Male femme or male girl, or sissy. I don’t use sissy much any more — too many kinksters using it, and they mean something different. At any rate I have both a sex and a gender and both of those things are factors in my identity. I’m not a cisgender woman and don’t wish to be perceived as if I were one, but I share a gender with them. I’m not a cisgender man and don’t wish to be perceived as one of those either, I was never one of the boys nor aspired to be a man, but I do share a sex with other males.
You seem to be saying that there is no difference between cisboys and transgirls. They are both (likely) biological males, but they are treated differently for many things. If nothing else, there are a LOT fewer transgirls than cisboys. Maybe you’re saying there’s no reason to consider them different? If so, I really disagree. Maybe you’re saying there’s no reason to consider them different for certain situations? I mean, when it comes to prostate health, I agree, but when it comes to sports, I (generally) disagree. I think it’s linguistically useful to have both terms.
I want to add that I have the hardest time parsing what you’re saying. I have no doubt it’s a failure on my part. Maybe someone else can be our go-between.
Because “transgirl” or “AMAB” are even more general seeing as they can also include intersex people and people of varying degrees of medical intervention when I want to refer to someone who is not intersex and who has not undergone medical intervention. That group I’m interested in referring to may also be AMAB and a “transgirl” but a more specific term is needed in order to exclude others of that group that I’m not referring to.
If you have a better or more specific term for doing that then feel free to suggest it.
In terms of biological traits there may very well not be, correct?
You think “assigned male at birth” is more general than “male”? Are you confused about the usage of “assigned…at birth” to describe transgendered people? I mean, even just logistically and linguistically speaking, having more qualifiers has to make something more specific – it’s like you’re saying “blonde woman” is more general than “woman” because “blonde woman” may include people who dye their hair.
As I wrote in my edit, I don’t think you and I communicate well. I’m hoping someone who understands trans issues better than I do can intervene.
There is lack of unanimity around that one also, and good point.
For well over a decade there’s been a sort of political attitude, I associate it with gay and lesbian people first (chronologically speaking I mean) but transgender activists often embrace it too. It goes like this: “If we are ‘born this way’ and have no choice in the matter, people have to accept us, whereas if there is choice involved the bigots will say we chose and therefore can blame us saying we made a sinful choice or chose wrongly. THEREFORE we will embrace scientific studies that say it is innate, a built in brain difference, and we will ignore or argue against anyone who argues otherwise”
I consider it a bad strategy. First, I don’t think anyone should go around saying “Let’s proclaim THIS to be the objective truth, not because we actually think it IS, but because gee look at what it lets us claim if it WERE true!” Second, yeesh, the friendly folks from the Third Reich and the sheet-wearing specimens who burned the crosses in America didn’t have any problem considering people they regarded as having built-in differences as being biologically inferior and therefore unworthy of remaining alive.
I don’t know how much of gender difference is built in for any given person, nor how much is statistically innate between the sexes. But I don’t think it avails us anything to assume some set of differences are innate, especially wnen projected onto individual people.
Yes, seeing as your term includes more people than are included by my term.
I asked you before what “male” means in your definition and you haven’t yet responded. It may be that once fully explained I will agree that it is more specific and suitable for my purpose.
If I define “blonde” as being a natural hair colour of a certain shade and you want me to instead say “person with blonde hair” where blonde in your definition can also typically include a group of people who dye their hair blonde then your definition does not work for me does it? It isn’t referring specifically to the group of people that I am interested in. It includes brunettes and gingers.
I think this will not be productive. When I try and clarify things, it seems to make you more confused, and when you do the same, I get more confused. I’ve already received a mod note for an interaction with you, so I think I’ll let discretion take over and avoid another note or even (eek!) my first warning.
RS
My understanding of what you’re saying is as follows -
When we talk about biological sex we should be using two terms: Male or Female for 99.4% of the population that is not trans, and AMAB and AFAB for the 0.6% of the remaining population which is trans or intersex. In a practical sense, a medical publication would issue a recommendation that would say something like, “We recommend that all Male or AMAB individuals should ask their primary physician to perform a prostate exam after the age of 50.” The key emphasis is that, in this context, the terms AMAB and AFAB are used in conjunction with Male and Female.
Do I have a correct understanding of your position?
OK, We can agree to disagree on this.
What I will always try and do is define my terms as I use them, especially where there is some degree of ambiguity and question the terms that others use where I see the potential for confusion or ambiguity. I don’t think there is any harm in being prepared to do that but the flip side of that is that people may use the same term in very different ways and sometimes we have to park our own preferences and say “OK, I know what you mean by that term, in this situation and why you are using it that way.”
Not really. I think the term that makes sense would depend on the context. In the context of high schools sports, AMAB or cisboys makes sense (“Do you, RS, think that males should play on girls teams in high school?” Me: “Uh, not really. Wait, do you mean transgirls? Then, probably – seems to be working out fine in those states that allow it”). In the context of, say, prostate exams, probably not – it probably makes more sense to say “people with prostates should be checked occasionally with a cold finger…”
Since I’ve been reading through this and other similar threads, I’m a little hard pressed to find a good use for male or female on their own. In some conversations, it seems dehumanizing (I think incels use “female” in a pretty dehumanizing way sometimes), in others, it’s not really specific enough, and so on. I mean, when discussing my dog or a connector, male and female make sense, but for humans – I’m not so sure anymore.
If 99.4% of the time the terms male and female being contextually correct and overwhelmingly understood (even by trans people) isn’t a sufficiently compelling argument, then I’m not sure how we can find common ground here. Especially when AMAB and AFAB can be used to effectively include the rest of the population. Whatever we do, I hope we don’t try to redefine out common understanding because of how incels deliberately misuse the term for their own means.
Maybe we can’t. I’m not really sure that I use male and female by themselves with referring to humans much. Male pattern baldness, maybe? Male hormones? It’s always with some other thing, not just males or just females. I’ll look try and look out for that in my conversations and what I read.
AMAB and AFAB are basically terms that refer to transgendered people who are gender non-conforming in some way, at least that’s my understanding. I never see it used to describe all people who are genetically male. (There it is again, but modified by “genetically”)
If you’re like me, overwhelmingly the terms can be found on some form or survey. I’m quite sure that well over 99.4% of the population is unconfused by the terminology or the context in which it is asked. Even then, the response is often optional.
Right, along with “Other” and “Refuse to say”. How should a transman fill out the form that has Male and Female? Male, Female, and Other?
I’m not confused if someone asks me if I’m male – I’m cismale, and I would fill out “Male” on those forms. I’m not where you got “confusion” from. I’m saying the terms alone aren’t all that useful in conversations or when referring to humans.
Any way he wants. Overwhelmingly, his response doesn’t matter unless the answer has a direct relevance to his health or he’s trying to participate in some sort of sanctioned event in which there are specific rules applicable to his biological sex.
I use the word “confusion” to emphasize the lack of same under the overwhelming majority of real life circumstances. That is why there is so little need for significant change (or call for protest) with regards to language and terms we already use and have been using for a long time.
Aside from stuff like that or, say, a census, organizations are (to my perception, anyway) avoiding the question entirely in situations where it isn’t relevant, which it rarely is. They don’t need to know your sex or gender to make a dinner reservation through Opentable.
Right. Let me know when you hear of a call for protest against the words male and female.
I’ve been told in this thread that “male” means the same as biological male, that is someone with XY chromosomes, so by those rules, the transman should fill out female, right? I mean, that’s not my rule, that’s what others in this thread are saying. What use is the term “male” in a discussion about transgirls in high school sports, without the qualifier “assigned male at birth” or “biological male”, if a transboy can put “male” on your form?
I’m not protesting against the terms male and female, I’m saying they aren’t very useful in discussions involving these topics, especially when they are unmodified. And, the more I think about it, they aren’t very useful at all, unmodified, when discussing people.
Anyway, I feel like I’ve really said my peace (I mean, really, really) so I’m bowing out.
The unmodified terms are useful when making general statements about the population, such as “Females have a higher risk of breast cancer than men.” That doesn’t mean that every female has a higher risk than every male. Some males may have a very high risk. But overall, females have a higher risk than males. A big part of the truth of that statement comes from the fact that a very high percentage of people studied will match up between underlying genetics and expected sex category. The people who don’t match the convention are such a small percentage that they don’t tilt the results enough to make a difference.
One thing this just made me wonder is why we don’t see terms like “trans female” and “trans male” the same way we have trans woman and trans man? It seems like they would need to be part of the language so the trans vocabulary would more complete.
No, you are conflating cis boys and trans girls, in a discussion where that is at best confusing.
No one has suggested opening the majority of girls’ sports to boys. Maybe, in a few situations, where there is only a girls’ division and one boy wants to play, it makes sense, but in general? There’s no demand for it.
There IS demand from transgirls to play in girls’ sports. And they are a tiny minority. And it’s important and relevant to the conversation that they ARE a tiny minority, small enough that there’s basically no chance they will re-make girls’ sports to be uncompetitive for cisgirls.
The most recent form I had to fill out that had “male” and “female” options asked me separately my gender and what sex I was assigned at birth. Oh, and also asked what pronouns I use. It was for a doctor’s office.