#camab

A headcanon for examination:

I have no idea where “CAGAB” comes from. The first time I encountered it was on tumblr circa 2010. Prior to that, all I knew was “FAAB” and “MAAB” (fe/male assigned at birth).

There was discourse over the terms “CAMAB” and “CAFAB” back then, with mostly trans radfems arguing that a trans woman coined the terms, and transphobic intersex people arguing that the terms belonged to intersex people. Neither side was able to provide any evidence for their claims. That said, I did do my own research into it at the time and the earliest usage of “CAGAB” I was able to find was from TransTorah in 2002.

(link)

So take that as you will.

That said, as time went by, and this particular discourse became more widespread, most people ended up taking the intersex side. It is from this where “AGAB” and “DGAB” (designated gender at birth) come from.

Initially in the discourse the argument was that endosex trans people could not be “coercively” assigned anything, only intersex people could, as supposedly the “coercively” referred specifically to intersex genital mutilation. People accepted this, and dropped the “C” giving us “AGAB”.

Of course, goalposts move, and so the discourse changed to how endosex trans people cannot be “assigned” a gender, only intersex people can, because, again, of intersex genital mutilation. So that killed “GAAB” and, briefly, “AGAB”. In its place was coined “DGAB”.

People tried to move the goalposts again over “designated”, but people saw what was happening re shifting goalposts, and so this never got any traction. Not to mention how trans radfems were gaining more ground in social justice circles so people were more willing to listen to them now. People instead just continued to argue over “coercively” and “assigned” until the Baeddel Crew broke up. How much of that correlation is causation I know not.

As for why baeddels prefer “CAGAB” over others, well, it’s because the “coercively” connotes that the gendering was forced upon you against your will, it implies violence, which the “assigned” alone does not. There was also some shit about how “AGAB” and “DGAB” are harmful because they lump trans people in with cis people.