Why do we say "sex assigned at birth"?
I would like to start by saying that my intention is not in any way to disrespect or deny anyone's proper gender identity. But I am asking this because I'm don't understand why specific language is used, and I hope that somebody could help me to understand it better.
Why do we say "sex assigned at birth" rather than "gender assigned at birth"?
My understanding is that there's a distinction between biological sex and gender identity.
Wouldn't that mean that a gender is what's assigned and not a sex? To the best of my knowledge, no person has developed their gender identity at birth. But a person's sex is a part of their biology that develops when they are still an embryo, and is not something assigned by society.
If there is something I'm not understanding accurately, I'd appreciate it if someone could clarify that for me.
Bradleigh
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Well, sex is what is generally put on someone's birth certificate, and is generally assigned based on the doctor looking at their bits and deciding what sex they fit. These bits can be altered, whether an adult when one might take sex reassignment surgery, but you also have cases of intersex people. My understanding is that it is actual possible cases of intersex babies, that have had things like given some level of something like surgery to fit into one of the sexes to put onto a birth certificate. But also that cases of intersex people might even mean that assigning just on what the genitals look like might in general be accurate to having most of the sex characteristics, since they are not looking at chromosomes or something.
Just a way of saying a doctor looked at their genitals and assigned a sex. And true that gender, there would not necessarily be anything stopping adults from just saying that they were assigning a gender to a baby regardless of sex characteristics, pretty sure it has been done before, but usually does not go too well without someone actually being able to say something about their gender.
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It would be nice if the zygote could pick its sex.
This is actually untrue. Sex is assigned by the doctors, based on their observations. People can be wrong about sex assignment.
As a society, we're very up each other's as*holes. I don't know what to say other than that.
It looks like the checkbox "sex" in one's birth certificate is assigned based on sex (natural reproductive potential) identified by a doctor at birth.
At least that's how I understand these terms.
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It would be nice if the zygote could pick its sex.
This is actually untrue. Sex is assigned by the doctors, based on their observations. People can be wrong about sex assignment.
Well, according to the person with a neuroscience degree who wrote the article,
This article will look at the meaning of “sex” and the differences between the sexes. It will also look at the meaning of “gender,” and the concepts of gender roles, gender identity, and gender expression.
In general terms, “sex” refers to the biological differences between males and females, such as the genitalia and genetic differences.
“Gender” is more difficult to define, but it can refer to the role of a male or female in society, known as a gender role, or an individual’s concept of themselves, or gender identity.
...
...
The World Health Organization (WHO) defines gender as:
“Gender refers to the socially constructed characteristics of women and men, such as norms, roles, and relationships of and between groups of women and men. It varies from society to society and can be changed.”
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/232363
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It would be nice if the zygote could pick its sex.
This is actually untrue. Sex is assigned by the doctors, based on their observations. People can be wrong about sex assignment.
Part 2, let's see what the scientists at a big university medical school in California say,
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring ... ealth.html
Gender, on the other hand, is socially, culturally and personally defined. It includes how individuals see themselves (gender identity), how others perceive them and expect them to behave (gender norms), and the interactions (gender relations) that they have with others. Often one’s gender aligns with one’s sex: Men tend to assume more masculine behaviors and traits, and to be seen as masculine by others around them, for example. But not always. Increasingly, researchers like Stefanick and Schiebinger are realizing that both men and women exhibit a spectrum of gender traits that aren’t purely masculine or feminine.
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"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011
It would be nice if the zygote could pick its sex.
This is actually untrue. Sex is assigned by the doctors, based on their observations. People can be wrong about sex assignment.
Part 3, oh, Planned Parenthood has something to say, let's see what it is,
https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn ... r-identity
Each sperm has either an X or a Y chromosome in it. All eggs have an X chromosome.
When sperm fertilizes an egg, its X or Y chromosome combines with the X chromosome of the egg.
A person with XX chromosomes usually has female sex and reproductive organs, and is therefore usually assigned biologically female.
A person with XY chromosomes usually has male sex and reproductive organs, and is therefore usually assigned biologically male.
Other arrangements of chromosomes, hormones, and body parts can happen, which results in someone being intersex.
What’s gender?
Gender is much bigger and more complicated than assigned sex. Gender includes gender roles, which are expectations society and people have about behaviors, thoughts, and characteristics that go along with a person’s assigned sex.
For example, ideas about how men and women are expected to behave, dress, and communicate all contribute to gender. Gender is also a social and legal status as girls and boys, men, and women.
It’s easy to confuse sex and gender. Just remember that biological or assigned sex is about biology, anatomy, and chromosomes. Gender is society’s set of expectations, standards, and characteristics about how men and women are supposed to act.
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"There are a thousand things that can happen when you go light a rocket engine, and only one of them is good."
Tom Mueller of SpaceX, in Air and Space, Jan. 2011
OutsideView
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I feel like Kites nailed it on the head on this issue.
For some people it seems that their gender is more, it is part of their being and not just something made up by society.
As for dorkseid's original question I think it's true that the phrase was borrowed from when a sex is/was chosen for an intersex baby, although the phrase "gender assigned" does seem to make more sense in the context of most trans people.
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Respectfully, I find this statement problematic. Not wrong exactly, but a massive oversimplification of something that’s far more complex than either idea indicates.
Here’s an excerpt from a 2019 Lancet article on the concept of biological sex that gives an overview of how the current scientific view of biological sex is more mosaic and less binary than the vast majority of general popular discourse makes it out to be:
Contemporary scientific understanding of sex and its relation to gender was greatly influenced by the work of psychologist John Money, at Johns Hopkins University, USA, beginning in the 1950s. With colleagues, Money further complicated approaches to sex by identifying a range of biological and social factors. Chromosomes, gonads, hormones, and internal and external genital morphology were considered alongside social factors such as assigned sex and rearing, and gender role and sexual orientation. His ideas gained traction, and scientists and medical professionals came to accept sex as inherently knotty: that its “variables” are multiple, come in far more than two versions, and that no single biological factor is determinative.
Research since has expanded the range of variables that produce sex. As one example, the Y chromosome was once said to trigger testes development in fetuses. Later research showed a gene called SRY, located on the Y chromosome, “pushed” primordial germ cells in the embryo to become testes. We now know there are active genes involved in both ovary and testis determination across the genome, and not restricted to the X and Y chromosomes. As biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling has observed, “[T]hose looking to biology for an easy-to-administer definition of sex and gender can derive little comfort from the most important of these [research] findings.”
If what we know of sex is its multiplicity, this introduces a conundrum: which factors to use in categorising and defining sex? Policy makers who formulate sex categorisations and definitions overwhelmingly rely on biological features to ground membership. Biological factors hold appeal and power since reference to “biology” and “science” lends any suggested trait or combination of traits the appearance of neutrality and thus objectivity. But biological definitions of sex are at odds with the understanding that sex involves multiple biological and social factors. They are also at odds with social scientific work that complicates the idea that sex is biological whereas gender is cultural; sex, as much as gender, is culturally contingent and produced. As J R Latham notes, “sex” is not a static, discrete, or even strictly biological characteristic that exists prior to the relations and practices that produce it. Historian of science Sarah Richardson, for example, has shown how scientists “sexed” the X and Y chromosomes by glossing over inconsistencies and ambiguities between the two in their research to elevate findings that align with gendered ideas about biological sex differences.
I find the topics of sex & gender to be an abiding deep interest. One idea that I have yet to get past is that it just seems absurd to me to take seriously a view that entirety of the human gender experience could possibly fit into a binary, male or female. Perhaps that’s because of where I live, in an area influenced by various indigenous cultures that have traditionally viewed gender as a multiplicity. For example, the Dine, the Zuni, et al.
The whole concept of gender, “biological sex”, phenotypes, etc., is so fascinating to me in large part because of the evolving scientific understanding and the disconnect with prevalent societal perspectives. I’m glad to find it being discussed here.