Or a naturally occurring penis?
Or XX chromosomes, or XY chromosomes?
I firmly support trans gendered rights. But we need to pick a word.
AIUI, the most common catchall terms are “AFAB” and “AMAB”, for “Assigned Female At Birth” and “Assigned Male at Birth”.
As in, when they got a good look at your bits upon your arrival in the breathing world, they used that to determine your sex and concomitantly your gender.
I don’t know if there’s any term specifically about chromosomal makeup. Most people don’t have chromosome tests done at birth, and in fact IIRC many people with sex chromosome abnormalities never have them detected till much later in life (commonly puberty) or maybe even never.
No I’m looking for an English language word, not an acronym.
How about “cisgender woman/female” and “cisgender man/male”? Some people abbreviate those to “ciswoman” and “cisman”.
And I think “XX” and “XY” can be used as adjectives, but I guess they’re not exactly English words either.
In the other thread we discussed using “anatomically female”.
Although i guess if you had enough posts changed surgically you might change you anatomy enough that that wouldn’t work. How about “born anatomically female”.
I doubt we’re going to get closer to a recognizable single-word term than “ciswoman” and “cisman”.
I thought a cis gendered male or cismale would be a traditionally defined male. not a transgendered male?
I’m looking for a single word.
“Heys guys, I met a really nice “born anatomically female” today. we are going out tomorrow.”
Doesn’t quite flow.
Yes, he would. Sorry, I thought that’s the sort of designation you were looking for!
If what you’re after is instead “someone with male anatomy who doesn’t identify as male”, I guess that would generally be a transgender woman, or trans woman?
Of course, some non-male-identifying people identify as nonbinary etc. rather than as women.
Some people use “penis haver” and “vagina haver”.
If you really want a word that specifies only someone’s naturally occurring anatomical sex and not their gender identity, that’ll be something of a challenge, because for most social purposes people are routinely classified by gender identity rather than sex.
I have seen “biomale” and “biofemale”, though.
But again, don’t we generally talk about people socially according to their gender identity, rather than instantly proclaiming the original configuration of their genitals?
Why wouldn’t you just say “I met a really nice woman”, or “really nice girl”, depending on age and informality level? If you’re dating cisgender, highlighting that by announcing “YES FOLKS SHE HAS A NATURAL VAGINA” with some specialized term comes across as a bit insecure.
And if you’re dating transgender, surely you wouldn’t want to emphasize the fact of the person having genitals that don’t “match” the gender identity they present as.
So why do we need or want these words again?
What words?
Traditional words for xx humans are woman/girls
Traditional words for xy human are men/boys
In the current environment, In the context of medical/biological discussions we don’t of a single word for either.
I am also confused by referring to trans males as trans males. they should males.
Why would you want to announce the birth anatomy of a person you just met?
This is where I need to mention that in addition to the fact that you don’t know this about a person you just met (I’ve met several trans people that you’d never guess were trans) it’s also really rude to refer to a person by their birth anatomy and not by their current social gender.
Now, there are contexts where someone needs to know that. Mostly those are medical contexts. My son’s new doctor asked (on a form) for his sex assigned at birth, his legally sex, and his gender and pronouns. And they need all of those. They need his legal sex for interacting with insurance companies. They need his sex assigned at birth to know what parts he has, and of course they, like everyone else, need to know how to address him.
So “AMAB” works fine for these limited contexts where it’s actually needed.
I would discourage you from mentioning that about the girl you are about to have a first date with, however.
(edited to correct typo)
As I understand it the chromosomes don’t make one male or female, but the hormones during development which are influenced by the chromosomes, but other factors come into play too, so it’s possible to have a XX male and XY female.
But the dictionary definition word is still male/female, but that also has other definitions, official or just socially understood, so context comes into play.
I am a proponent of using “male” and “female” (and “intersex” for people who don’t fit either category) for physiology, as opposed to identity.
It upsets some people, but the transgender and gender-variant communities tend to use posters like this one
https://inclusivelaw.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/gender-unicorn-worksheet.png
… which uses “female” and “male” for the sex.
I personally don’t care for the “assigned at birth” phrase. It implies, quite wrongly, that the assigning only happens once, in the delivery room when you’re born. We are a sexually dimorphic species, with a minority of physical variants whose existence doesn’t negate that fact. This does not mean a person’s gender is the same thing as their sex, but it means sex is something that exists, and it exists apart from gender. And if gender identity is valid regardless of a person’s morphology (and it is, dammit), then recognizing and categorizing one’s sex does not invalidate one’s gender identity.
Male or female for sex (physical traits) and man or woman for gender (social presentation).
Sexual orientation or attraction is a seperate axis.
The nice thing about language is that is changes whether “we” want it to or not. So if “we” need a word, it will develop and enter the lexicon in exactly the same way as every other word that “we” need.
I’ve been looking for an English word for a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus that’s not a goddamn acronym, but the PC police are spoiling my fun too.
Remember about 50 years when couples started living together in large numbers without bothering to get married first? Ever since, people have kept insisting that there must be a word for them. Partner is the closest we’ve come but many people are dissatisfied with it because of the business connotations. Lover, roommate, and significant other also made the rounds. POSSLQ (Person of the Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters, a census term) was the brunt of many jokes, back when a couple meant only a man and a woman and a man and a woman were used traditionally.
My point is that sometimes terms don’t emerge. We manage, anyway.
I hear ‘partner’ quite a lot, although in my experience it’s just as often used by married people who prefer a non-gendered term. “Husband” and “wife” as words have a lot of social baggage and inherent role expectation that some folks prefer to avoid.
If they don’t emerge, then they weren’t particularly needed. As you say, we manage just fine without a specific word meaning “cohabitating couple who haven’t bothered to get married.”