days for anyone to not know until birth, unless they have explicitly decided not to know, and even then sonographers can still tell even if they don’t reveal this to the parents.

The “it’s a girl/boy!” moment rarely happens any more. At my daughter’s birth I told the midwives and medics that she was a girl (I’d had a lot of scans including 4D ones in late pregnancy as I was in a research project, so no doubt about it) — and so they then spoke about her as a girl before she was even born, just on me telling them. Pretty much every expectant parent I met had found out the baby’s sex tbh. I only know of very occasional parents these days who decide they don’t want to be told before birth.

FUCK! YES there is a decision. Decision as in a conclusion or a verdict based on what they observe.

You see big shiny white disc in sky, so you DECIDE that is the moon.
You see a baby with a dick, so you DECIDE that is a boy

Yes it does. Knowing what something you observe means or what something you observe is requires an internal decision making thought process. Your brain observes penis, testicles and then it assigns the label of boy, which you then record. You cannot observe “boy” or “moon” because that is skipping the internal functions of your brain of processing the sensory data from your observations and then making sense of it all.

This the most messed up, twisted version of “assigned” I’ve ever read. Recalling knowledge means you’re assigning now?!

“I have the knowledge in my brain that the sky is blue, ergo I am assigning the sky the colour blue.”

“I have knowledge in my brain that more than one finger is two fingers, therefore I am assigning that you are holding up two fingers.”

Utterly bizarre.

@Disco... I wasn't being obtuse, I was trying to follow your reasoning. I have established that you are being a) obtuse and b) rude. What a hill to die on. Bored now.

I have four children and decided to not know the sex until birth. It’s not that uncommon.

I’m utterly bored too. Feel like I am in a Yr7 English class trying to teach basic vocabulary to a bunch of rude teens who haven’t the first clue.

What you decide does not change what it is. It is still one or the other.

You are as determined as any TRA here to try to force others to accept your imbecilic redefinition if a word to mean what you want it to mean.

Well, I never said that deciding the sex changes the sex, what an insane way to think.

In that context it was “sex assigned at birth” not “biological sex assigned at birth”. The label is not the same the same as the characteristic. The distinction between biological sex which existed independent of the sex label assigned (or taken at a later stage) was often important in that medical literature.

"Sex is assigned at birth" (along with "sex is a spectrum") is being taught in PSHE lessons to suggest to children that sex is actually pretty arbitrary and imposed by a third party.

That paves the way for teaching that the doctor may have got it wrong and it's your gender identity that counts.

And luckily for you @Discovereads , this being Mumsnet, there is a wealth of information available just a few boards over, where you can hop with just a few clicks to learn all the arcane secrets of reading sonograph scans including “nub theory”, and how to tell male from female genitals on 20+ week scans, and posters on the pregnancy boards will be delighted to explain to you how to interpret scan images, and what NIPT testing involves and all of that, and you can educate yourself a bit more!!! Education is a great thing! 👍

Nothing changes because trans can still have their birth certificate changed to show the opposite sex from what was “observed and recorded”

Ah yes! Another, this time legal, fiction!

I get it. You are quibbling over a definition. You don't agree with anyone else. Fine, be Humpty Dumpty!

So can I decide that the big, hot, shiny thing in the sky right now is the moon? And tell people it's the moon. And take photos of "the moon".
Despite the fact the thing in the sky right now is the sun?

Can I decide that it is, in fact, a Teddy bear and not the sun or the moon?