Complaining about 'assigned female at birth'

[howmanybicycles]

My son (year 9) attended a presentation at school today offered by an external organisation. The woman used the term 'assigned female at birth' which I consider to be a slur. I'm tempted to complain but wanted to get my facts behind me first. Has this, in our current anti-female dystopia, become an 'accepted term'? Is there anything I can quote which shows the damage this sort of obfuscating language does?

She also told the kids that what you were 'assigned' was what the 'doctor' said when you were born which is quite a micro-aggression towards women, I thought, given that the baby's sex is actually recognised by the (usually female) midwife and not the (often male) doctors!

Such a daft phrase, given that most unborn babies now have 2/3 ultrasound scans during pregnancy, so it’s rare than anyone ever does the sixties TV-style “it’s a boy, Mrs Smith!” act.

I was a subject for a teaching scan/demonstration when pg with my DD, and the consultant sonographer was demonstrating to the student medics and radiologists not just the scanning of the outside of DD’s body in utero; but the inside, too. She was able to use a super-powerful scanner to zoom “through” each of the chambers of DD’s heart, and look at several of her internal organs, in only the first trimester!

You could ask for clarification as to what else was said and why as a parent you weren't consulted beforehand. If you know the name of the organisation you can check if they are approved on the DfE site.

Oh please for the love of geoff don't go giving them ideas

Yes this particularly insidious language drives me mad.

Tbh I would do what I did when ds's school went on about other things I disagreed with. I told him that I disagreed and why.

If you want to, write to the Head and explain what you had to say to your dc to correct the misuse of language and false information promoted by the speaker. Suggest that their next PSHE session addresses the two sexes, why they exist and how we know a foetus is male or female.

What's also interesting is that the speaker got the language 'wrong' for the UK.

'Assigned at birth by a doctor' is an American formulation used to piggyback on the feminist analysis of power relationships in pregnancy, labour and childbirth. It's used to grab female support as so many of us have experienced feeling disempowered in medical settings.

When that language was transferred to the UK, and in fact to many other countries, it didn't track so well. A much smaller proportion of UK births, and births globally, had a doctor involved. So it was changed to 'assigned at birth by a health professional' - this was the form used in the UK government consultation document about GRA reform in 2018 - I would however point out it was used, and I'm not kidding, as the definition of sex in the glossary. I have never forgotten my peak disbelief at reading that.

Still there were problems. Many people, like the PP and in fact me, who had no health professional at their birth, pointed out how ludicrous it was. So in order to stop us thinking, it was cropped to 'assigned at birth' leaving the question of who does the assigning and what that could mean, hanging without an answer. You notice a lot of those sorts of orphan phrases in this activism - slogans, not ideas. Club passwords to the right-on in-group. They're not meant to be questioned; questioning them shows you up as an outsider, a bigot, unacceptable. They love to call 'adult human female' a dogwhistle but they never say that they have whistles of their own to keep you in order.

@puffyisgood Except not incorrectly.

"Observed" isn't anywhere near an adequate term for what happens.

If a babies sex was merely 'observed', nobody would be any they wiser as to what sex it is other than the person who made the observation.

I've read that the clunky term was stolen from the DSD literature. A long time ago, and this was very rare even then, some infants with DSD (called intersex then) who had genitals which were not informative as to sex were 'assigned' into one sex or the other.

The reason the term was appropriated by the trans activists was so that we would start to see all sex as arbitrarily assigned. It has worked, somewhat.

I have a 9 year old and would complain to his school without hesitation about something like this. It is factually wrong and ideological, and not appropriate in a primary school setting.

You should have seen my reaction when I was referred to as a "birthing person" not as a mother.

Insidious. I wonder how Head will reply when OP emails?

Luckily my husband and I knew our DD's sex.

That is lucky! How could you tell? 😉😆

Year 9 in this case so 13 or 14 and not appropriate in any school. I would also complain.

Are there any major female to male transgender debates going on? No one I know knows of any. Interesting that the male to female transgender debate is full of aggression isn't it.

Women deserve the right and respect to be women. They flaming suffer enough for their gender and the daily prejudice from birth. Now they're being further diluted after coming so far. We're not a 'birthing person' we're brave females who risk ruined bodies and physical health for the rest of our lives because we value the human life we carry and bring into the world. No one can ever know this unless they have done it. I want to be an astronaut but I'm not, no matter how much I identify, I haven't been to space. So suck it up buttercups and be proud of who you are and not what you're not.

You don't need to be a biologist. Just look at the umbilical cord! If it's pink, it's a girl! I should probably admit that I just made that up or it'll be a "fact" on twitter by the weekend.

Complain to the school, the governors, the DfE and your MP. The Government has already said schools aren't to teach such unmitigated bollocks

If that's supposed to be some sort of 'gotcha' it fell flat.

It's a joke. A US supreme court nominee claimed that she couldn't say what a woman was because she wasn't a biologist.

@TheLaughOfRustyLee Good point. I will keep my mouth shut on that one!
Interestingly one of the staff at my child's nursery apparently came out as NB a few months ago. The parents weren't told about it so I'm not sure exactly when but I think around 6 months ago. My 4yo still uses the correct pronouns despite staff having said which pronouns the staff member concerned would prefer. Four year olds can tell - they don't need anything 'assigned' to know.

Sex is determined at conception, observable via ultrasound and confirmed by eye & noted on paperwork at birth?

I've heard "identified female at birth" used - I'd assumed by someone relatively GC.

Does that one sound as bad? It's the "assigning" that I personally have an issue with.

I actually think the factual angle, and the presentation of facts, might be your strongest argument. I'd say that the term 'assigned at birth' is misleading as it implies that there might be an option at that point, whereas in fact sex is observed at birth and has already been fixed at conception; and your excellent point that the baby's sex is observed/recognised by the midwife and not the doctor.
I'd also ask about the presenting organisation's pedagogical credentials and the process by which the school selected and vetted them for quality of content.

I mean I had the harmony test so biological sex (not gender) was discovered through dna profiling before even being observed in utero. I don’t think anyone mentioned it at birth.

Can you give me a link to that? I can't find where to check