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!
Thank you for this. The unicorn always made me feel kinda uncomfortable. I think it was a necessary step for my transradicalisation, but now I’ve surpassed the need for it.
Twilight Sparkle would never say such a thing
I am canceling Twilight Sparkle
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.
