Thursday, April 04, 2024

A reasonable pushback to "sex assigned at birth"

This article in the New York Times (gift linked) argues cogently (and respectfully) against the use of "sex assigned at birth".     

I should also note that I'm pretty sick of seeing the vitriolic back and forth on the JK Rowling and Scottish Hate Crimes on Twitter.  (Mind you, more and more people are leaving Twitter for good reason - watching Elon Musk stupidly endorse multiple Right wing conspiracies - and removing Community Notes when it suits him - is both irritating and kind of depressing.  If it weren't for a handful of holdouts - David Roberts, Noah Smith, etc - I would stop reading it too.   I am at a loss to understand why a competitor that works as close as possible to the old Twitter hasn't taken off.) 

9 comments:

John said...

I'm not on X. I avoid all of those forums. Good to know X is suffering because a recent news report that Telsa experienced its first sales drop. China is going big on EVs. Funny how everyone forgot the stupid Mars mission and hyperloop schemes. Even the recent hoopla about the neuralink is more a media campaign than some big breakthrough, Musk once again claiming priority for the work of others.

Not Trampis said...

sex is assigned at birth. how lese do you determine what sex a person is.

Of course if you disagree then you have an argument with god

Steve said...

I think you need to read the article, Homer...

Not Trampis said...

I saw nothing in it that would have led me to have another opinion.

Steve said...

I'm not arguing with you about the "argument with God" bit.

The article was about forms and government and research using the terminology "Sex assigned at birth" as a category, rather than simply "Sex".

Your pedantry about english language is playing into the hands of the "gender ideology" which wants use to use "sex assigned at birth" so that it normalises the idea that sex can be changed later.

John said...

which wants use to use "sex assigned at birth" so that it normalizes the idea that sex can be changed later.

To very much annoy the activists, call out transgender for what it is: a disability.

Not Trampis said...

Can't see it Steve.

When my sons were born the nurses tole I had boys because of duh.

That can never be changed. If you ain't born a woman you cannot possibly have a period.

When that happens then I and other social conservatives might agree you can change your sex

Steve said...

Gosh you're being obtuse on this, Homer: in short, the article SUPPORTS a conservative take on the terminology.

Instead of just accepting that, your argument seemed to be "but I don't think it's an incorrect use of English to use 'assign' to describe the process of describing a baby's sex" - which is to miss the point of the article entirely!

John said...

Gosh you're being obtuse on this, Homer: in short, the article SUPPORTS a conservative take on the terminology.

That is my understanding of the article.