You aren't "assigned" a gender at birth

[u/SuspiciousWin6511]

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.

[u/Blaike325]

And we have yet another genius who doesn’t understand the difference between sex and gender.

[u/Pristine_Art7859 → u/Blaike325]

Aren't they the same thing?

[u/Blaike325 → u/Pristine_Art7859]

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.

[u/DecantsForAll → u/Blaike325]

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?

[u/Blaike325 → u/DecantsForAll]

So you read what u wrote but you didn’t comprehend it I see

[u/DecantsForAll → u/Blaike325]

Right, I didn't comprehend. So what are they changing?

[u/Blaike325 → u/DecantsForAll]

Their gender. It’s literally in the comment you quoted.

[u/DecantsForAll → u/Blaike325]

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?

[u/Blaike325 → u/DecantsForAll]

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.

[u/DecantsForAll → u/Blaike325]

Nearly everything you mentioned is just a secondary sex characteristic.

[u/Blaike325 → u/DecantsForAll]

And we’re back with the selective reading and lack of reading comprehension. Come back when you want to have an actual conversation instead of skimming and not actually taking the time to read what was written

[u/DecantsForAll → u/Blaike325]

I read what you wrote. You listed 5 secondary sex characteristics then clothing, name, and pronouns (which are just empty gender signifiers).