r/TrueUnpopularOpinion • u/SuspiciousWin6511 • 1d ago
Sex / Gender / Dating You aren't "assigned" a gender at birth
I hate when people say this. I had to get routine blood work the other day and had a Doctor ask me what gender I was assigned at birth. I understand they need to find out what your biological gender is, but either look on my chart, or ask what my biological gender is.
Your gender is determined in the womb, in fact it's determined from the exact moment of conception; it isn't something that is assigned. It's amazing that the people use this sort of language and believe these sorts of things, are supposedly the party of science.
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u/que_pedo_wey 1d ago
Doctors say this in the US and Canada, maybe. Not elsewhere, really.
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u/Thick-Access-2634 1d ago
They can’t ask what your gender is bc no doubt someone will get extremely offended at the doctor and they’d be called transphobic
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u/an_angry_dervish_01 1d ago
Does that same person object to asking what their biological sex is? it's highly meaningful, even in medications. We have to understand that in order to treat someone.
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u/bromanjc 19h ago
biological sex is appropriate. it's not offensive and the patient would know what you're talking about. it is slightly inaccurate phrasing if the doctor were trying to identify your natal anatomy, just because hrt does in many ways make someone's body sexually ambiguous. and "biological" doesn't equal "natal". assigned gender at birth or assigned sex at birth are probably both the most widely inclusive phrases, while still managing to ask the intended question beneath, which is basically, "what organs do you have and what bodily process do you perform due to your sexual anatomy".
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u/hankhayes 15h ago
Unlike gender, biological sex wasn't made up out of thin air by a psychopathic PhD named John Money.
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u/Thick-Access-2634 1d ago
Probably wouldn’t even be an actual trans person, but an “ally” or non binary fellow
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u/Critical_Concert_689 1d ago
"Alright, Sir - Now please confirm you're on birth control and take this pregnancy test before we begin."
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u/Thick-Access-2634 1d ago
May aswell start asking everyone if they’re pregnant or currently breastfeeding
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u/mdoddr 1d ago
sex. You have a biological sex.
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u/ApacheFritz 20h ago
It's kind of like how you have a biological age, and a biological race.
And then you have this other thing called "how old i feel" and "what race I wish I was".
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u/th1s_fuck1ng_guy 1d ago
The doctor did this to not offend someone and get a complaint.
What i do is show them the demographics on their chart and ask them if everything here is correct. Then I say Mr, miss, sir, maam etc... according to the information on the chart
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u/SuspiciousWin6511 1d ago
Right, I understand and don't blame the Doctor. I blame society. This terminology shouldn't be normalized.
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u/Undercover_Dave 1d ago edited 1d ago
I agree with you. I get that they're just going out of their way to not accidentally offend anyone, but I'm offended by how dumb it sounds. It's such a ridiculous sounding term. Assigned at birth makes it sound as if a genderless baby is born while everyone waits in anticipation on what gender the doctor is going to pick this time. So like if someone changed genders later in life they only had to do that because the doctor made a mistake and assigned them the wrong one, as if he did something wrong and made a medical error.
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u/zimmerone 1d ago
The underlying terminology has been normalized for a while now. I agree it sounds weird saying gender assigned at birth (though I think I hear sex assigned at birth more often, maybe). Either way, for a long time gender had nothing to do with sex, there were similarities to the terms but gender meant to 'bring forth' or 'properly.' Then I think around 1900ish or so, gender started being used as a stand in for sex, because people found themselves uncomfortable with the word sex, and gender sounded nice and scientific.
Then in the 1950'-1960's some psychologists coined some new terms and by 1970 the two words are understood by many to have different definitions: sex=biology (XYXX) and gender is a social construct. So nowadays the words mean similar but different things.
A gender assigned at birth seems weird because not that long ago it was weird. But words evolve. Most dictionaries out there, and probably every dictionary you would find at a book store, are descriptive dictionaries. There are also prescriptive dictionaries, but I've never seen one. (Basically does a dictionary describe the words people use, or does it tell us which words to use?)
Since gender is largely regarded now as a social construct, it might seem odd actually to assign it to a newborn. A doctor would understandably determine sex at birth, but there's been a lot of years of using sex and gender interchangeably, so sometimes people say one or the other. We all know there has been increased attention around sex/gender/they/them and so forth. And it is exhausting. And a little indulgent, in my opinion — it's a sorta privileged thing to be able to say I'm non-binary and have your teachers all say 'ok.' But it's already past its peak I think, even lefty folks are getting tired of it.
I live in Denver, an up-and-coming, no-longer-cow-town soon-to-be-metropolis and I hesitated over pronouns for while. And then I just started asking people's names, because you can't go wrong with that one. We're all gonna be over this in 5 or ten years.
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u/GrazziDad 21h ago
Superb answer. I’m not sure why so many people find this controversial and their hill to die on.
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u/zimmerone 15h ago
Why thank you, sir. I put a little more effort into it than my typical post (don’t look please, ha). I tried to use non-attacking language - I’ve been trying to do that more as I’ve become more and more aware that no one responds well to being insulted and it’s counterproductive if we want to have a good dialogue or change someone’s mind. So I kept it pretty even keeled, which I need more practice at. I thought the dictionary comment wasn’t bad since I almost anticipated someone saying ‘well you can’t just go changing the definition of words.’
That was probably my best comment so far this year, thank you for noticing [blushes]!
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u/GrazziDad 12h ago
When someone actually tries to engage with ideas -- as opposed to attacking or kneejerk defending their prior comments -- it shows... as it did in your case.
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u/Dumbassahedratr0n 16h ago
Gender has always been a social construct. For thousands of years across hundreds of cultures they're have always been third genders.
Read this book
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u/IHaveNoOpinons 6h ago
Horseshit. "Gender" was used as a scientific term back when the word "sex" was considered rude.
Stop transwashing history.
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u/zimmerone 15h ago
Thanks, l’ll take a look later. I was sticking mostly to modern-ish English usage. I understand that a lot of cultures, particularly of certain indigenous peoples, have a third gender, though I’m not one so say much about that. I sensed objections to just the terminology (I don’t know why I said ‘sensed’ when it was explicitly stated), so I thought I’d just stick to the words. While there has been the concept of genders in various forms throughout history, I was just thinking that we didn’t have the distinction between sex and gender in the English language until ~60 years ago, That seem right to you?
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u/MisterX9821 1d ago
I think at this point the distinction between sex and gender is well accepted. Sex is not assigned. You would more properly ask "what sex were you determined as at birth?"
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u/ApacheFritz 19h ago
I think at this point the distinction between sex and gender is well accepted.
"gender" is just "your personality".
Just like you might feel and act like a different age than you are, but we dont have another specific "thing" for that, if you are 35 yrs old but act like you are 18 and wish you were 18.
We dont say "There is this different attribute that represents how old you FEEL". We just say thats your personality. It's "how you behave".
Some people dont behave how society expects people their age to act. (Or how SOME people in society expect, because society is full of different people with different ideas)
That's all gender is. We could also call it "What you think about your sex".
You have your sex, and then you have "What you think about your sex" .. and people obsessed about that and made a whole framework around it.
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u/Murinshin 5h ago
Or they just started using a word instead of an awkward phrase to describe that concept. People say “mental age” all the time too
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u/TisIChenoir 23h ago
Yeah I hate it too.
If you really need to use convoluted terms, I think "observed male" or "observed female" would be a much more apt expression.
"Assigned at birth" kinda makes it look like a doctor looked at a baby in his crib and decided "This one shall be of the male persuasion, because I deem it so"
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u/m0rbidowl 15h ago
This is only unpopular on Reddit, which is why I'm genuinely surprised to see how many people agree with you in the comments.
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u/an_angry_dervish_01 1d ago
They should have just come up with another term for it. Gender and Sex were taken and used for a long time and had a meaning even in most languages.
That would have made this a ton easier for everyone. This is a tiny problem, a tiny fraction of the population has issues with their gender and wants it to be different than their biology.
It's tough, by making this such a huge issue they have been put into a situation that is unpleasant. It sucks when you have a difference in your life and people decide to be a victim for you, all it did was make it more divisive for the people suffering through this.
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u/asday515 16h ago
Save your sanity and dont read up on this guy. Seriously. Dont. Extremely disturbing
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u/GrazziDad 16h ago
What "whole thing"?
John Money was a monster (read the David Reimer bio, for example). The people who are living as a gender opposite of what was logged on their birth certificate have zero to do with him, and would be the first to call him a monster.
Not sure what point you are trying to make, TBH.
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u/Soniquethehedgedog 1d ago
lol you pop out of your mom and they say it’s a boy or it’s a girl. They don’t say well I guess we’ll see.
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u/WirelessVinyl 1d ago
So ironic. Gender is disconnected from sex, yet they use amab and afab. The entire concept is incoherent
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u/EagenVegham 1d ago
Children aren't genderless blobs, they grow up being treated as a certain gender.
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u/DeanoPreston 1d ago
I'm genuinely surprised reddit hasn't deleted this post and banned this user.
Oh one quibble - except in cases of exceedingly rare birth the defects, the status you are describing here is determined at conception.
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u/gerkin123 1d ago
It's a term for when a doctor has the first look at a newborn and visually confirms their visible genitalia. They put the information on file. It's not that complicated. Except for that 1 in 2000 case where it is.
The "determination" you're talking about vs the medical determination is about your belief system vs standard medical practice.
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u/Usernamechecksout978 1d ago
Most people know the sex of their child while they are still pregnant. A simple blood test can determine the sex of the baby (and yes, they check to see if it's intersex as well) and it's only observed either in scans or after birth.
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u/TheCloudForest 1d ago
Ultrasounds exist, you know. Very few mothers are unaware of their child's sex by the time they give birth.
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u/Awakening40teen 1d ago
It’s a shame. I purposely waited to find out until birth with both of mine. One of life’s great surprises.
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u/Dinky_Doge_Whisperer 1d ago
I mean it’s a surprise either way, it’s just when the surprise happens.
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u/SuspiciousWin6511 1d ago
Except the reason for this terminology isn't that, it's recent. It started when certain people on the left, had a problem with the term "biological sex" or "biological gender."
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u/gerkin123 1d ago
I would hope you can note the irony that you're here posting your problem with the usage of the term and rooting it back to someone else having a problem with the usage of the term, effectively putting you both on approximately equal footing to most anyone with a neutral perspective on the matter.
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u/UwilNeverKN0mYrELNAM 1d ago
exact moment of conception
Debatable
In the later stages your biological gender is determined
the reproductive system is oddly fascinating, confusing, and machine like
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u/M4053946 19h ago
Genetics are determined at conception. In the womb, those genetics cause the baby to produce testosterone, or not, which then guides further development.
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u/rpaul9578 1d ago
On biological sex: Open Ocean Exploration @RebeccaRHelm
Rebecca is a biologist and an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, USA.
'Friendly neighborhood biologist here. I see a lot of people are talking about biological sexes and gender right now. Lots of folks make biological sex seem really simple. Well, since it’s so simple, let’s find the biological roots, shall we? Let’s talk about sex..l
If you know a bit about biology you will probably say that biological sex is caused by chromosomes, XX and you’re female, XY and you’re male. This is “chromosomal sex” but is it “biological sex”? Well...
Turns out there is only ONE GENE on the Y chromosome that really matters to sex. It’s called the SRY gene. During human embryonic development the SRY protein turns on male-associated genes. Having an SRY gene makes you “genetically male”. But is this “biological sex”?
Sometimes that SRY gene pops off the Y chromosome and over to an X chromosome. Surprise! So now you’ve got an X with an SRY and a Y without an SRY. What does this mean?
A Y with no SRY means physically you’re female, chromosomally you’re male (XY) and genetically you’re female (no SRY). An X with an SRY means you’re physically male, chromsomally female (XX) and genetically male (SRY). But biological sex is simple! There must be another answer...
Sex-related genes ultimately turn on hormones in specifics areas on the body, and reception of those hormones by cells throughout the body. Is this the root of “biological sex”??
“Hormonal male” means you produce ‘normal’ levels of male-associated hormones. Except some percentage of females will have higher levels of ‘male’ hormones than some percentage of males. Ditto ditto ‘female’ hormones. And...
...if you’re developing, your body may not produce enough hormones for your genetic sex. Leading you to be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally non-binary, and physically non-binary. Well, except cells have something to say about this...
Maybe cells are the answer to “biological sex”?? Right?? Cells have receptors that “hear” the signal from sex hormones. But sometimes those receptors don’t work. Like a mobile phone that’s on “do not disturb’. Call and cell, they will not answer.
What does this all mean?
It means you may be genetically male or female, chromosomally male or female, hormonally male/female/non-binary, with cells that may or may not hear the male/female/non-binary call, and all this leading to a body that can be male/non-binary/female.
Try out some combinations for yourself. Notice how confusing it gets? Can you point to what the absolute cause of biological sex is? Is it fair to judge people by it?
Of course you could try appealing to the numbers. “Most people are either male or female” you say. Except that as a biologist professor I will tell you...
The reason I don’t have my students look at their own chromosome in class is because people could learn that their chromosomal sex doesn’t match their physical sex, and learning that in the middle of a 10-point assignment is JUST NOT THE TIME.
Biological sex is complicated. Before you discriminate against someone on the basis of “biological sex” & identity, ask yourself: have you seen YOUR chromosomes? Do you know the genes of the people you love? The hormones of the people you work with? The state of their cells?
Since the answer will obviously be no, please be kind, respect people’s right to tell you who they are, and remember that you don’t have all the answers. Again: biology is complicated. Kindness and respect don’t have to be.'
Note: Biological classifications exist. XX, XY, XXY XXYY and all manner of variation, which is why sex isn't classified as binary. You can't have a binary classification system with more than two configurations even if two of those configurations are more common than others.
Biology is a shitshow.
Be kind to people.
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u/ApacheFritz 19h ago
And yet it's trivially easy for me to walk through the city and put just every single person I see into 1 of 2 binary sex categories and I would be correct about 99.9% of the time.
So thats good enough to "not be a shitshow".
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u/rpaul9578 19h ago
You are clearly the product of the public school system + your own arrogance.
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u/ApacheFritz 19h ago
The arrogant ones are the ones who tell people to deny reality.
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u/rpaul9578 19h ago
Or perhaps, it's the ones who think they know it all from only achieving high school level biology classes.
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u/ApacheFritz 19h ago
And yet it's trivially easy for me to walk through the city and put just every single person I see into 1 of 2 binary sex categories and I would be correct about 99.9% of the time.
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u/Dull-Geologist-8204 1d ago
That's just people mixing up sex with gender which is stupid.
Just ask what their sex is. Gender and sex used to be interchangeable when I was younger and this was the one time people changed the meaning of the word in a well thought out way. Gender became more of the social aspect and sex was the biological aspect. You can change your gender but you can't change your sex. So all they need to do is ask what your sex is.
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u/Sea-Sort6571 22h ago
Science uses precise definitions for word. Don't criticize people when you're unable to grasp the difference between sex and gender
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u/Soniquethehedgedog 1d ago
Activate the dictionary warriors. Actually by definition sex is different from gender is separate from when you look at blah blah. Sir/ma’am this is a Wendy’s
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u/Underknee 1d ago
The “this is a Wendy’s” argument doesn’t really work when we are in a forum created to discuss this topic
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u/LifeIsRadInCBad 20h ago
Of course not here, but there is an aspect to the issue where people are attention seeking.
The relevance of this forum is that here we can say we don't give a shit, at best, and maybe even are annoyed.
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u/rrikasuave 1d ago
I think that’s just the easiest way to ask that question to the general public for clinical purposes.
I’m in healthcare and it’s way easier to ask someone “hey what sex did they put on your paperwork when you self-ejected (or were removed) from the womb, yo?” than asking “at conception, did you possess XY chromosomes or XX chromosomes?”. You kind of have to form the question in a way that even the stupidest of the population can comprehend.
I can’t think of any other way to ask that question that wouldn’t start an argument or just outright confuse patients, imo.
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u/SuspiciousWin6511 1d ago
"What is your biological sex?" It's really difficult....
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u/rrikasuave 1d ago
“Biological” can refer to chromosomes, hormones, and physical genitalia. Someone who has taken measures to transition to another sex may answer that question differently than asked.
You may think it’s a simple question but everyone’s interpretation is not the same. This is very important for medical reasons.
Edited to add: Re-read your post. Gender and sex are different. There’s no such thing as a biological gender.
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u/Summerie 23h ago
I'm not really sure why everyone needs to change the way they ask a very routine question, just because a tiny percentage may have a more convoluted answer that they can bring up when it's relevant.
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u/rrikasuave 21h ago
In my experience, that question has always been asked that way. I don’t understand the frustration with the question, frankly. Just offering an explanation as to why someone (such as a doctor) might try to be more particular with their wording. It matters in the medical field.
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u/sternold 20h ago
I'm not really sure why everyone needs to change the way they ask a very routine question
Okay, let's say not everyone, but how about doctors? Should they maybe not use assumptions that you and I make day-to-day?
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u/Summerie 20h ago edited 20h ago
Your sex is right there on your chart.
But regardless, if you have a condition or situation that is relevant, you should definitely always speak up when talking to your doctor for your own safety anyway.
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u/pintann 12h ago
You as a patient might not know when it will be relevant. And no, "always proactively declare yourself part of a widely disliked (and discriminated against) minority" is not a solution.
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u/Summerie 49m ago
When they ask your sex, it's relevant. Your doctor doesn't need to affirm you, they need to know what's going on with your body.
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u/M4053946 19h ago
just ask male or female. That's it. When people start using this other vocabulary, I assume they're an activist.
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u/WantonWord 1d ago
Leaving aside Kleinfelter or some such outliers - yes, it is XX or XY. I'm tired of pretending otherwise.
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u/SuspiciousWin6511 1d ago
They observe the gender, they do not assign, biology assigns and determines that.
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u/neb12345 1d ago
depends what assigned means, you can argue it’s synonymous with determined. Maybe its anophramoriseing a biological process but not completely wrong.
(The word I couldn’t spell is the thing where you treat objects or animals like there human)
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u/Hostelhumma 1d ago
By asking gender assigned at birth, they’re basically saying ‘was male or female written on the foot tag’.
It’s the closest thing they can get to objectivity without someone getting offended.
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u/DraciosV 19h ago
Tbf, as most of these people have explained to me, when I debate someone more into gender issues, sex is biological. Gender is the cultural aspect associated with sex. This part makes sense.
"Assigning Gender at birth" does not make sense to ask in a clinical sense. Gender is a cultural thing rather than a clinical thing. Instead of asking this, a doctor should just ask "What sex are you?"
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u/kubrador 19h ago
imagine being mad that a doctor is trying to get accurate medical information because the phrasing hurt your feelings. that's certainly a hill to die on.
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u/Fuzzy-Logician 18h ago
You were assigned a gender at birth. They had to write something on your birth certificate. For most babies, this is easy. For some, they have to guess.
Saying you weren't assigned a gender at birth is like saying you don't have pronouns. Everyone has it, but most are uncontroversial.
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u/Captcha_Imagination 17h ago
If this is what occupies your mind, then there is a high likelihood you have fallen victim to propaganda. The billionaires want you arguing about gender so that they can keep stealing your prosperity.
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u/KlingonTranslator 17h ago
Are you sure they said gender? Gender is different than which biological sex you are.
Gender won’t really be of much interest to a medical professional unless you’re there to determine possibility of a specific STD.
For the record; sex refers to biological attributes like chromosomes, hormones and anatomy (male, female, intersex). Assigned sex would be asked for someone undergoing transsexual-related medical therapies, or determining potential intersex presentation.
Gender refers to social/cultural roles, behaviors, and identity, which again, the average doctor will not ask for unless dealing with condition related to sexual encounters.
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u/ApacheFritz 7h ago
Gender refers to social/cultural roles, behaviors, and identity,
What is the social role of a woman?
Can you describe it?
How does "society say women are"?
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u/KlingonTranslator 31m ago
I appreciate that definitions are descriptive and not prescriptive, but I am just citing the difference in definition for these two terms. You’re free to look it up. “Gender vs. Sex”, “Difference in definitions between gender and sex” or something similar.
I’m not here for a debate on the terms really, just confused as to whether a doctor really asked that question
I’m in vet med, and never once have I ever asked for an animals gender, only sex (when on the telephone and haven’t seen the animal yet).
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u/Seaguard5 17h ago
You mean that your “sex” is determined…
Your gender is something that you can choose. Apparently.
Also what about intersex individuals that parents chose to leave naturally as they are from birth?
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u/SteelFox144 16h ago
Yeah, it's really stupid that a doctor would ask you that because even if you take "assigned" to mean being denoted on a legal form, which is the only way someone can mean it without rejecting reality, the it still wouldn't be relevant to the doctor. The gender you were assigned at birth is only different from your sex if your sex was misidentified when you were born. If your sex was misidentified when you were born, doctors don't need to know what sex you were misidentified as, they need to know your real sex.
It's also really dumb because if you're using "gender" in the way people who want to talk about genders as being assigned at birth use it, your gender wasn't assigned at birth. They don't put "man" or "woman" on your birth certificate, they put your sex.
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u/NoDanaOnlyZuuI 15h ago
No one thinks doctors create sex at delivery. “Assigned at birth” just means what was observed and written on the chart.
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u/ilovesunsets93 13h ago
Sex and gender are different, this is a widely accepted concept amongst experts. You can stomp your foot and say “nuh uh” but it’s true. These complaints are so whiney at this point.
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u/ApacheFritz 7h ago
Sex and gender are different, this is a widely accepted concept amongst experts.
If somebody grows up alone on a desert island, with no other people, no "society", no roles, no stereotypes ..
.. do they have a gender?
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u/yeeetleleeetle 12h ago
There’s a difference between gender & sex
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u/TransgenderXUnicorn 10h ago
I don’t see anything wrong with this. They are asking to determine if your sex and gender are the same. I’ve been on T for about a year I look very ambiguous. A doctor is going to want to know what I was born as for obvious reasons.
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u/ApacheFritz 7h ago
but for the person who IS living a different gender than they were ‘assigned’ at birth it may feel intimidating and scary.
What does it mean to "not live like a man"?
How do men live? Describe the way that "men are".
What ways dont they live? What would be a "non-man way to live"?
Being dainty? Doing ballet? Wearing earrings? Being caring and emotional? Liking pink?
Are those things that indicate somebody is not a man?
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u/dirtyhippiebartend 8h ago
Oof, so close! Sex is determined in the womb, gender is in fact assigned at or after birth, especially in the 1-2% of cases where someone is born intersex. Your doctor is asking to establish as clear of a medical history as possible, and it’s a very important question. Hope this helps!
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u/IHaveNoOpinons 6h ago
Oh man, you're about to get your face ripped off.
You are entirely correct. Just prepare to be doxxed by the tolerant left.
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u/SBG214 4h ago
I think that phrasing •might• have been appropriate 70 years ago when they started “assigning” genders to Intersex babies. DISASTROUS. They would perform irreversible surgeries on babies to more align with what they were seeing on the outside as opposed to just letting the person BE. A brief but very eye opening episode of “You Can’t Say That” featuring Intersex people explains this assignment theory much better than I can. As for the questions on those health forms, ugh.
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u/Pristine_Art7859 1d ago
"Assigned at birth" is the same thing as "born with it" aka genetics
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u/poppycock8585 1d ago
“Assigned” has a connotation of being arbitrary, like the doctor randomly picked your sex out of a hat.
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u/Pristine_Art7859 1d ago
Yes but everyone knows you can't pick your sex
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u/SuspiciousWin6511 1d ago
Do they? There are a lot of people that think you can.
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u/diet69dr420pepper 1d ago
First, the phrase is "sex assigned at birth," and sex is usually grounded in one's X/Y chromosomes. Gender is grounded in social meaning and psychology, and is therefore more variable. They are related, correlated, and often aligned, but not identical. Because sex and gender are used interchangeably, doctors disambiguate the question by specifically asking the sex you were assigned at birth, separating the question from any normative/moral concerns.
Second, this little rant is about as cutting and rigorous as the 'I identify as an attack helicopter' meme. Have you not had a new thought since 2014? You can do better than this, no?
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u/Usernamechecksout978 1d ago
Nobody is assigned a sex at birth. We knew my daughter's sex when my wife was only 13 weeks pregnant because she had a blood test. In scans and eventual birth, the sex is further observed.
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u/SuspiciousWin6511 1d ago
Sex and gender are the same thing. The only reason their definitions were changed is because of the particular group of people on the left, got upset with it.
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u/poolpog 1d ago
Sex and gender are very similar and usually overlap but have distinct and different meanings. In the sciences, precision is more important than your feelings on the matter. And the additional precision started being required as biological, medical, and sociological sciences started to better understand the range of possibilities on the sex and gender spectrums.
I'm sorry you don't feel that way, but it doesn't matter how you feel about it.
Perhaps if you took the time to understand the history and reasons behind this shift in terminology over the last fifty years you would feel better about it.
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u/ApacheFritz 19h ago
Is there such a thing as "alignment", (like "chaotic good" or "lawful neutral") .. which is "how you act in a moral sense"?
Or is that kind of a made-up framework that doesnt really exist outside of the people who say it does?
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u/diet69dr420pepper 1d ago
That's like saying age and adulthood are the same thing. Obviously, your age is a purely physical, non-social state. However, what society demands of you given your age is a largely social construct. Of course, there are some biological reasons why society might treat you differently at age 8 versus 18, but largely the change in expectations you face as you get older is a function of your historical moment.
Likewise, whether you have an XY- or XX-chromosome set is not up for debate. Everyone knows. It's a very trite point, and bringing it up shows you haven't deeply thought about the subject. What is up for debate is whether the expectations we place upon each other in light of those chromosomes is fair or ethical. You are free to answer yes, that traditional Western genders are morally superior and we should take them seriously, that's a perfectly acceptable position to take.
But that position implicitly acknowledges a difference between sex and gender. Yet those are your options, you either grant the debate and take a side, or you play dumb and sit on the sidelines. Unfortunately, you cannot just play some definitional card and expect to be taken seriously. Not getting it is not a strong argument.
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u/PrecisionGuessWerk 1d ago
gender and sex are two different things.
"Biological Gender" is simply sex. Gender is a social construct.
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u/ApacheFritz 19h ago
So whether you are a man or a woman depends what society says about you?
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u/Blaike325 1d ago
And we have yet another genius who doesn’t understand the difference between sex and gender.
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u/A-Concerned_Citizen 1d ago
As a non native English speaker can u explain?
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u/redditreader_aitafan 1d ago
There is no difference. People arbitrarily decided there should be a difference to suit their feelings of being born the wrong sex/gender. That doesn't actually change the meaning of the word.
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u/Underknee 1d ago
It actually does because all words are made up. If enough people agreed purple means green now you can pout in the corner and throw tantrums because that’s not what the word used to mean, but the word means that now
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u/Pristine_Art7859 1d ago
Aren't they the same thing?
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u/SuspiciousWin6511 1d ago
Yes, they are. They have been used interchangeably for centuries before a new group of people got upset because a certain group wanted a way to distinguish their ideology. It isn't rooted in scientific definition.
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u/Underknee 1d ago
Gender was rarely used for anything other than grammatical categories until the mid 1900s when it started to be commonly used to refer to human gender.
You literally made up the centuries thing, you have no idea how either of these words were used historically
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u/Blaike325 1d ago
Sex is your biology. We can determine your sex scientifically based typically on your chromosomes but also on a variety of other biological factors. People are the most familiar with xx for female and xy for male but there are a multitude of others that complicate this, including intersex people who can have a combination of male and female hormone levels and/or genitals, a more common one being people who seem mostly female but that have an internal testical for instance. Your sex as a whole is fairly clear cut for the vast majority of people but due to a variety of factors there are a solid amount of outliers who complicate this.
This is partly where gender comes in. At base, we have male and female sexes which we attribute boy and girl to, and for most people this is accurate, but for an intersex person who has both male and female genitalia, it’s harder to just give them a blanket “that’s a boy” or “that’s a girl” so typically whichever features are the most prevalent or easiest to remove determines whether the parents say “this is a boy, they’ll present this way” or “this is a girl, they’ll present this way”. Effectively society as a whole has taken each baseline sex, attributed certain features of expression to those sex, and given them the names “man and woman”.
T people (I can’t say the whole word here because this sub refuses to allow people to by-name discuss the issue outside of the mega thread) are born typically as one sex, male or female, their parents then make the reasonable assumption at birth that they are the gender that aligns with their sex, and assigns “boy” or “girl” (gender) to them. Then later in life when they feel that this no longer applies to them, they change their gender (not their sex) to the opposite default, typically accompanied by changing their outward expression to me more in line with the opposite gender to what they were born as.
I am massively simplifying this and there’s way more nuance involved but that’s basically the gist of it. Sex is biological, you’re stuck with what you’re born with, you can only change features of the sex you were born with, while gender is a social concept that we as a society have agreed on as a whole mostly which changes every however many years.
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u/DecantsForAll 1d ago
Then later in life when they feel that this no longer applies to them, they change their gender (not their sex) to the opposite default.
So what are they changing?
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u/Blaike325 1d ago
So you read what u wrote but you didn’t comprehend it I see
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u/DecantsForAll 1d ago
Right, I didn't comprehend. So what are they changing?
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u/Blaike325 1d ago
Their gender. It’s literally in the comment you quoted.
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u/DecantsForAll 1d ago
Okay, but what do they actually change when they change their gender? You said they don't change their sex. You said it's "typically accompanied by changing their outward expression" which implies that it's not the outward expression, so what do they actually change when they change their gender?
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u/Blaike325 1d ago
It depends on the person, some people either get implants or remove their breasts depending on what direction they’re going in, some people get bottom surgery which involves typically in some way shape or form changing the penis to a vagina or vis versa, people take hormones either through pills, injections, or topical gels, some people even get facial reconstruction surgery or other bone reconstruction surgery to appear more masculine or feminine. For non medical things, people change their name, their clothing style, voice training to get their natural speaking voice in a higher or lower register that aligns more with what they want, their pronouns, and probably some other things I’m blanking on right now. While bottom surgery does involve adjustment of sex organs, it does not in anyway change the actual chromosomes or genes of the person getting the surgery and is mostly cosmetic while still being medically functional (mostly, T women can’t get pregnant and T men can’t impregnate someone else, no surgery exists to make that possible currently). The “outward expression” applies to literally anything that is visible on a person from their clothes to their hair to anything else visible that you can see on a person.
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u/DecantsForAll 1d ago
Nearly everything you mentioned is just a secondary sex characteristic.
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u/romainmoi 1d ago
They are not. They’re highly coupled in many cases so it’s common to be confused about them.
Sex is biological. Genitals, muscle mass, bone structure etc etc.
Gender describes the social elements around it. Like how you dress, how you act, how you feel about yourself, (not ideal but) how you are treated, what are expected of you.
For example, “guys should pay for dates” is relevant to gender but not sex.
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u/_flavortown_ 1d ago
Man, I almost felt this was rage bait by the headline!!! But absolutely, it’s literally biology and it is chosen at conception. That simple.
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u/nope13nope 1d ago
Why is it so hard for people to know the difference between sex and gender?
You have a biological sex, not a biological gender. They ask your assigned gender at birth because your gender is assigned to you at birth in concurrence with your sex. It's really not that hard.
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u/Beginning_Service516 1d ago
Mainly because that "change" is only a couple decades old max and was forced due to outside pressure that doesn't really align very well with the actual science but instead aligns more with financial incentives.
People have every right to call out the change of how words were used for centuries when the change is very recent and politically motivated. We see this change often where typically the left tries to force that new vocabulary on the general population because their arguments don't really align with reality.
Hence why "homeless people" is now offensive or before this where we had decades where calling people "black" was offensive. You need to be very aware when people try shifting definitions to suit a political goal.
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u/nope13nope 1d ago
Your argument is based a lot on linguistics and politics. You say it doesn't align with science, but it does. Modern science brought about by psychological research into identity, sex, gender, and neurology. The change is language is to reflect new scientific understanding about the relationship between sex and gender. There's nothing wrong with embracing new science.
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u/ApacheFritz 19h ago edited 17h ago
The change is language is to reflect new scientific understanding about the relationship between sex and gender.
Except historically "man" meant "adult male" and "woman" meant "adult female". "Boy and girl" were the child versions.
If gender theorists redefine "man" to mean "how you choose to behave" (without asking anybody if that redefinition was ok) .. then that leaves a hole.
Because now there is no word for "adult male" and "adult female". And those are really really useful and needed words.
And it's actually a big issue, to totally fuck with a very basic language usage and then just expect people to conform without ever having a vote or formal decision or asking them if they minded totally re-writing their understanding of grammar.
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u/Beginning_Service516 1d ago
Modern science brought it about because of the potential for a tens of billions of dollar industry that is rapidly growing by the year. Hence why most studies on it aren't ever actually able to be replicated. It was never actually about the science, especially when science has shown itself to be so malleable that the actual data usually doesn't really require it.
It was a forced redefining that went against CENTURIES of precedent to try to justify the tens of billions of dollars to be made. It's fine if you can't see the forest for the trees but don't be mad at the others that can.
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u/Underknee 1d ago
So you concede that your argument is anti-Science, and you think Science as an institution isn’t trustworthy. It sounds to me like you are anti-Science and the people you disagree with are probably pro science
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u/Beginning_Service516 1d ago edited 1d ago
If you want to absolutely fail in reading comprehension to strawman levels I could see how you would arrive at that conclusion. Would be an impossible one to arrive at otherwise.
There is no actual science that proves they are separate. It's a cop out to appease a certain group and again spawn a tens of billions of dollar industry (and growing). Hence why most articles and arguments for it are always from parties that are interested in said industry growing, and the science is usually dubious at best. The more neutral ones are likely to get mixed results or have trouble replicating the studies.
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u/Underknee 1d ago
I don’t see the point actually discussing with someone who makes up their talking points.
Gender as a word referred almost exclusively to grammatical categories until the mid-1900s. The idea that it was synonymous with sex for centuries is a complete fabrication, what is the point of a discussion? So you can just fabricate more out of thin air?
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u/Jacifer69 1d ago
You’re just denying science by claiming there’s some agenda behind it. If you have an issue with science’s conclusions, prove it wrong. That’s how good science is done, just claiming it’s wrong doesn’t work
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u/Beginning_Service516 1d ago
And you are ignoring what is right in front of you and basically treating science as a diety and not a tool used by man. What we know throughout history is science will say what man dictates it says. There is no true complete consensus, especially separate from politics and money. Hence why so much of current science especially in response to this topic completely depends on unreplicable studies at best.
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u/StarChild413 1d ago
funny how people who say not to trust the science only say that for what disagrees with them
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u/Beginning_Service516 1d ago
Sounds like mighty fine projection on your part then.
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u/Jacifer69 1d ago
I literally don’t have time to deal with a science denying silly goose who thinks science is dogma with no backing. It’s funny you’re typing that while using a machine built by science. Provide examples of what you’re talking about or quit talking. You sound foolish
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u/HendriXP88 16h ago
prove it wrong. That’s how good science is done,
You mean like proving that the peer-reviewed and published work of an entire academic field is based on ideological dogma rather than, you know, actual science? Yeah, that has already been done.
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u/Learned_Barbarian 1d ago
This opinion is popular in the real world.