Just a few corrections, because unfortunately lots of this post is incorrect. Lots here is correct, but I'll tack onto what isn't, because this is long enough as is. I fully agree with the last two paragraphs and on it's own I think that's an excellent point. OP is also correct in that ASAB terminology doesn't actually describe you. But...
These terms were not coined by us. The erasure going on here is worse than this, by far. These terms were invented by perisex people, a very specific group of transphobic, intersexist, pedophilic child predators, to refer to the process of correcting our sexes. That is not hyperbole, I am speaking about child rapists who were (and often still are) highly respected in their field. Which is why it's so strange & hurtful to see it gain ground as a common parlance for "observed sex at birth." I much prefer OSAB or DSAB. DSAB (designated) is a little older, and both are not as well known (go figure lol)
I'm sorry in advance, but I'm old and I've done a lot of research. This particular tidbit I've known since I was ten, because I was subject to John Money's practices as a medically classified "true hermaphrodite". My familial abusers were also child psychologists with a full on practice (which they used to abuse children) and I'm well read in the department we're all suddenly in.
Please note that my post is written as General You to an assumed general perisex audience. I will come across as aggressive because I am talking about deeply upsetting subject matter. I am not trying to be combative to OP. I am not trying to be rude. I am being as honest as I can, given the circumstances. You're welcome in advance, because this is as polite as this herm gets.
As I said, a sex assignment isn't the same as an observed sex/designated sex. If you think this, then you are wrong, and you need to read up on what I am about to tell you, because it's YOUR history as well as MY HISTORY. All of us are impacted by this.
"The concept of âgender roleâ was coined in the early 1950s at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. In a set of five publications, co-authored with psychiatrists Joan Hampson and her husband John Hampson and published between 1955 and 1956 in the Bulletin of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, John Money developed a new theory of human sexual development. Money and the Hampsons compared contradicting biological variables of sex and the sex the child had been assigned at birth with its gender role. [...]
"Based on this hypothesis, the team developed a set of treatment recommendations, which advocated early surgery on genitals to adjust the body to the assigned sex. The Hopkins protocols (as the five publications came to be called) became the dominant guidelines in intersex case management (ICM). Over the past two decades, intersex patient activists and gender scholars have, quite rightly, severely criticized these treatment practices for creating a world of shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries."
(The Birth of Gender: Medicine and the Transformation of Sex in the 1950s)
The inception point of Assigned Sex came from a group of child abusers. The inception point of Assigned Sex was child abusers discussing how to mutilate, medically and psychologically experiment on intersex children, in order to broaden their understanding of sex vs. gender. Again, I am not being hyperbolic in calling them child abusers, because they did in fact rape and molest children (on top of the psychological torture that intersex specific treatments are!) This is fact. This is immutable. You can go look into that yourself. It's included in one of the links I provide, if you actually read through this. The appearance of Assigned Sex starts in the 1950s, and it starts here.
"Should Sex Ever Be Altered After Early Childhood?
Fortunately the sex which is assigned to hermaphrodites at birth often agrees with the predominant characteristics of the external genitalia. This decision is wise provided the necessary studies are made to exclude female psuedohermaphroditism. However, when the external genitalia are of a doubtful nature, the physician often refuses to make a definite decision [...]"
The Diagnosis and Treatment of Endocrine Disorders in Childhood and Adolescence 1950
So we are categorically talking about a group of people, (of which I am one,) who were subject to infant genital mutilation (IGM), nonconsensual HRT, and routinely taken into psychologists' offices to strip naked and be sexually assaulted repeatedly; in order to ensure we were sexually developing as the correct gender role, with the correct effects of HRT on our bodies. That's what they do. That is what these people do to us. This text saying "Fortunately our assignments line up later on!" is only something this author (Wilkins) knows because he was sexually abusing intersex children/teens/young adults.
You have no idea what a lifetime of being a sexually abused lab rat does to a person.
Previously to this new wave of child sexual abuse wrapped up as medical intervention, many intersex people were quietly assigned a sex by the doctor and there were no standards. There are now, roughly standards, but it's still up to the practitioner's personal beliefs on ICM + their interpretations of the specific intersex body in front of them. Lots of us were born and left alone, lots were cut up, lots of us were Foundlings. (We still are these things, and very often.) Prior to this form of medical abuse, we were defined by a legal system (Rome, Greece, Britain) or in Indigenous communities, by our self chosen paths as an equally valued member of community - but the history is all over the place here and I gotta stick to the topic. Did you know sex markers were introduced to punish intersex "androgynous" people? Look into that. This is a great piece but it's only the start on that rabbit hole.
âGenderâ was invented within U.S. medicine in the mid-20th century. It transformed over the span of three decades, going from a pragmatic tool in the sex assignment of children with intersex traits in the 1950s, to an essential category in newly established gender identity clinics for transgender individuals in the 1960s, to a focal point of feminist debates about the sex/gender binary in the 1970s."
How the Clinic Made Gender: The Medical History of a Transformative Idea, 2022
If you are transgender, your struggles are built on our suffering. That's how intertwined this all is. The modern transphobia movement would not exist without intersexism. This is why it excessively hurts us that you use these words whilst simultaneously denying us a seat at the table. You are erasing us with the same violence that CAME from us and was put unto YOU.
"Observation or recognition of an infant's sex may be complicated in the case of intersex infants and children and in cases of early trauma. In such cases, the infant may be assigned male or female, and may receive intersex surgery to confirm that assignment. These medical interventions have increasingly been seen as a human rights violation due to their unnecessary nature and the potential for lifelong complications."
Wikipedia's page on this borders on the cusp on understanding here, but what I am saying to you all is: An observed sex is passively observed. An assigned sex is actively assigned. If you were not labeled as a sex and given intervention (HRT, surgery, therapy in the form of sex roleplay / gender dynamics roleplay, enforcement via your caretakers to ensure you're "normal" sex-wise) then you do not have an assigned sex. We came up with CASAB (coercively or correctively assigned sex) and that was taken too, but I'm not a nice herm that acquiesces ASAB in the first place, so my thoughts on that are irrelevant right now.
"More visible adoption of the terminology of sex assignment has led to public debate and criticism.
There is a consensus in the use of the term "sex assignment" for newborns with intersex conditions; observed chromosomal sex and assigned sex may intentionally differ for medical reasons (based upon predictions of psychosocial and psychosexual health in later life)." (Wikipedia)
So like intersex people have been saying, you don't actually have an assigned sex unless you were assigned a sex, and it can vary from your observed/designated sex, and lots of us have both.
"The terminology has evolved across various editions of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) maintained by the American Psychiatric Association. Initially, the third edition of the DSM referred to "anatomic sex". By the fourth edition in 1994, the term "assigned sex" was introduced, with subsequent editions also using "biological sex" and "natal gender". The latest revision in 2022 streamlined the language to consistently use "sex assignment"." (Wikipedia)
We're being effectively genocidally exterminated, by the way. This predates this statement about the UK by the Lemkin institute. The denial and prevention of identity is the first step in any genocide, and we are decades past that. The tomb felt like it sealed in 2022, Assigned Sex so mainstream that the DSM has added it to their ranks. You're contributing here, not knowing the history, flippantly using terminology intersex people have been fighting against for longer than you've lived.
If you're perisex, do not speak to me on this unless you have at least a basic grasp on John Money. If you know what ASAB is, it's thanks to him. He popularized the term assigned sex via his prolific work. He was doing that work to gain access to intersex children to sexually abuse. The additions to the DSM were due to his work bringing these terms over from the field he was in. He was a massive transphobe and a child rapist.
"In the 1970s, âbiological sexâ found its way into legal doctrine as a result of an outdated understanding of transgender identity as a mental illness caused by early childhood experiences, along with polÂicy concerns about the need to distinguish the sexes for purposes such as avoiding same-sex marriage."
"Assigned sex terminology also emerged at midcentury in medical research related to people with intersex variations. âIntersexâ is âan umbrella term for differences in sex traits or reproductive anatomy,â such as âdifferences in genitalia, hormones, internal anatomy, or chromosomes, compared to the usual two ways that human bodies develop.â Transgender theorists borrowed this terminology in the 1990s to describe the process of assigning sexes to all infants, and it began to appear in legal contexts in the early 2000s. It now competes with the term âbiological sexâ in legal disputes over transgender rights."
John Money ALONE did so much harm to the trans community, and nobody knows who he is, what he did, or how impactful it was - despite living under the current impacts of that transphobia. Because he was first and foremost obsessed with intersex children. And it seems like we really just don't matter. You need to change this. You need to care about this. It impacts you. This is your fight too.
If you are not actively seeking education on this, don't bother engaging with me. I'm well educated enough in this arena to look at someone being argumentative and recognize that they don't even know what they're arguing against or for or about. I can also tell if you pop up to argue and haven't read any of the material provided, because I've read it dozens of times in order to format my arguments over the years. I have to be well educated so that perisex people will listen to me. But this means I expect the same of you: I will not listen to your argument if it's just "But I like these terms and I'm autistic so I hate change so you're being ableist to a neuro-divergent minor!!!" You need an actual argument here, and there really isn't one. So if this pisses you off and you want to tantrum about it, consider doing so in private, because I am a (NOT NICE!) intersex person. I will not hold your hand or cheerfully educate you! Because you cannot imagine the physical torture I've endured, the intersex-specific / intersex-exclusive experience of abuses I have had over my many years! So unfortunately, when it comes to this,
And I'm not gentle about it either.
Read, educate yourself, listen to intersex people. You will never have trans liberation without the liberation of the intersex people. Your fight will always fall flat if you cut us out of it, because we have been fighting this fight just as long, arguably longer; and you are kneecapping yourselves by culling your movement's allies and founders. Thank you for reading.
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