AngelJamie

As a non-binary person, I often get asked, upon stating my gender identity, this question: "Are you AMAB or AFAB?", and quite frankly, I hate it, and I think it reeks of bad intentions. Now, I don't think anyone who asks this is explicitly enbyphobic. There's a good chance that they just simply might not understand, but to me, at the end of the day, it reeks of the toxic mentality that assigned sex at birth is a "trait" or a "state of being". I don't see it that way. As someone who is 23 years old, my assigned sex at birth is an event that happened 23 years ago and has no bearing on any inherent part of who I am in the present moment.

This is also why I always speak in past tense for these matters. For example, I never say things like "I'm AMAB", and I feel repulsed in those insane contexts where AMAB and AFAB are used as nouns (like someone saying "I have a question for all the AFABs here" just disgusts me). I always explicitly say, in my context, "I WAS assigned male at birth", and I leave it at that. If you're non-binary yourself and prefer to handle these matters differently, that's okay, as long as you're not projecting that I should go along with your view of this subject. I just like to emphasize that, for me, it's really contingent on context when it comes to how willing I am to state my assigned sex at birth.

The caveat is that, in most of these instances, people are not directly asking me what sex I was assigned at birth. Let me give you a few examples:

• I take hormones, right? If someone wants to ask me about my experiences for whatever good faith reason like relating to it or just wanting more information in order to be supportive of my transition journey, then that's totally fine. With this in mind, people won't ask me things like "Are you AMAB or AFAB?", but instead, will ask me things like "Are you taking estrogen, or are you taking testosterone?" which I find significantly more acceptable.
• If you're my doctor, and you need to know something that pertains to my reproductive system, reproductive capacity, general anatomy/physiology, or any other thing that makes knowing my assigned sex at birth crucial to know, then I don't mind the doctor asking obviously. Like I said, though, often times, a doctor won't ask me things like "Are you AMAB or AFAB?", obviously. They will ask me things like "Do you have a prostate? Can you get pregnant? Can you impregnate others?" and all that stuff that makes the contextual aspect of it all the more sensible.
• For people interested in me in a sexual context who find it hard to assume my assigned sex at birth because of my androgynous gender presentation, asking me "Do you have a penis or a vagina?" makes sense, especially if I indicated reciprocating sexual interest here. In these contexts, knowing my genital configuration would be important to know how to proceed with me in a sexual manner. However, let me clarify that not all non-binary people who were assigned male at birth have penises and not all non-binary people who were assigned female at birth have vaginas.
• The last point I'd state is to make sense of some more niche contexts here. For example, I talk about how short I am all the time, right? I stand at a height of 5'5", which by the standard of an adult cisgender woman, is generally not considered short. If I claim I am short at my height of 5'5", sometimes I like to clarify that, even though I'm non-binary, I was assigned male at birth to make it make sense when I'm on a forum or community for vertically challenged individuals like myself.

At the end of the day, I just like to sniff out context. I hate to be pedantic, but whenever someone asks me things like "AMAB or AFAB?" and leads it on with the fact that they're "just curious", I question the "why" of their curiosity. As I see it, unless the context indicates it being relevant, it shouldn't be taken as an important matter. It seems like a fishy tactic incorporated by those with a bioessentialist mindset to tie my assigned sex as a trait and pick out what my "true gender" is rather than accepting me as non-binary at face value. Like I said to start, many people who ask this are not doing so in bad faith. Often times, they're just misinformed, so I try to explain to them some of the more problematic aspects of said questions being asked in unnecessary, irrelevant contexts.

They deserve it. It seems like so many transphobes only want to recognize the existence of detransitioners to use them as a transphobic tool to support their close-minded worldview.

It honestly must be very scary for pro-trans detransitioners to speak on their experiences. They'll get right-wing asshats pulling a "told you so" on them and also those same righties attempting to use them to push an agenda.

Not only that, but we need to support them. Going through detransition, even not considering the social issues that one might have in doing that, is a really tough thing, and I think we should acknowledge it.

A lot of transphobic people say things like "Trans people shouldn't undergo surgeries and hormones to fix what they're going through!" and what not, but I've come to a realization. They're not saying this out of a genuine desire to help trans people, and I've used this "four point method" with every transphobe who says this to catch them using "caring about the well-being of people" as a bad faith op to disguise their pushes for just hating trans people.

1. On what basis can you assert that gender dysphoria SHOULD NOT be treated by medical transition?

2. By extension, do you know HOW to execute said treatment from a medical professional perspective?

3. If no to number 2, circle back to number 1 and question your basis again.

4. If yes to number 2, why are you harassing people online about your solutions instead of proposing it to medical communities (which would be infinitely more useful)?

Most transphobes I hit with this are not even able to get past the first question in any rhetorically coherent manner, if at all.

Of course, you act accordingly to how each transphobe answers, but at that point, it's easy because transphobia isn't rational. It's entirely based on emotions and fears.

I emphasize that you're supposed to use logic to come to a conclusion; not the other way around.

Transphobes just so happen to have already preemptively made a conclusion on trans people on the basis of emotions, but they realize that said conclusion won't hold up in a genuine case of rhetoric (because of how emotionally charged it is), so they embarrassingly try to attach a logical explanation for their bigotry after the fact of them concluding that being trans is bad, so watch them grasp at straws and argue from incredulity as you ask them these four questions.

😇

Geez, Lois, this is worse than that time they talked about us on Lemmy.

I'd say John Cena.