Assigned Sex: How to Finally Let Go of “Biological Sex”
🚻 The biggest difficulties often begin when we enter the territory of inclusive language. Using the right terminology can be a challenge for us — or may have been one in the past — let alone for trans allies or people unfamiliar with the context.
✍🏻 Let us talk about sex assigned at birth — and how to avoid messing up the terminology.
Contents
What is the right way to say it?
When it comes to specifically medical, hygiene-related and other needs, it can be difficult to describe your situation in terms of sex characteristics.
Many trans people and allies then face a dilemma: what is the right way to say it?
“Former sex?” “Real sex?” Or do we have to forget all this “sensitivity” and turn, after all, to the good old term “BIOLOGICAL SEX?”
And then it arrives… sex assigned at birth.
What is assigned sex?
Assigned sex — also called “obstetric sex” in Ukrainian — is the sex determined for a child at birth: literally recorded in a document such as a medical birth certificate, usually on the basis of the appearance of their genitals.
This is the term that can be used in situations where you feel tempted to say “biological sex”.
Why make it so complicated?
“Why burden people with these constructions at all?”
Appropriate terminology may seem complicated or unfamiliar at first, but it is:
- Inclusive. It does not erase anyone’s identity and allows us to include, for example, intersex people.
- Neutral. It does not leave anyone feeling that somebody is “hiding” some “truth” from someone else.
- Well-founded. It recognises that human biology is more complex than a division into only “woman and man”.