The sex/gender distinction of the 20th century and now deeply popular among LGBT+ circles in the 21st century was one step forwards, two steps backwards. Although it provides a simple “explanation” of trans people, it ultimately cements sex and thus patriarchy as the natural state of things. Human sex has always been a social concept with biological justifications applied retroactively and selectively. The proletarianization of women and advances in medical science lay bare the absurdity of sex and for the first time in human history create the conditions for the world-historical abolition of sex and male supremacy. As the proletarian revolution self-abolishes the proletariat, so too does the transsexual-feminist social revolution self-abolish the woman and transsexual. Down with cisgenderism!
Doesn’t including “assigned at birth” suggest they either don’t think its immutable or that its just a social construction (or both)?
The graphic also lumps female and woman together and male and man together.
Colloquially, female & woman and male & man are the same. There are few situations where people use them with distinction, and I only see it used for either technical reasons (like geneticists) or a way to be casually transphobic.
Sex assigned at birth is such a can of worms lol. I’ve seen a couple feminists use CAxAB (coercively assigned x at birth) to make it clear that sexing is a social construct. On the other hand I’ve seen a lot of people use AFAB and AMAB when it’s completely irrelevant. Even in medical settings it’s not relevant. I am “AMAB” but I have a vulva and breasts. My partner is “AFAB” but they have PCOS, which gives them facial hair and is present in up to a tenth of the human population yet isn’t considered an intersex condition probably because it would show how ridiculous the sex binary is. So honestly I kind of prefer the MTF/FTM terminologies because they’re much clearer that transition changes your sex, but they also imply you were something that you never were just like AGAB terminology (let’s be clear, trans people are not meaningfully socialized as the sex they’re coercively assigned at birth; at most a trans woman is socialized male only in the same sense a masking autistic person is socialized as a neurotypical… I could go on about this for a while). Also it’s funny how AGAB is the shorthand form of assigned sex at birth.
I mean I feel like ‘coercively assigned’ is kind of redundant, as ‘assigned’ already implies that you didn’t have any say in the matter. That’s kind of the point of the terminology as is.
It may be linguistically redundant, but it still establishes a point that a lot of people seem to forget about assigned sex at birth: that it is coercive and rooted in social construction. The point is that, with a lot of people allowing “AMAB/AFAB” essentialism to take the gender binary’s place (because they are functionally the same thing, whether AGAB essentialists will admit it or not), we need to remember that “AMAB” and “AFAB” have way less important meaning than people give it. We’re now at a point where I’ve legitimately seen people say things like “I support AFAB rights!” and it’s honestly disgusting.
That just seems like terf shit, and I feel like disgusting people will find a way to be disgusting no matter what terms we use. But I see your point, thanks for expounding.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of using terms like “CAxAB” either, but I get where it comes from. I don’t want any kind of gender essentialism at all actually, and it honestly would become a euphemism treadmill if we keep replacing terms. For instance, “AMAB” and “AFAB” have become what “biologically male” and “biologically female” are, and if “CAMAB” and “CAFAB” came into regular usage, the same exact shit would happen with that term.
They’re different parts of speech (male/female can also be a noun, but usually only done by people like disconnected from the subjects they’re describing, like cops and scientists). I mentioned that the graphic doesn’t differentiate them as a positive about it FTR.
I’ve probably used it in times you’d probably think it was irrelevant as a way of avoiding making more specific claims. Easier to say what I’m not (which AMAB, imo, implies - I don’t agree it implies you ever were the thing; just that others said you were).
Back when I was a lot more ignorant about gender/sex/etc, I liked those labels because it was clear what was meant. Given transphobes will say things like “we need to stop transmen from going into the women’s bathroom” when they mean to exclude trans women, I was never 100% what was meant when they’re used.
Now I’m not a fan of them because they feel like they exclude NBs (which usually is not intended) or those who don’t medically transition.
My mom certainly isn’t socialized as a girl. And she was AFAB and identifies as a woman (granted, her definition of “woman” is based 100% only on the bits she was born with). Socialization is certainly more complex than AGAB. It describes how people TRY to socialize with us. Was at a family gathering (these tend to be very woman-dominated) not long after realizing I was an egg and my cousin’s BF tried to do guy talk with me (sports or something) and quickly got bored and went to chat with my mom instead. Just kinda funny seeing that gendered socialization expectations break down in such an obvious way.