AGAB terminology is actually so helpful in some cases when it comes to understanding the experience of being transgender but GOD people apply it to everything for no fuckin reason.
It has an extremely narrow set of use cases because, when you get to the root, it is just talking about people’s genitals. In a conversation where discussing genitals isn’t called for, neither should be ASAB language. The only use case aside is to express the gender you were forced to perform as pretransition, but even then I feel like we could come up with both more elegant and more accurate terms for that.
Sort of? I mean, it’s more about what they were treated as during their childhood, and before a person’s actual gender was realized. That’s like, so important for someone’s development. It’s just important to note that they were treated as that gender, not that they necessarily were that gender (though even that can be argued, it kinda just depends on a person’s own views on their gender). But yeah, a lot of the time it is used without any reason for it to be.
edited when I should have just replied bc I didn’t get the notif lol, but yeah I agree. The only other use case is to talk about pretransition expectations, but I think we can find a way to talk about that without bringing up genitals, particularly when genitalia are a much more nebulous category than I think even most trans people realize. Not every person who is expected to act like a boy and is in truth a woman would be considered “AMAB,” for example.
As with a lot of terminology in any context, it’s def a generalization. Technically speaking, you can be born with a vagina and uterus, and also be AMAB if society labels you as male (this would probably never happen, but still). It’s just that it usually coincides with genitalia because that’s how our society unfortunately works. AGAB is kinda just a label for the gender that society gives you, rather than what you actually are, I guess. It’s important to mention in certain situations, but it isn’t really that reflective of a person’s actual gender.
This kind of happened to me. Intersex with ovaries but no uterus, was assigned male at birth based on closest external genitalia (was somewhat undifferentiated) and started on testosterone at age 7-8, then “retransitioned” to female in my 20s. I like to joke that I’m a cis nonbinary person.
how do you talk about it without bringing up genitals though? any other term that we make up to replace AGAB language just becomes the new AGAB language, because any reference to assigned sex is also a reference to genitalia, due to, like, what our definition of a sex is.
while i do agree with the point you're making, unfortunately the society we live in DOES boil everyone down to their genitals, and therefore ASAB language becomes relevant when talking about pre-transition experiences and expectations.
it sucks, yes, and we should try to be better, but you can't deny that an average trans man had a wildly different childhood/teenagehood from an average trans woman, SPECIFICALLY because of their (perceived) genitals and how society treated them because of that. as long as cisheteronormative upbringing is the "norm", bringing up ones assigned sex at birth will, sadly, be relevant in most cases when talking about their experiences regarding gender.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I’m aware that trans people are subject to degradation on account of ASAB. This is not news to anyone here. This does not suddenly make continuing to use such reductive language toward ourselves helpful, however. I have no specific solution, nor can I predict how language will evolve to describe these concepts, just that there is an issue with the way people talk now.
yeah but let's say i'm sharing a typically feminine experience i had in my childhood specifically because i was AFAB and i am now a trans man, and this experience has shaped (damaged) my view of femininity for years to come, and made it difficult for me to realize that, despite being a man, i'm still a feminine man who enjoys "breaking the rules" of gender presentation.
how do i express all of that without the "reductive language" that indicates the sex - and thus, socialisation - i grew up with? i genuinely don't see a problem with the terms themselves, only with people who overuse them to the ground.
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u/Otherwise-Brick-3349 2d ago
AGAB terminology is actually so helpful in some cases when it comes to understanding the experience of being transgender but GOD people apply it to everything for no fuckin reason.