Gender identity doesn’t get assigned at birth. There is no “gender” field on a birth certificate.
Sex gets identified at birth (at the latest, usually before, during pregnancy, unless specifically requested to keep it secret).
Two reasons this is important to point out:
Assignment implies that the act of assigning is what makes it so. It’s not. If a doctor says that a male baby is female, it’s not now female just because they said so. “Identify” is a much more accurate description of what the doctor is doing.
The whole premise of “transness” being a thing relies on the notion of sex and gender being two distinct, independently-variable traits. So be careful not to conflate them. It causes needless confusion, since conflating them literally undermines the whole thing–after all, if “sex” and “gender” are equivalent, then it’s objectively impossible to be trans.
I very much agree with this point. My reaction there was mostly just a gut response to being excluded from trans spaces in the past for not being “trans enough” and I could’ve worded it better.
It just frustrates me how much trans people/activists fuck up their own messaging with confusing/ambiguous/self-contradicting rhetoric, you know?
Another major example imo, is using the single word “gender”, both to describe gender identity (something an individual person has), and gender roles (something a society has), sometimes in the same damn sentence.
The best way to ensure a discussion isn’t productive is to make sure that the ‘discussers’ are using the same terms, but are defining them differently, lol…
Gender identity doesn’t get assigned at birth. There is no “gender” field on a birth certificate.
Sex gets identified at birth (at the latest, usually before, during pregnancy, unless specifically requested to keep it secret).
Two reasons this is important to point out:
I very much agree with this point. My reaction there was mostly just a gut response to being excluded from trans spaces in the past for not being “trans enough” and I could’ve worded it better.
It just frustrates me how much trans people/activists fuck up their own messaging with confusing/ambiguous/self-contradicting rhetoric, you know?
Another major example imo, is using the single word “gender”, both to describe gender identity (something an individual person has), and gender roles (something a society has), sometimes in the same damn sentence.
The best way to ensure a discussion isn’t productive is to make sure that the ‘discussers’ are using the same terms, but are defining them differently, lol…