Assigned at birth: sudden realisation of meaning

[Treaclemine]

I was watching Germaine Greer and the phrase suddenly acquired a new effect on me. I've always just thought
"daft", but I suddenly realised it had an intention. As it is repeated it eliminates the woman who nourishes the child she bears. I had also been reading Greek myths. Apollo defended Orestes because mothers contribute nothing to babies, it all comes from the father. And Jason taunted Medea that she gave nothing to his sons. We could be headed, quite deliberately, back to Ancient Athens.

I assumed that everyone who takes an interest in these things sees ‘assigned at birth’ for the deliberate gaslighting phrase that it is.
It is used to suggest that HCPs made an error and are too stupid to realise that female babies might have a penis. It’s a step on from the ‘born in the wrong body argument’. It is used to blur the distinction between sex and gender. It is used to imply that sex (and imo they are talking about sex not gender) is just an admin thing, a trivial detail that can be ‘corrected’ later.
It really p**s me off in a visceral, jaw-clenching, blood pressure raising way.

@Meadowfly Do you mean like they can say "they assigned me as a boy but if they'd looked properly and observed me they would see I was a girl"?

Yes, smelly, that’s exactly what they mean. It’s nonsense, obviously, but that is what they mean. Which is why it is a ‘gaslighting’ phrase.

Assigned at birth is a wanky expression. It’s currently used by TRAs ‘I was assigned male at birth’

No doctor assigns a gender at birth. The sex is observed and noted at birth.

TRAs like this because it leaves the door open to considering the medical person who observed the child’s sex, could have got it wrong and didn’t understand they were look at a baby who ‘felt female’. It also allows them to to say that their sex/gender was forced on them and therefore they are heroes for fighting back, changing their sex/gender and fighting their oppressors. When talking about TRAs you have to understand they use sex and gender interchangeably (which is why I say sex/gender), because it serves their purposes to try and have them mean the same thing.

I think using it is also a precursor to TRAs soon demanding that sex isn’t out on birth certificates. Because, according to them, it isn’t really and it’s simply an opinion stated by a medical professional when you are born. I do believe they will try this one.

While I agree TRAs do want to diminish women, I don’t follow the the thinking in the Op. ‘Assigned’ at birth doesn’t mean no one carries the baby. Observing the sex at birth doesn’t increase the awareness that a woman carries the baby.

The issues are around semantics of the words 'gender' and 'assigned.'

Assign is problematic as alongside being used in this context, it also means:

allocate (a job or duty).

appoint (someone) to a job, task, or organization.

designate or set (something) aside for a specific purpose.

attribute something as belonging to.
_
classify (a person) as having a particular sex or gender, especially on the basis of their genitals_ at birth.

transfer (legal rights or liabilities).
1 another term for assignee (sense 1)."this agreement shall be binding upon the parties and their successors and assigns"


I can see why trans ideologues then revolt against being told they are almost contractually obliged to follow gender stereotypes - except this phrase appears to have emerged somehow as a part of trans ideology.

It also sounds like the individual starts at birth, which is where the op is saying the mother is erased.

I see it more linked to futuristic ideas of manufacturing babies in incubators.

But gender ideology and liberal feminism reduces women to incubators via language and surrogacy.

*I wonder how this nonsense is playing out in other countries where this is the case. So much of the TRA stance in America and the UK rests on linguistic arguments.

We'd do well to start treating gender and sex as synonymous terms again*

In German there is only one word - Geschlecht (gender) which describes whether a person or thing is masculine or feminine.

Sex is sex (making love)

Not sure if anyone's put this, I see assigned at birth as a post modern concept where language creates reality. I couldn't argue it very well until I read Material Girls and Trans, they helped to put words to my thought. It's a particularly pernicious phrase as assigned at birth seems right, but sex is determined at conception and observed and recorded at birth. There is no human decision involved. If you check out The Paradox Institute on Youtube there are some short great videos explaining biology and the chap goes into DSD as well, so you can fight back on the other horrid term 'intersex'.

Observing the sex at birth doesn’t increase the awareness that a woman carries the baby.

but it shouldn’t even be sex observed at birth, i don’t see what’s wrong with just “sex”

This.

I believe that you can't change either sex or gender but can have males of female traits.

smellyflowers · Yesterday 17:59
I thought assigned at birth was when it was unclear?

It used to be.

But now it is used for Orwellian thought control to try to make people think sex is not a fixed thing; or that sex is irrelevant because only gender counts, and only the child can decide their own gender.

With genetic testing now it is virtually impossible sex to be unclear.

assigned at birth as a post modern concept where language creates reality.

Oh completely - trans ideology in a nutshell.

So many over laps with trans humanism.

Sex is a reality, even in cases where the sex is unclear, there is still a biological reality there.

Gender is a collection of stereotypes. 'Assigned at birth' in its current usage has nothing to do with cases where sex is unclear.

The confusion/replacement of gender for sex is an error that is more prevalent than ever. Language really matters. Stupid 'gender reveals' don't help either. It is partly because people are too squeamish to say sex reveal, as that sounds like a very different party.

GromblesofGrimbledon · Yesterday 21:26

Well put.

PSHE lessons at my school told the kids that the definition of sex is "what you are assigned at birth". That's all. No hint even of what type of thing is being assigned.

olvxska · Today 07:25
Not sure if anyone's put this, I see assigned at birth as a post modern concept where language creates reality. I couldn't argue it very well until I read Material Girls and Trans, they helped to put words to my thought. It's a particularly pernicious phrase as assigned at birth seems right, but sex is determined at conception and observed and recorded at birth. There is no human decision involved. If you check out The Paradox Institute on Youtube there are some short great videos explaining biology and the chap goes into DSD as well, so you can fight back on the other horrid term 'intersex'.

Thank you very much, what you say is very useful.

HipTightOnions · Today 08:52
PSHE lessons at my school told the kids that the definition of sex is "what you are assigned at birth". That's all. No hint even of what type of thing is being assigned

That is rubbish teaching.

I think @Vebrithien who has had a thread about her child’s school having No Outsiders posters which replace sex with gender, may have started a thread to collect instances of this kind.

I can understand the OP's point in a way. Having one's child 'assigned' by someone else; possibly a stranger - ignores the child/mother dyad. The child has a sex from the moment of conception and the mother has nurtured this child within her own body. 'Assigning' her child is as if the child is a product in a factory that has just come off the conveyor belt and its function socially prescribed.

I believe that you can't change either sex or gender

What's actually the difference? As I said earlier many languages only have the word 'gender' - whether male or female.

Sex is making love in most other languages.

A human male is a man and a human female is a woman. These are observable facts at birth

Isn't that their gender then? Either male or female?

I believe gender was generally used to referred to sex / gender stereotyped roles but I'm not 100% sure if the history

late Middle English: from Old French gendre (modern genre ), based on Latin genus ‘birth, family, nation’. The earliest meanings were ‘kind, sort, genus’ and ‘type or class of noun, etc.’ (which was also a sense of Latin genus ).

Oxford says:

the male sex or the female sex, especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones, or one of a range of other identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female.

(But I've no idea if trustworthy!)

I think it's roots are in sociology - commenting on sexed cultural roles

one of a range of other identities

That's new - and still very much cultural.

Waves!

There is a "breaking it down schools" thread ai started. There are some resources on there including the current guidelines.

Schools are expected to teach that sex (male/female) is a protected characteristic.

However, many schools are indeed teaching gender, or the weasely 'assigned at birth'.