afab & amab are the new gender binary and i hate it
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- Опубликовано: 1 окт 2024
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"Afabs only" also gives off weird vibes to trans men. Like it almost feels like they think being born with a uterus makes you a safer person. It also feel like they don't like trans women (as you said) and that they don't consider trans men "actual men." When women say afab it feels like a they want to keep "amab" people out cuz they perceive them as more dangerous. That's the vibe it always gave me at least.
i had the same thought. i doubt theyd be chill w a beefed up gymbro living w them lol
@@preternatural3231yeahhh i always got the vibe that the moment we stop looking like a baby softboy butch lesbian they start seeing us more the the big bad “amabs” they’re so scared of (also love ur pb pfp lmao)
its classic terf mindsets in the queer community. Its having a dick = more violent. its ridiculous
Legit. I’d rather be an “oh! Scary man!” To women rather than their idea of trans men that is some soft tomboy
I also think they mean afab femme people, no way you write that and are fine with a masc and passing trans dude....
what’s even more annoying to me is people talking about how I was “socialized male” as if that’s a character flaw and not something that forcibly happened to me. I almost always found myself in opposition to “male structures” and was alienated and bullied because of it. People act like I can never truly have full empathy and understanding from it or something and it’s always such a weird projection
yes!! i’ve seen a LOT of trans women & transfem people talk about how the idea of male socialization doesn’t fit with their experiences, and it absolutely makes sense. i’ve seen some people describe it as being socialized as a trans woman, even if you didn’t know it yet. i feel pretty similarly on my end, i was definitely a genderqueer kid and didn’t experience “female socialization” in the same capacity that my cis woman peers did, for instance. definitely a lot to be talked abt here!
Yeah people definitely leave out the part where socialisation is a process forcibly imposed on you. It's not just like you passively are socialised male or female, it's a bunch of behaviours and ideas that society tells you you have to internalise, but of course you can resist that either consciously, or it can just not stick at all.
It's kinda the same as if you had a friend whose parents really wanted them to play violin, and they didn't learn violin, and you then telling them they are socialised a violinist and thats just who they are
I feel like people wrongly use socialization to talk about the things that they accept but never the things that were forced on them.
We also seem to forget that socialization is a lifelong process
@@TwoForFlinchin1 I wonder if within queer communities we should consider terms like "transfemme socialization" when talking about the experiences and social patterns of growing up with masculine expectations imposed and rejecting them to be a more feminine person. It gives a more specific and less dysphoric way of discussing these issues than "male socialization" for trans women, and I imagine other trans identities might prefer this kind of language to "male or female" socialization.
@@kindredspirit9703 yeah I guess I can't speak for other people but I have no issues acknowledging the fact that I was socialized to be something that I'm not and referring to my past self isn't really that much of an issue for me.
But from my point of view it seems like social transition is just another form of socialization.
I'm amab nb masc and my issue with male socialization is that people tend to think that it makes me a patriarch but that trans men are fundamentally different because they grew up understanding what it's like to be feminine. The language you suggested makes sense but I don't think it changes people's feelings towards these processes.
I once saw a tumblr post that said “the terms amab and afab are so funny because it’s like okay you’re nonbinary but are you a boy or a girl”. And I’ve never stopped thinking about it
they don't seem to understand what nonbinary is!
@@SkyeIDyeah they really don't! I'm not nonbinary so I don't really experience this amab/afab issue but my heart goes out to all my nonbinary siblings out there!
I mean, it depends on who's saying it. I'm NB but I'll sometimes specify AMAB because it _does_ have a significant effect on my experiences. What people think of me, how being NB _defies_ what people think of me, etc.
And then intersex people...
@SkyeID is it anything like DID? Or DPD?
I really hate how prevalent this is in the trans / non binary fashion groups.
I really hate how clothing is considered masculine or feminine when to me it's just cloth and it has no gender.
@@SkyeID 100 agree
Imagine if “Only people with green eyes are allowed to wear hats.” … gendered fashion really is as nonsense as this. I just wish people could see through their social conditioning for 30 seconds ❤
@@SkyeIDI agree with this, it explains that there are 2 genders and people just wear what they want or have the interests that they want.
@@mickey099 it seems like you have no knowledge of who Ashton is. They are non-binary, and to say that there are 2 genders is to ignore his identity. Gender is on a vast spectrum, and there are multiple genders within that spectrum. There are also people like me who don't have a gender at all.
I'm non-binary, and my fiancée has had several of her coworkers ask her "which kind" of non-binary I am, the "boy" kind or the "girl" kind 🙃
omg yes. Why all of that gender obsession. It's actually wild to me how much binary gender matters to some people. I just don't get why people have such a strong need to categorize literally everything in male and female. A coworker of mine recently gave birth and the first question someone else asked is "boy or girl?" when I didn't even think of it, I just wondered if everything went well and if it's a screamy baby or a calm baby. And when I tell people who ask me the "boy or girl" question that I don't care, their brains somehow can't compute, it's absolutely wild to me. Imagine being so obsessed with gender that your brain has a blue screen if you can't put someone/something into one of those two categories 💀
@@charlotteice5704 blue screen 😂😭
@@charlotteice5704 since I'm Agender, they should get an error screen that says, "404 gender not found". That would make their heads explode!
@@corinneskitchen are you having a stroke ?
People are just trying to understand. I get that it kinda defeats the purpose of the label, but not everyone has that experience of people who are trans.
As a trans woman I often feel like people use the term AMAB to lump me back into the same category as cis men, and make erroneous assumptions about the type of person I am, generalizing everything from my body to my socialization in ways that are usually wrong and erase the nuances and validity of my experiences as a person.
This is so interesting to me as a trans man because I’ve felt the exact same experience, just opposite. that people used the term afab to lump me back in with cis women as a way of explaining how I was different than cis men and like justify treating me differently. It frustrated me so much because it was like transphobia with extra steps from people who were convinced they couldn’t be transphobic. I’m sorry you’ve dealt with that too, it honestly is such a shitty way to have people not trust your gender identity.
@@grey29825right? I'm a trans man who didn't come out till I was an adult. As a kid, I was still socialized as a boy, because that is gender I identified with and internalized messages from. AFAB feels like a way of telling me, "well you can't really be that sexist you didn't get the boys conditioning" and that's just untrue.. it plays into sex essentialism making (white)women automatically virtuous. It's just gross. My mom is a cis straight person and is the biggest abuser/misogynists I've ever know. Literally any kind of abuse you can think of she perpetuated and constantly used her gender as a shield from criticism.
TW: SA, homophobia
Just to get an idea one time she told me she couldn't r*pe someone cause if a man wasn't attracted to her, he must be gay..... And I guess it ok to SA gay men? I could go on.. the implication that desire is consent is also gross. Anyway yeah 😢 I hate the
mALe=abUSeR
fEmaLE=abUsED
@@grey29825 as if people wanna say to me, "Are you sure you are who you say you are? Because what I see is a woman." instead of just believing me when I say I'm nonbinary.
@@grey29825exactly. My transition was largely a formality and an attempt to resolve confusion. I was treated in alignment with my gender rather than my assigned sex the whole time, and prior to transition it would just confuse people. The idea that my birth sex is the defining factor of my socialisation is just so misguided.
@@SkyeID I have had coworkers introduce themselves to me as "so um... is that your REAL name?"
Being nonbinary is bullshit sometimes.
As an intersex person, I truly feel supported with this video. I was assigned baby at birth 😂❤ thank you!!
Oh wow. I was a baby at birth too :O
Hello rare fellow intersex person 💛💜
@purgxzur1 🥰hello friend 👋
That's really cute I'mma remember this.
I identify as an adult now ofc, coz life changes ppl and it's totally valid to change identification through life.
@@doggytheanarchist7876 🤣😂💖
this also reminds me of the "men" vs "non-men" terminology a lot of baby queers use. it's exhausting trying to break the sex and gender binary based language yet have people repackage it in a more "progressive" manner.
definitely a super similar phenomena !!
What do you think of the men/FLINTA distinction then?
@@graveyardpansy I especially hate it as a pangender lesbian. People love calling lesbians "non-men loving non-men" as an attempt to be inclusive, but funny enough, that definition has been used to exclude me... Even though I'm a woman. I hate being categorized as a "non-man" or "non-woman" without my consent. I am neither of those things, and I refuse to be sorted into this new binary.
@@hanna-ewr1330 again its a similar deal. that term excludes trans men, non-binary men and any multigender or genderfluid person that may have man as a gender they experience. you are still making them decide between their identities as men and their identities as trans and non-binary people. and as someone who falls under this category it makes me super dysphoric. if anything just use marginalized genders, sexes and sexualities when you talk about people who aren't cishet perisex men.
@@enfysiridescentI'm a trans man dating a cis man and we still consider our relationship deeply sapphic ❤
One thing that irks me is nobody seems to use this language correctly. "I am assigned female at birth" doesn't make sense to me... "I WAS assigned female at birth" does. Especially because as a trans man, I'm not female anymore. I am male. "Female" is past tense for me.
Is it though? If you’re genderfluid then maybe you were once female, but if not then female isn’t even past tense because you were never female. That’s why there’s a difference between “I was assigned female at birth” and “I used to *be* female”.
@@emmanarotzky6565 if he says "female is past tense for me" that's his truth. I'm a trans man and i describe myself that way sometimes and people who "correct" me that i was never really female... i don't understand what they're trying to do. i know I'm a man, i don't need a stranger to remind me or reinforce it. it's just easier than saying "everyone around me including myself believed i was female and i presented as female and performed a female social role"
This is such an excellent point! And it’s so telling. People use AMAB and AFAB in the present-tense because they don’t think of these assignments as something that happened to us, they think of them as permanent, biological, immutable categories.
This is real. I was assigned female at birth but legally to the US government I am male on everything but my birth certificate. The correct description of my situation would be "I was assigned female at birth but I am legally assigned male now, except for on my birth certificate because changing it is annoying."
Female is genetic. You don't stop becoming female. If you're not female anymore then you're not trans...
afab/amab also makes me really uncomfortable because like... that's what I'm trying to get away from. I'm nonbinary, I don't want to be associated with or perceived as my assigned sex and i KNOW that's gonna happen if i talk about myself with that language
As a trans woman, thank you for making this video. It always feels like people signaling "I'm the good kind of nonbinary"
EXACTALLY. omg I am in so many queer spaces where people are very comfortable using he/they pronouns for nonbinary with traditionally femme people, but when a person with a beard or a deep voice uses she/her I swear their brains just short circuit.
@NorthJackson I've noticed this bias within myself. I know some masc people with deep voices n such who use all pronouns and have said that they'd like to be called she/her occasionally and I've noticed that I find it harder to do that than it is to call those people by he or they. Doesn't help that other people just stick to he/him for those people exclusively as well. Honestly don't know what to do about it apart from suck it up and get used to it via brute force and hope that other people follow suit when I do it.
The worst part is how often like, trans women become the villains in situations where we're being creeped on by an "AFAB" nonbinary person. Transmisogyny hella informs this kind of language.
@@emzetkin1100creeped on? People are allowed to flirt
@@EdenthelRei no way you're justifying harrassment completely unpromted☠️☠️
I've always felt AGAB terms are just pc misgendering
Literally!!
I only ever use it to talk about medical stuff because I don't want to say "x havers" or "biologically x" I'd rather use afab or amab to make a distiction between people with p and v
@adettessubs444 That doesn't work well though?
Plenty of trans women are post up bottom surgery and need regular gynecological checks. Trans men on T grow prostate tissue. And intersex people could have many kinds of needs that do not follow their sex assignment.
They're not misgendering. They're in fact the basis to talk about trans or cis individuals. They start being misgendering when used as identities, which if anyone has been paying attention at all they're obviously not. We're beyond those assignments.
@@adettessubs444did you even watch the video…?
The example of "Afabs only" is like that meme: People staring at you in "trans-inclusive spaces" trying to figure out if you have the "evil" or "nice" genital. Its a "friendlier" version of Rowling's "the penised individual" lol.
I am a trans woman, and I hate being described as AMAB or MTF or whatever else. Those labels only serve as a way to permanently brand trans people with the past that we have spent so long trying to escape. If when talking about me, you have to remind everyone that I was once a man, then you are just calling me a man.
People only see the M :/
But I mean that is what a trans woman is a person who is a biological man and transitions to a woman
Trans guy here, I also never use the terms "ftm" or "afab" for myself. I am male, and my sex is now also male.
@@comradeerik nope that isn’t how it works
@@mickey099 after transition, i don't see why not?
I think the problem I have, as a trans man, with the misuse of AFAB and AMAB online, and how it effects my real life, is that it is used to separate me from my manhood by association. It happens most with AFAB nonbinary people, who still perceive themselves as more similar to women bc of their sex and gendered upbringing. They assign me AFAB and think that the same is true for me. But the major realization in my trans journey was that ever since I was a little kid, when I saw a boy I saw myself mirrored back. I always related more to boys and manhood. And what matters to me is my GENDER, not my assigned sex. Thank you for the video.
Yes this! To me the whole point of being trans is that I NEVER understood what's it like to be a girl and that I have much more in common to cis men than cis women.
I don't know I'd say most nonbinary people assigned female at birth associate *more* with being female, but otherwise I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Yeah one of the ways you can see how people actually feel about sex and gender is if you ask them if an amab enby can be a nonbinary lesbian or if only afab enbies can. If they see agab as something intergral to the identity then it's pretty clear how they feel about trans ppl. And like the issue is not identifibg yourself a little with your agab, that's ok and relatable, but to impose that view of your gender into other people's genders is wrong and ends up in this grouping of trans men with women and trans women with men
@@beep3242 not me. I don't associate with being female at all- no way, that's not me! And I also don't associate with being male at all-no way, that's not me! I don't associate with any sex or any gender.
@@beep3242 tbf most of the nonbinary afabs I know personally are lesbians, and we've had conversations and they have said that's why they use the label lesbian.
The way agab is used kindof just plainly accept the terfy notions of bioessentialism but repackaged in "pro trans" language.
(funny side note. Quite funny to read agab as acab but replace cops with genders)
genders... those b*stards
I've done the opposite and keep reading acab as assigned cop at birth lmao
@@nuhuhuhhhhhhh i saw acab doodled on a schooldesk years ago and my mind went to "assigned cop at birth" before I remembered it's not that.
Assigned Cat At Birth you see
@@yakopc6600thought we left acab jokes in 2022..
To me, one thing that always gives me the ick is when people say "afab anatomy." As if we all have the exact same anatomy. Usually they mean genitals but completely forget about trans masculine, non binary, and intersex people, who may not have the genitals they would expect an afab person to have.
It's really just another way of calling us female, which is just inaccurate, as well as hurtful.
this is SO true and real !! thank you for putting it into words :)
I just don't understand why they don't say 'people with vul*as'. 'Afab anatomy' makes no sense
@@lennoxious_ fr. They’re scared of using dirty words or something I guess?
@@lennoxious_A lot of the cisgender "we say afab anatomy now" crowd likely don't actually know what those are, tbh. Especially in areas where sex ed is absolutely abysmal. It's unfortunate
@@lennoxious_ ig most ppl want a term for genitals that isnt the name of the genitals? idk :)
I also wanted to add that I appreciate you calling this out as something that seems to largely come from afab people. As a trans woman the fact that "amab" gets used to exclude us from spaces really just makes me feel like the people doing this see me as "dangerous" and still essentially a man. It's always disappointing and hurtful.
yeah as a cis girl it pisses me off as well. trans women belong in women's spaces and pre op trans women are women, but because of bioessentialist bullshit that's LITERALLY JUST repackaged mis0gyny (but they won't admit it) these are the same people who exclude cis women that are "too masculine" and will harass people like me who don't wanna shave every inch of my body and face just to appease them and then call you a pick me for also not being feminine enough. in the end it's all bullshit misogyny
Also can feed into terf bio essentiallism which feeds into transphobia and enbyphobia
@@espeon871 exactly exactly
Hey, i just wanted as an afab nb person myself, I'm so sorry that you girls have to go through all of this bullshit, I generally stay away from transphobic topics on the internet for my own mental health and those "looking for a roommate"(?) Groups are not that common around were I'm from, so I've had no idea you went through this until now, my heart goes out to all of you and i wish you all the best
And i also want to say that i noticed your user name and i want you to know that Camila used to be my older sister's name, she unfurtunally passed away at the beginning of this year and It's a beautiful name you've chosen for yourself, she was beatiful and im sure you are just as beautiful as she was when she was healthy
people learn the words ‘afab’ and ‘amab’ and think it’s just a ‘more inclusive’ way of saying men and women, then think that’s them done for the day and they’ve completely learned the concept
Exactly, they don't want to do the work of understanding the whole damn binary is wrong
And it’s so irritating because just using men and women would feel more inclusive imo, since it defaults to how ppl identify instead of how they’ve been (mis)identified
Yes! As a trans woman I see it used so much as a way to just exclude me from womanhood. It reminds me that they're basically humoring me as a "man in semi-permanent drag." I also see it used a lot as a way to replace bioessentialism with socialization as if that experience can be homogenized. "Afabs only" is so transmisogynistic and hurts so much. And there's so much to unpack when people are "uncomfortable" with penises. I get that cis men have them and can be traumatizing, but painting the genital itself as inherently threatening can also be transmisogynistic.
I'm so sorry it must be horrible... And definitly agree that it is bioessentialism in disguise
Fully agreed. Like I'd understand if someone wrote (in like an apartment listing or whatever) that they're not comfortable with cis or cishet men moving in, but demonizing penises is its own whole thing. Bc just like said in the video, all genders can have (or not have) penises. To me, his whole thing just sounds like when people say "biological gender" but in a modern package.
I feel like if you're so uncomfortable with penises that you don't even want someone who has one in your house that's an issue you need to deal with before getting room mates. some people don't have a choice but I really don't think this is an acceptable way to go about the world. it's a normal body part, simply knowing there is someone who has one in proximity to you should not be something offensive. like say I was attacked and now I have a fear of arms from being hit, I can't expect the world to cater to my comfort like that. If I sent a post saying "armless amputees only if you wanna be my room mate!" that's an impractical and absurd standard. so why is it OK with a different body part? it's not like you'll have to interact with or even see your room mate's penis. I get that trauma isn't rational but your triggers aren't other people's responsibility either.
@@k4nd1incyb3rsp4c3 no literally, like I have sexual trauma from vaginas but I don’t have an unhealthy fixation/phobia of vaginas now. I just intensely fear the person who did that to me, and look out for abusive red flags in others regardless of genitals. I’ve never heard of an “amab” 🙄 expressing anything similar to the way some “afabs” talk about penises. It’s so weird and definitely needs to be unpacked especially when it relates to excluding trans women.
@@k4nd1incyb3rsp4c3lol. Great post. I think a lot of our culture reserves examining and moving past our neuroses and developmental traumas as being something that you only do once you hit some kind of crisis that prevents you being a unit for capitalist production, rather than an ongoing and necessary process for everyone that prevents the forwarding of your trauma onto others.
baby non binary person here, this video was very enlightning and made me cry
i will stop using these, your video made me realise i need to be more confident in my identity and stop trying to please people who might not understand my gender
also your makeup is pretty
you deserve confidence and the labels you use don't exist to please others, they exist for you!!
and thank you
for people who don’t understand it’s on them not you. it’s not your job to make your gender palatable or easy for people that aren’t part of queer spaces like this
@@user-ry4bm5cm4g I agree in theory, in practice, I like to be understood
I hope you never have to feel pressured to define yourself by anything but your own chosen identity. We should be better than that.
Same this video is making me question how I've been using queer language dndowlmdñdspapla we need more stuff like this
People use these terms in a way that seems to imply medical transition doesn't exist, and it's pretty frustrating to me. I've heard people say things like "I'm attracted to AMAB bodies" or "I'm attracted to women and AFAB nonbinary people" and like... Really? What exactly is an AMAB body? And how is ''AFAB nonbinary" a coherent category in this context? That includes such a wide range of people that it feels almost useless...but in practice, people who say things like that are usually assuming nonbinary people who were assigned female at birth are feminine and not medically transitioning.
I still sometimes use AFAB for myself if that part of my history is somehow relevant, mostly because I don't like being called transmasculine and there's no widely used term that means "was assigned female at birth, but is actually genderless". I don't like the binary way transfeminine and transmasculine are often used either, tbh. For me, the entire point of my own identity is that I DON'T identify with masculinity or femininity, so "transmasculine" doesn't feel like an accurate reflection of my identity or experiences. IDK, I don't like how people misuse AGAB terms, but I don't really have any good (and concise) language to describe that part of my experience and how it relates to my transition.
I feel like what they mean by saying AMAB/AFAB bodies are feminine/masculine bodies or bodies with a specific genital, in which case they could just say that. It's actually simpler to understand for most people because most people know what that means and it's also not excluding certain people.
It’s extra weird for someone to say they’re attracted to AMAB or AFAB bodies because the bodies in question are those of infants. If someone is old enough for you to be attracted to them, they do not have the type of body that gets assigned a gender at birth because they are not a newborn.
Agender/gendervoid are terms to describe genderlessness and can even be outside of the trans-cis gender categories.
i tend to say "perceived male/female" in contexts related to possible experiences and treatment. it doesn't immediately tell someone what your sex is, since males and females can have physical characteristics and ways of dressing and behaving that lead them to being categorized as one or the other regardless of what their birth certificate says.
for myself i've used it since, honestly, i don't feel i was "assigned" a sex. i know what hormonal system predominantly shapes my body and i do consider that my sex. but i don't care at ALL to be treated any one way for it, and favor the language associated with my opposite sex, but i don't mind much either way. i'd just like to shapeshift really
i've gone back and forth on whether or not i'm cis, but it seems i lack a real care for gender being significant in any way to my sense of self compared to most cis people i know, even the ones who say they don't care much about their gender (they sure do)
Transmasculine'nt
Im transmasc and agab has always left a bad taste in my mouth. To me it always has been a way to diminish peoples identity without being outright transphobic or misogynistic. Agab isnt relevant most of the time if ever. Personally, I do not want to be characterised by or associated with my agab. I want to be seen as who I am.
i feel the same way! as a fellow transmasc, it feels like another way of labeling me as a "girl" but hidden within progressive language
One grammatical mistake that people do as well is saying "people who are assigned xx at birth" when most of the time it's "people who were assigned xx at birth". It happened in the past, they aren't being assigned anymore. Saying "people who are AFAB/AMAB" is like assigning identity without consent. When you say "people who were AFAB/AMAB", it immediately creates distance to the assigned sex. In general though, saying stuff based on the context like "ppl with breast tissue" is way better for sure, like you said.
But yeah, I've literally heard people (trans people as well!) say shit like "my friend group is mostly AFAB people, and then there's like one dude as well" WHEN that group has included non-binary and trans-masc people in it as well, besides that one cis-man.... I don't know a single trans person (myself included) who'd want to be described with AGAB.
small correction, all bodies have breast tissue
yeah like you were only assigned a gender at birth that one time. it’s past tense
this comment made me tear up ngl. I had never thought of it that way.. I had never once thought about how that label had been forced down my throat for no reason. Why is this language so normal in queer spaces?!
Back in the day, it was dfab and dmab - designated female/male at birth. Amab and afab were reserved for intersex people who had gone through a much more medicalized assignment process. The two sets got collapsed in such a way that removed the existence of intersex people from consideration and, as far as I've seen, is used mostly by young women and ftnb trans to a) exclude non-fems and b) imply trans men can never truly exit the fem category. These sort of people do also exclude trans women, but at least where I'm from, they first act excited to have drawn in a trans woman and then alienate her over time by focusing on what differentiates them rather than what they share in common.
i've only ever seen dfab/dmab and afab/amab used interchangeably but that distinction actually makes a lot of sense, thank you adding this!
Were DFAB and DMAB created by transwomen? I'd heard something like that on tiktok
@@purgxzur1 I'm not sure which group first used it, but it may have been transwomen, especially if you're hearing they created the terms.
I can say I saw dmab being used a lot more than I see amab being used today... I rarely see anyone referring to themselves as amab in the wild, but back in the day if someone was asking a question or explaining something related to anatomy they'd preface it with being dmab - like discussions on how to hide adam's apples with scarves etc. So it wouldn't surprise me if transwomen were the ones who did start saying they were designated a gender at birth first.
@@uncledimmi1660 I see. Unfortunately the intersex community has had to switch to using "CAFAB and CAFAB" to make as clear as possible these are terms for US specifically
Gonna start using dfab and dmab
I think "male/female" and "man/woman", ESPECIALLY in medical settings, function as a euphemistic way of referring to bodies without referring to body parts (which is ironic, given the way transphobes insist that *we* onscure language, but I digress). And I think people are so attached to this way of euphemistic communication about bodies in medical settings that they'd rather project it onto new terms (amab/afab) than to just drop the bullshit.
I remember I once went to the doctor to get stitches removed, and the nurse went in circles again and again about me being trans, my pronouns, whether I'm "male" or "female" and like my god just ask me what genitials I have if that's relevant, and it wasn't even relevant because my stitches were on my goddamn finger lmao
I should also add though, that although I would never use the label "amabs", there are some experiences I share with *some* cis men, specifically cis queer men. The experience of growing up as a "boy" who felt all sort of guilt and shame over having feelings for other boys for example is something I share with a lot of cis queer men, and I've had experiences with some other queer/trans people who don't relate to the immense anxiety of this unsanctioned attraction. Of course queer trans men often get it too (sometimes later in life but not always if they transition early), do so queer women. Like theoretically every type of queer person should know this. But I've met queer people who, because of their path to their gender/sexuality self-understanding, they just never felt this. And I think it's worth talking about.
There's a complex interplay between the gender we are perceived as and the gender we are, and none of them alone can describe our experiences, or the blindspots we develop as a result. But like you say, the solution is to be more specific, less euphemistic.
this exactly!! there are SO many medical settings where sex & gender are completely irrelevant and yet... stuff like that happens because cis people care so much. lol. sorry u had to go through that, but i'm glad you can see the humour in it at least!
Someone straight up asked me if I had a penis, and I just said that that's an inappropriate question. Like I was gonna tell that ignorant person what genitals I have! It's gross!
That's a good point about the way people want to use euphemistic language, I agree!
For describing the experiences you might share with cis men, perhaps a more accurate term than amab would be "people perceived as boys"? (amab is not great because like, someone who transitioned socially very young would probably not share most of those experiences.)
Thing is, your sex might actually be relevant for finger stitches, because there's differences in pain management. Except no one took historically-treated-like-women seriously enough that we don't actually know yet if it's hormonal, or social, or what. Best we can do is 'if they're kinda woman-shaped, give them the woman medicine'
Throwback to my mom asking if my enby boyfriend was AFAB, me getting confused and hesitantly saying yes because ????, and then her promptly asking what the difference was between us and lesbians 🫠
Oh my god?? I'm so sorry
Lmao. Reminds me of my grandma and how she'd always ask "You're in a dress and he's not, so your the girl and he's the boy today?" Though in my grandma's defense, she was just trying to understand me and my boyfriend's gender fuckery, and was in not trying to be transphobic about it.
because i'm transgender, my mom HAS to ask me every time i meet someone with a funny name or cool clothes or whatever "so what are they? like what are they transitioning from? "are they like actually transitioned or are they still [assigned sex]? what's on their birth cert? if they got into an accident what name are you giving the authorities????" and it's so immediately apparent that she's using 'assigned sex' as their 'real' gender -- and my mom is a lesbian, surely she would have some greater understanding about all that???
and if i deflect and ask why that matters, she goes without missing a beat "so they're [assigned sex] at birth" like ... AUGH!! not to dump emotional baggage under your comment or whatever, i'm just so relieved to hear someone else has a parent who treats assigned sex like "real gender" the same way LOL!!
@@afterskool444 Ugh. My parental unit tried getting my bf's dead name. And just didn't stop when I told her that it wasn't my place to tell her, and that his name is what he goes by.
ha, my mum always asks me "what did they used to be?" when I tell her about a new nonbinary friend.
Hello, intersex person here. I've been thinking about these terms a lot lately and I have a lot of thoughts.
For one, I didn't know AFAB and AMAB were created by our community. That makes me extra frustrated because it always feels like we can't have anything of our own. No one really knows about us and they don't even know that history either. Now we've had to come up with CAFAB and CAMAB (coercively assigned female or male) and I sure as hell hope no one takes that away.
The issue with AFAB and AMAB as sex terms now definitely stems from its origin. If intersex communities created it and used it first, it was definitely meant as a general descriptor to describe OUR intersex experiences WITHOUT describing our bodies. And that's just the thing. When talking about intersex people, often your assigned sex has NOTHING to do with your actual sex. That's why it's assigned. You could have been born with a penis and assigned female or born with ovaries and assigned male. Now, it's being used as a descriptor for non-intersex people's (I personally say perisex when referring to them) actual sex. It doesn't work because people start applying it to every human being on the planet meanwhile the acronym's lengthened term actually doesn't and isn't supposed to describe someone's sex. Yet it does.
I hear AFAB and AMAB brought up in conversations about sex differences most often. Sometimes I hear it in conversations about privilege. I get it, it's supposedly an "easier" way to talk about the sex binary without invalidating trans people. But it assumes so much it often ends up being transphobic.
I've heard, "AMABS automatically have privilege over AFABS."
or "non binary AFABS have it easier than non binary AMABS."
This is infuriating.
In these contexts, AFAB vs. AMAB cannot be used to describe someone's sex because it completely erases alternate sex characteristics (that are not always considered intersex), intersectionality and trans people who have altered their sex through hormones and/or surgery. And yes, your sex is actually altered when you undergo those things.
Don't even get me started on non binary AMAB and non binary AFAB. it makes me so unbelievably frustrated hearing people essentially build a new binary for non binary people while framing it as "inclusive" when really it erases the label of non binary and intentionally gives someone a picture of someone else based on their sex. Personally I myself am trans and technically non binary though my label is bigender. Do not call me cis for this, I was still assigned a gender and want to go through medical transition to reach the sex I desire. It's just a little slide across the intersex spectrum for me.
I hate having my assigned gender be intertwined with my actual gender or sex, cause it's just so damn wrong. At least with my gender, no one can invalidate but with my sex, especially because I haven't been diagnosed with an intersex variation (say variation over illness, condition, disease or disorder please) and I often get that invalidated. It's a different type of dysphoria I don't have any comradery with because the intersex and therefore trans intersex community is so small. There's not enough people who know about themselves that way to share their experiences or who are willing.
I was actually wrongly assigned a sex. I am still labelled that sex in doctor's offices because they're too negligent to examine my intersexuality. Yet people assume I'm one of these assigned genders and therefore it should describe something about the way I work.
And then they get surprised when I do not?
I am not female. I am not male. By body works like neither and yet neither but it's up to me to find ways to work with that are not well documented. Our community has practically no platform and it's rare to even hear intersex people themselves actually speaking up for intersex rights. Uplift our voices, stop using us as talking points and god respect our culture. If anyone actually took the time to care and speak with intersex people, they'd actually get an idea of what it's like to live this way.
And it's different.
Thank you for talking about this. It's something I've been thinking about for a while and I appreciate it.
Imo müllerian vs wolffian and neo vs natal are much more descriptive, accurate and inclusive terms. I wish they saw more use. Look them up if you don't know them and maybe add some keywords like "trans" so you get the definition you're looking for
you can ask me more here about what it's like to be intersex. Nothing rude, invalidating or fetishy. Yes I have ambiguous genitals but only under 10% of all intersex people do. Don't get sexual with it
ty for introducing me to those new terms, will definitely be using them & spreading the word!
As you touched upon, even beyond intersex and trans issues clerical and administrative errors can happen, and I remember seeing something about an entirely cisgender, perisex woman who was assigned male at birth because the doctor accidentally ticked the wrong box
how do you feel about the term intersex itself?
thank you so much for adding all of this!!! natal and neo are definitely useful in a lot of contexts when people would otherwise use assigned-language, thank you for reminding me of those!
god I saw someone call themself " cis afab" and I've never recovered the braincells I lost
I'm glad you brought up the whole "theyfab" thing. I saw that term swimming around a lot a while back, and I didnt think much of it then, but now I can see how clearly that framing plays into harmful stereotypes about trans masculine nonbinary people being less valid. Great video!
I haven't watched the video yet, and I'll probably comment again after I do, but I was SO happy to see the video title! This has really been bothering me lately. It really is just bioessentialism repackaged. I also hate the focus putting people into boxes of 'who experiences what type of oppression' within the LGBTQIA+ community. Like the TME/TMA thing, which is essentially just treated as an extension of afab/amab. The idea is if you're trans and amab, you experience transmisogyny, and if you're trans and afab, you don't. But like.... do you really think that a nonbinary person who is 'afab' and dresses in a traditionally feminine way but who takes testosterone won't be assumed to be a trans woman by the kind of transphobes who think that trans women are 'men in dresses'? Do you think they won't experience violence or oppression based on their gender presentation? It assumes a very specific kind of presentation, that essentially turns nonbinary into 'boy-lite' and 'girl-lite'.
thank you for bringing up the TMA/TME thing!! a lot of people use it in the same way afab/amab are used, which it shouldn't be at all. i've had people ask me whether i'm TMA or TME presumably to try and tell my agab. people also use it as a way to generalise trans men and women, not even considering the fact that nonbinary, genderfluid and intersex people can be affected depending on their presentation. even cis male drag queens and more masculine looking cis women can be victims to transmisogyny
transmisogyny is a huge issue both inside and out of the community, but trying to dictate who can be affected by it is a little ridiculous
Yes, I hate the TME conversation for this reason. I pass as male and identify as a trans man but am queer and dress feminine so I experience transmisogyny and homophobia. Men will mock me in public or act sexually threatening. And if those same people figure out I am transmasculine it can cause an additional set of troubles which makes the situations very difficult to navigate safely. I do not have a similar current life experience to cis women at all. I definitely have a different experience to a trans woman or transfemme who is more feminine than me but I am not exempt at all.
i think part of the problem is that assigned intersex at birth rarely happens because even when people do know someone is interested at birth (which rarely happens) we are still assigned a binary identity anyway because its incorrectly assumed that will be better for us than being aware we are intersex if that's what we are. Not to mention the experiences of all amabs and all afabs are not the same but just like the gender assignment binary, the sex assignment binary presumes that all amabs and afabs will have the same experiences. it shows that the binary assumptions continue societally even if we transgress gender until we uproot the assumptions from the start of life and when assignment occurs. I am a big fan of a family in bc who had a child birth from home and has actively refused to allow gender or sex assignment to occur by the bc healthcare system, putting themselves in great risk of loosing their child in the process. Until we can radically reject the assignment of gender, and ideally abolish the legal assignment of gender the same way race has been abolished from most government paperwork (in canada and most of the USA at least), binary assumptions will still be put on us from birth and that will have an influence on the kinds of trauma we experience as a result of that assignment, regardless if we later in life come out as nonbinary or intersex or gender non conforming.
For me, there are only 3 situations where our sex assigned at birth is at all relevant: medical situations explicitly tied to our assigned sex (ie hormones and intersex conditions where sex plays a role in health care treatment), reproductive health care (or things tied to reproduction that sex explicitly is tied to), and MAYBE data gathering like censuses or sex-based medical studies (for the same reason even though race isn't scientifically real we still have racial data on the census to take into account population data based on perceived racial identity). Beyond those 3 specific and relevant situations where sex assignment has scientific importance, we should not have our sex discussed in public settings. We certainly shouldn't be required to have it on our legal ids in the first place, let alone travel documents that impact our freedom of movement. And we certainly shouldn't be reduced when discussing nonbinary topics to just our sex assignment any more than our gender assignment or dead names, since that should only be brought up is we are using it as a part of how we describe our societal experiences. when stuff like certain marvel comic series have amab and afab be the main distinguishing characteristics of 2 nonbinary characters, it absolutely is just using sex assignment as a way to get around gender assignment but still enforcing a sex binary, all while promoting the myth that sex in binary in the first place and erasing intersex voices and experiences;
Wow, back in the day it was "born female" and "born male" and "born a girl" or "born a boy". Those were bad enough, but afab/amab are another issue. I don't enjoy being called or calling myself afab, because the "assignment" was incorrect, and I think assigning a sex or gender to a newborn child is terrible! It's gross to look at a child's genitals and assigning a gnder/sex to them, and it puts gender expectations on infants on the assumption that they will eventually align themselves with the rules of girlhood or boyhood based on that assignment. And what even is gender anyway?
Then there's the transmasc/transfemme binary. I feel like I don't belong in transmasc spaces, because I don't fit the ideal of masculinity, and from experience I've noticed that some trans men are very hardcore when it comes to presenting masculinely. I'm not masculine, and I'm not andro, and I'm not feminine. Of course, I don't fit into a transfemme space because they wouldn't accept me due to my birth assignment. I think that this binary system leaves me out, so I end up feeling like there's no place for me in the trans community.
I have historically identified as transmasc to kind of shorthand my relation to the masculine sides of gender with also being nonbinary, but I'm finding that I have started using it to mean "trans men and also people who are AFAB and more masculine than feminine" and... it's icky. I'm using that for myself, and it feels icky. Why the hell am I doing that?
"Transmasc spaces" have use in allowing people to discuss similar experiences, but it sucks so much that they have randomly decided that whole spaces should be designated as such without being a space for ALL nonbinary people. That's really dumb, lol.
I know that there are groups out there, and I hope you'll find one. I've personally found my own multiracial, multisex, multi-identity, queer-as-fuck space, and it has been freeing, and I know eventually you can do the same, even if you have to be the one to start it.
@@beep3242 Here in the south, I've had to stop going to queer events, because the enbyphobia is just too much. I have an easier time going to events that have lots of diversity (age, gender, ethnicity, culture) PERIOD. I still don't feel safe anywhere, though.
@spydula1 I'm in the south too, or close to it (Appalachia), and I'm blessed enough to have a good space withput enbyphobia. Sucks that the queer-dedicated spaces in your area are so shit
I don’t really like ‘born female’ at all because I don’t feel like I was.. I’m just born me. So I used afab to describe the way my body looks and functions but then now it basically means ‘woman lite’ so people don’t even fully misgender me they just call me it with the ‘correct term’. I just need a way to describe my experience without people continuing to simultaneously put me in the box of ‘what I was born as’ then outcast me from that group because I’m not actually one of them. Glad my friendgroup is queer as hell and they just see me for me instead of trying to put me in a box.
Omg yes! I don’t use the term transmasc/transmasculine either. I just feel it doesn’t fit but it’s the only language available so I then have to lean on the afab/amab dichotomy to give context for certain stuff. I just wanna be a nonbinary person with no expectations of embracing another binary.
As an intersex afab person, being able to indentify myself as afab gave me a lot of comfort. I always felt like (and still kind of feel tbh) i'm too diffrient to refer to myself as a woman, yet not diffrient enough to refer to myself as an intersex person (my overall appearence is more masculine, i have pcos and my external genitalia look a bit diffrient, but i always felt like i'm "too feminine" to fit.) Usually when people ask my gender i say i'm an afab person as it's the only term that doesn't make me feel alienated. However using it to exclude people just because of their birth paper and thinking it's more important than someone's gender indentity is simply ridiculous. Labels like this shouldn't be used to make people unomfortable, but help them understand their indentity.
Yeah, I have seen this "afabs only" thing in the UK too. My friend (trans guy) went to a housing interview and the people kept going on about how it was so great he was afab. He turned them down obviously.
haha, thats so awesome of him. i've noticed the "afabs only" in the autistic community when it comes to groups and clubs. though it is more often referred to as "women and non-binary people only" but it is very clear with the language they use that is only refers to cis women and "afab" non-binary people who they also actually just perceive as women.
people really have started asking “are you amab or afab” like that’s literally just “whats in your pants” but flowered in more “progressive” language
I think the other use that bothers me a lot is when people will say like "afabs and transfemmes" I've seen this mostly for like... art shows and art groups. Its like a quarter step up from saying "non-men" . The best reading is that they want it to be something that showcases queer experiences, while providing a boost to "more marginalized voices". But even if I technically fit in that criteria the way i experience my body and gender mean I would pretty much never feel comfortable joining in...
The worst reading, that I sometimes cant help but take, is that its a group who wants to include transmen but doesnt Really see then as men, and that the only valid direction to trans is more feminine. Though I do think "amab exclusive" groups are equally, if not more, common and result in a similar exlusion and alienation for transwomen.
I also think it sometimes comes from, or is fuled by, a fear of just saying queer, or trans as umbrella terms.
like they're saying trans men are safer that cis men because they assume that trans men don't have dicks, which is untrue for some trans men.
The queer community is so anti masc at times that a lot of us still hold onto the "penis evil" narrative and straight up villainize amab enbys, trans women who choose not to have bottom surgery and trans men who do choose to have bottom surgery, and the amount of times I've heard someone say that the purest form of love is two (cis) women) is just wild, as if love between anyone of a different gender or anyone who has different genitals is somehow less pure
Thank you immensely for articulating that 💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓
Anti masc and transmisogynistic
"How dare you wonder what genitals I have! Oh, by the way, I'm AFAB/AMAB." That's the one that always gets me.
i just made an appointment at a new clinic and on their website they’d made a note that their online option to make an appointment was “not as gender inclusive as they would like.” i checked the link, and under the gender drop-down, male and female were listed; wanting to make my experience at this clinic more positive, i decided to push through the anxiety and call to schedule my appointment instead. on the call i wasn’t asked for a preferred name or pronouns, simply “my assigned sex at birth.” this is just anecdotal experience and obviously healthcare services are going to misgender us more than anyone/anywhere else, but it definitely feels like a way for cis individuals and institutions to keep doing the same thing but feel like they can pat themselves on the back for their “inclusivity.”
The thing is it's not just a word. I've had the doctor who prescribed T ask me about periods as if it was obvious and I really wish I could have said "what makes you think I ever had a period?" instead of just trying to evade the subject as usual. I'm fed up with the "medical excuse" for the use if agab when it would on the opposite be more medically accurate for doctors to just ask specific questions when it's relevant .
The part that we get misgendered a lot in these healthcare related places, very true. I still remember when i explicitly told people my chosen name and that i am a trans man looking to start HRT, and then they'd shout my deadname for everyone to hear when it was my turn to speak to the doctor. Months later the town i lived in at the time stopped doing any kind of trans related helthcare services. What an experience.
I found a really interesting one on a calorie calculator that asked for sex, and then specified 'for the purposes of this test, we mean what are your hormones right now'
I personally hate the "trans and non-binary" divide. Non-binary is a subset of trans, and SO MANY cis people assume I'm not trans because of this language. I understand not all non-binary people will identify with the term "trans," but, gees, most of us do. Separating these terms also isn't congruous with our model (akin to saying women and trans women). So either it's trans-denialism, or our model is flawed. I'm just so tired :(
Please say this louder for my brother in the back. So every time I say I'm trans, my brother always feels the need to correct me and it gets so annoying.
@brother_in_the_back… NON-BINARY PEOPLE ARE TRANS!! 🏳️⚧️😛💖
It's so strange, cause it's not like we're cis, we weren't assigned non-binary at birth lmao
@@jesterdays ANBAB
so fucken true. im glad im not the only one who dislikes that. we're trans and we must stick together
As an AMAB non-binary person, this is something that really bothers me. I’ve definitely experienced people referring to male socialisation and it really feels like I’m being excluded cause I’m still being seen as a man.
and they ignore all the afab people that were socialized more like men than women too. Its so annoying. And im sorry that happens to you. It annoys me a lot when people exclude amabs from nonbinary spaces
Idk how to think about this.
On the one hand, I don’t have the experience of living in a world that genders me as a woman. And I figure people who have grown up gendered that way (usually afab) have a certain perspective that comes from that often traumatic experience. So I can see why they would want language to talk about that.
But. It kinda sucks when people say “amabs tend to be like ___.” Because it sure feels like they’re saying that there are intrinsic things about me that make me like a cis man.
I’ve had people tell me that, because amab isn’t a gender, they aren’t claiming amab traits are necessarily man-like, and that therefore they aren’t necessarily claiming that amab trans people are man-like.
And maybe they’re making that argument that in good faith.
But it surely reinforces that internalized fear that the doctors were a little bit correct, that there will always be some unbridgeable gap, that a person amab and a person afab can never 100% relate to each other. And I don’t want to accept that that’s the case, I really don’t think it is.
(Sorry for being so long-winded and personal, there aren’t many places to talk about this issue.)
@@debesys6306 ❤️
"...there will always be some unbridgeable gap, that a person amab and a person afab can never 100% relate to each other." I find particularly funny because my sister and I are both trans in the opposite directions. I'm trans masc non-binary and she's a transfem demigirl. And we're always talking about our experience with gender and it's interesting to see what we have in common and what differences we have.
I wanted to comment that I got my top surgery consultation scheduled and I'm really excited!!!!! :D
Omg that’s great!!! So excited for you!!
🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
I'm so hyped for you!! congrats!
That's amazing, congrats!
Congrats! I'm trying to get mine soon!
Great video! This is one of those behaviors that I find really signals that someone has never actually engaged in any kind of queer spaces in person. If I met someone new and they started identifying themselves or others as their agab I feel like everyone I know would just look at them like, "Huh??"
ikr?? in my queer spaces its normal to just say your pronouns when u first meet someone new and the gender topics come up if you get more personal and intimate with the person or if theyre comfortable. theres really no point in introducing yourself with your agab when sex is irrelevant in such situations/conversations
Afab and Amab is just a "less weird version" of asking someone what their genitalia is
And that is so weird
thank you for talking about this i thought i was going insane!!! you're so right about AFAB and AMAB being misused, i noticed it about a year ago and completely stopped using it cuz i was like no wait no yall r misusing it DX anyway, i wanted to also ask what makeup do you use? im looking into using makeup for my gender expression similar to how u do, cuz u always look SO awesome
This is an issue that has led me to be a lot less involved in my local community. It others trans women, while also promoting the toxic and bioessentialist "inescapable sisterhood" idea. Cis lesbians declaring themselves allies while posting ads looking for afabs only, and nonbinary people who fit that demographic defending the usage, it felt incredibly alienating and echoed your sentiment of "wow, we really aren't in the same community then." It felt like misandry.
as an AFAB nonbinary person I would never feel comfortable in an "AFABs only!" space. the fact that there's people in my "category" defending this is heartbreaking. maybe some people are happy being classified as "woman lite" so they don't understand how people of other nonbinary gender identities feel. I don't want to be in a space where my AGAB is inescapable and shoved in my face constantly, not to mention I'd feel really uncomfortable being somewhere where thinly veiled transmisogyny is the norm. this would drive me out of the community too even though I'm supposed to be the demographic being catered to.
i know buddy. i think a lot of lesbians would love me and a lot would look at me fuckin sideways for my thoughts and ideas lmao. i love men and women and every other flavor of human, and i ain't gonna stop in that equal love and empathy for everyone
misandry...?
Yes misandry, because I'm talking about the anti-male sentiment I feel expressed toward me by other members of my local queer community. Not commenting on the transmisogyny directed toward trans women@@krv3, as that angle is pretty well-documented. Not invalidating trans women, it is just a different thing when applied to non-women.
Its confusing to understand your initial comment as describing misandry. If you're able or are willing to explain it further, please do. You are not obligated by any means though.
Hi, as a cis straight woman, I had honestly never thought about this before (apart from one weird guy's dating profile, see below). I think one of the ways this is misused is well-meaning cis people trying to show that they accept trans people (instead of just saying that). Like with the AFAB owned business.
I've also seen a guy on a dating app who said that as well as dating women, they would also consider an AFAB non-binary person. That definitely gave me a bit of an icky vibe.
they try to show that they're down with us, but just end up insulting us. Also, that guy's profile was ick, like he has a problem with trans women.
@@SkyeID and that he sees those non binary people as women
Wow, a double whammy of transphobia there!! I definitely don't trust that guy to be a safe person around either nonbinary people or binary trans women
@@be6757 it's like some people see nonbinary as "woman-lite" or "woman-ish"
@@SkyeIDguys it's okay to have a genital preference, sheesh
I've recently come to a similar realization, where AMAB/AFAB has become a new binary. Personally I stopped using those terms if I could use something more specific a long while ago, but then I realized how constraining they feel for me as a trans nonbinary person.
I realized that AGAB labels are just... confining. I find joy in the idea of entering a space and never needing to announce my AGAB or have an AGAB assumed of me. Take that a step further, and I start feeling that transmasculine as a label is only useful to me as a way to describe myself to people who actually care about binaries, and I get a little frightened. I am afraid of losing that connection to other people who identify as transmasc and have my similar journey, but so few people seem to actually share MY journey.
I'm rambling, mostly. I don't know the solution to my fear, but it's the first time that considering breaking myself off from a binary is frightening to me and it's thrown me for a loop. I think that means I'm doing something right, though. Being uncomfortable means I'm getting to my root. And part of that is just abandoning AGAB labels unless strictly needed.
Transsexual guy here. I absolutely hate the use of these terms because the people using them to misunderstand and make disgusting assumptions about me, my body, my supposed "socialisation" and everything else. People somehow fail to undertsand that I CHANGED my sex to MALE, I am not "anatomically afab", biologically speaking I am male, even if I am not a cis man. Yes I technically am "in between the binary sexes" but I'm a lot closer to male now and am medically considered as such. People who pretend I'm the same a cis woman biologically are transphobic as shit and always make me dysphoric.
People make similarly incorrect assumptions about my childhood and my personality. No, I was not socialised to be "meek and gentle". I have anger issues. I'm loud. I transitioned socially at 13. I was the stereotype of the toxicly masculine anti sjw cis boy, except that I'm not cis. I do not want people to separate me from teh """"evil cis men"""" in their heads because I'm not separate, and maleness is not evil or dangerous, nor is it something I will apoligise for.
Btw, if any trans people have an experience that is different, that is fair enough. I do not speak for everyone, but I do speak for me.
Another trans woman here, just chiming in to say that I wish the "no AMABs" folks would just say that they hate trans women to my face.
I read a lot of smut where AFAB is used to refer to someone with female genetals, because that stuff comes up in smut. I feel like smut authors tend to do this because it is easier to say than "reader with breasts and vagina." However it is still excluding trans-fem readers who have had bottom-surgery. Despite this, I still enjoy these fics despite being trans-fem myself. I think for me, part of the fantasy is of having been assigned female at birth, of being cis-fem.
Yes, I do read a lot of genshin x reader fics lol.
valid! I've read quite a few x reader fics but it's hard to find stuff suited to me specifically since I'm enby transmasc, so I just end up reading stuff that makes me feel misgendered :/
I've been uncomfortable with stories that have trans men characters, and say "afab terminology" or something along those lines. Because it talks about the character's body as a woman's body instead of a man's body. Emphasizing the breast and hips and vagina etc, which makes me feel very dysphoric because I don't want my body to be sexualized as a woman's body. But I question if this is something that's just a me problem, because my boyfriend enjoys those kind of stories, and he's trans masc too.
@@magicalgirl4this is why I write my own tbh. Makes me kinda sad, but most of the demographic for these sort of things are people who don't mind being referred to that way and I suppose theres nothing I can do about that. When i gain enough confidence maybe I'll post my own stuff and people who can relate to this struggle can read it without having to spend hours doing it themselves or reading something that makes them feel alienated
@@zoguy6988 I suppose it depends person to person but I really do relate to this. I've never found myself writing me as trans in a story. Because my identity isn't that I'm trans and I don't want to self identify that way at all.
I just gave up on finding x readers that accurately describe me (ftm trans) so I started writing my own stories
The only thing that I can add to this is that I absolutely hate both terminologies, but also how often I encounter them as an intersex, trans and gay man. I’m T4T, for other trans men, and I see so many trans men on dating apps say “AFAB only”. I hear the genital preference argument a lot, but not all AFAB trans people have the same genitalia. Which, is why I just say “I’m T4T, I like men, I don’t like dick”. Every trans man who doesn’t have that anatomy is included in that statement, regardless of whatever society has deemed as their “biological sex”.
When someone says AFAB only, I can’t really tell what they’re looking for. I also don’t know many trans people who want to be constantly reminded of what letter is on their birth certificate. Not only does the term not make sense, but it’s also weirdly ambiguous in the way that it doesn’t really get the point across. If you have genital preference, say that. If you want a shared experience, say that. If you want other trans men, say that. I can’t even understand using it in a medical context, since again, not all people with the same letter on their birth certificate have the same experiences or bodies. Sometimes that letter doesn’t even properly reflect someone’s sex characteristics.
THIS
EXACTLY.
🗣🗣🗣‼️
If you have a genital preference, get therapy
It’s so wild not many people use amab and afab as like.. non-medical terms. Amab and afab are almost strictly used in a medical sense where I am (ie medical records since my medical records have my actual gender on it) just to make sure the doctors understand “oh, their gender is this, but the medical care I’m providing is this”.
Like, I thought we all understood human bodies are so, SO much wider then “oh you’re afab so you should do this”. What. Huh.
One of the prevalent harmful uses of this language i've seen is basically how some people kind of recreate the gender binary when it comes to non-binary ppl. So often I see the stereotype of a kind of girl non-binary or boy non-binary based off of ppls AGAB. It really defeats the whole category of non-binary because it puts binary gender back on the very people trying to escape it.
i feel part of it comes from so many non binary people still relating/identifying with the sex they were already presumed as. which is fine, it's no one's business how you understand yourself, but then it can be hard to find other non binary people who, while in my case not desiring physical transition, still don't consider themselves attached to man or woman as terms
I wish people would get the critique AMAB/AFAB implies. I like to frame it as a narrative thing; AFAB/AMAB is the part of your story before you got to writing your story the way you want or discovered a bit about your body.
Really great way of framing it, I might have to steal that idea because I've never seen anything else that describes the way I think about my agab so well. Yes my agab has had some affect on my life, but it isn't something that defines me!
I think the terms are useful when trying to be more descriptive about your own journey as a trans or nonbinary person. But beyond that, when used to describe others or groups, it generally comes across as exclusionary or invalidating to me.
Typically, when I see something like “AFABs only”, the real meaning ends up being “Women only. Trans women aren’t women, but trans men are still women.” Literally everybody is invalidated, and yet to people who don’t know better it looks like the person was using inclusive language.
Yeah- it’s better for self description than it is for discussing other’s lives. For example, I call myself assigned female at birth and I speak about my experience with that. I might ask another trans person what it must be like from a different perspective if they want to engage, but it’s only polite to do that when you know it’s a comfortable topic for them
Really sad how people took a term referring to the pigeonholing of intersex people and twisted it into misgendering with extra steps.
I've seen some people, in reaction to this, refer to it instead as the "coercively assigned gender at birth", and I do think that both conveys the meaning much better and works much better as a term that people can't misuse quite like this.
ehh i mean the ppl i’ve seen use “cafab/camab” just use it the same as afab/amab
my parents have a nasty habit of always asking about my partners and friends “are they afab or amab?” even when ive told them their preferred pronouns or gender. its so weird and inappropriate but they consider themselves to be “trans allies” so as long as theyre using “progressive” language, they still have permission to be transphobic.
my mom also seperates me and my siblings based on agab instead of gender (i am a trans man, i have a cis brother and cis sister) and when i bring up “hey im a man just like [brother], if you’re going to generalize about men then you either need to include me or not say it at all” she says “oh well you know, i mean assigned male AT BIRTH. that’s different.”
Yeah my parents do that sometimes too. They ask “what kind of person” a friend is and then ask if they were always a girl/boy
Geesh, it’s so funny I had a conversation about this yesterday.. then two trans RUclipsrs talk about it on the exact same day! 😂 Yea misuse of those terms suck. Assuming that SA hurts trans women less because they’re AMAB is absolutely still an insidious bias even amongst trans/queer ppl. Plays right into the TERF thing that our whole transition is just pursuing a sexual fetish.
Just feels like they want to wrap it all back into saying "men are dangerous" and they consider Amab people to be pseudo-men of a sort. It harms people who do not identify with being a man, and it also harms those who don't want to be seen as a woman. Afab and Amab work in certain circumstances in the discussion of experiences, but apart from that, I feel icky being reduced to how the doctors perceived my genitalia at birth.
i feel like transmasc vs transfem binary is even more prevalent in trans spaces. as an abinary person, it's horrible how often i'm misgendered or erased, or that i'm expected to misgender myself to be included. but they're related to AGAB language anyway as it used to be the case that every afab trans person used to be called transmasc and every amab person transfem. while transmasc and transfem have evolved in definitions, this still seems to be effectively how they're used. me binding my chest or having been on T doesn't make me any kind of masculine. it's the same logic that cis people use when they say everyone with certain body parts is male or female, and trans people took it and say everyone who does x transition step is transmasc or transfem. at its very core, it's still bioessentialism and cisnormativity (why is a flat chest considered to be inherently masculine? because it's what cis men have. my chest, flat or not, is always maverique, never masc and never fem.
Ive noticed a lot of well meaning video essayists i watch use afab and amab in situations that are clearly them talking about the expectations put on cis men and woman in relationships and with patriarchal thinking.
That frustrates me and i kind of wish that they just said men and women. Its often different for trans people because those expectations have another level of being incorrect or unrelatable to them then with cis people. The way its used just makes me wonder if theyll just see me as "woman-lite" deep down instead of actually nonbinary.
It'd be nice to offer trans and/or intersex experiences on these topics if you have your own, know someone who wants to share theirs, or feel qualified, and i sometimes seek that out. But I don't expect or crave that from most video essays unless its primarily about gender or sex.
i’ve never once been in an “AFABs Only” space that felt genuinely affirming to my transmasculinity. (Which to be fair i tended to avoid them in general bc wdym no transfems? + why would i wanna be lumped in w/ cis women?) Even with other self identifying “AFAB nonbinary” ppl it’s like they see me as woman lite + ik if i was able to medical transition to the extent i want to they wouldn’t want me there
you have such a talent for voicing what a lot of us have been thinking so eloquently!
i find it so frustrating that as a community we are pushing each other away and forming groups based on such arbitrary things. if we, as a trans community, want to break down traditionalist views on sex and gender, it sends a poor message when we then use it ourselves -- especially when the context it's used in almost always excludes trans woman and trans femmes (and continues to push the narrative that being trans feminine makes you scary, untrustworthy, a bad person, etc.)
as a fellow transmasc, i completely agree that we need to get our shit together, especially at a such a polarising time for trans safety. as always, a great video
"AFAB only" in my brain simply directly translates to "women only and i see trans women as men and all AFAB people as women". Its so reductive
Haven't watched it yet but THANK YOU !!! I hate how those terms have been more and more misused and overused since I came out seven years ago. We've talked about it a lot in the trans collective I'm a part of and with my trans friends because it's so prevalent and we're several to be against it. The binary discourse again, and the transmisogyny of it all.... I'm supposed to be afab but not in my name.
I think I've come to a point where I will say that I am NOT afab, because truthfully that has nothing to do with my identity. I hate how it kind of implies that my experience with gender as a trans male is somehow similar to a cis female's when it's not (no shame on trans men who relate with women on certain stuff but still not everyone's experience, and using AFAB to talk about it is transmisogyny tbh). A friend of mine told me recently that he relates to the discourse targeted at cis men and I realized that me too. And that kinda sucks to go back to this place where I was as child: knowing that discourse about "boys" was supposed to be about me too even though it "technically" was not...
Couldn't agree more. Like it's just diminishing people's manhood/womanhood at this point :/
UGH I’m non binary and when other trans ppl meet me and ask my pronouns i say Any pronouns! But still even after that I often get asked if I’m FTM or MTF. My little transsexual…. I’m non-binary!!! And I’m not secretive about what sex I was born as. I talk about it often. So if you know me for a little you’ll find out. But people ask me right when they meet me. It feels like even other trans people are trying to put me in a binary. Why does that still matter to you? You’re acting like a cis person!
A smaller grammatical thing is that by using it as an adjective and not a verb (Amab person vs person who was amab) crystallises it into to some set in stone facet of someones self and not essentially a coin toss with legal implications.
I was listening to a podcast and a guest talked about clothing for “afab people” in bdsm being hard to find. I was so confused because they were talking about boobs and like…trans women have those too? Afab was completely the wrong thing to use in this convo because it has nothing to do with your current identity or body so like why do we use that when only a doctor needs to know
rarely do i make multiple comments on one video but if you see this i would really love to hear your thoughts on this. i have seen some trans femmes and trans women use "theyfab" for "afab" non-binary people who perpetuate transmisogyny in trans spaces. i don't want to police how trans femmes and women talk about their experiences with trans misogyny as i am not one, but the term "theyfab" doesn't sit right with me. every time i have seen it talked about, it ends up devolving into very anti-non-binary and sometimes even anti transmasc and trans men conversations, completely leaving out intersex people and a very pro-bio essentialism view on being trans. hell, i've seen a ton of transmeds use it to misgender people too. as a transmasc, i dont want to be stepping out of my lane here but it really feels like it hurts more people than it helps, like afab and amab.
yeah, i feel very similarly to you in this case. i think it goes without saying that everyone should be able to talk about the marginalization they face, but throwing other marginalized people under the bus in order to do so (e.g. "theyfab" language") has just never seemed productive to me. it definitely feels like it hurts more people than it helps. simultaneously i also don't want to police how they talk about transmisogyny! still, when i see people use language like that, i certainly trust them a little less, and that's also not a fault of mine imo.
As a trans woman, you're speaking too kindly about this, tbh. You shouldn't feel like you're having to step on eggshells or "policing others' experiences" when combating what is clearly just pure anti-enby rhetoric. Rarely is that term even used in response to enbies perpetuating transmisogyny, and even if it were that is still no excuse to do woke misgendering. Idk if I'd say it's a trans women exclusive thing though, in my experience I've actually seen it said more by trans men if anything, but maybe that's just me.
@@emie9858 i guess yeah, i am always worried about policing experiences that i do not have. and yeah it definitely is not exclusively trans women, i have seen trans men say that as well. though i was just speaking on how trans women and femmes describe their experiences with transmisogyny within the trans community. i didn't mean to imply it's solely them.
such an important video! there's an alarming transmisogyny problem in the transmasc community and it plays out very visibly in a lot of amab/afab conversations. i think there's a misguided assumption within the transmasc community that because we are trans ourselves, we must inherently have an understanding of all forms of transphobia and there is no need to examine how our own behaviours can be harmful to trans women. i hope for other trans men a main takeaway from this video is that we must listen to trans women! we are not immune to perpetuating transmisogyny. if a trans woman tells you a term you use or a behaviour you engage in is perpetuating transmisogyny you must engage with that critique! we must always be willing to challenge our perspectives to improve the material conditions of those who may be even more vulnerable than ourselves. thx for another banger ashton x
THANK you for talking about this. Even people who claim to be trans-aware will just label me as "afab" without even asking and not even consider that defining a trans man by his "femaleness" might be shitty to do
ok first of all I love everything about your style, you look so good and the beard and light bangs just adds to it, wouldn't be the same without it tbh. That's exactly what I mean when I say I want to be feminine but in an androgynous-masc way. I can tell exactly what you're doing with all the little choices you make to your hair/makeup/clothes, cuz I do the exact same, but you probably knows how to do it better and more naturally than me lol
but yeah, being more on topic now, I sometimes forget how silly the assignment thing is, and end up using it wrong myself.
Amab and afab rn it's pretty much just another way of people saying that you "were a woman" or "were a man" when you're a trans man/woman, mixing once again sex and gender, as in saying that if you don't "transition", you're still what you were assigned at birth, which makes no sense.
it always rubs me the wrong way and saddens me a bit when I hear trans people saying things like "my agab/body doesn't match who I am on the inside, i'm still a *_*agab*_* :(" but I don't feel confident enough to point it out cause yk? it's their experience not mine after all, but it really makes me feel like we're going backwards, mixing sex, body, agab, presentation and gender identity, when really all of them are separate
thank you for the kind words it's so lovely to feel my androgyny being appreciated
@@graveyardpansy yeah I think I get exactly what you mean, some people will get so upset about not having a specific genital for example, that theyll not even consider whether the genital really is THAT big of a deal for them anyways, or if all they want is to not be misgendered, regardless of their sex and genitals
I'm a cis woman and I was already aware of a few ways I misused AFAB/AMAB (and was working on them), but your video has me realising that there's a bunch more that I need to work on deconstructing.
You're entirely right that the misuse issue can usually be solved by being more specific in language used. The situation where I first noticed the misuse in how I was using the terms was when I used AFAB to mean people who are socialised as girls, in the context of speaking about young girls and the school system. I used AFAB because this conversation occurred between me and two trans men, but what I actually meant was people who are socialised as girls within that particular age range.
I am NB (agender) and I use AFAB for myself only as it does describe my upbringing. I was assigned this gender, and thus grouped with others assigned this way. I was not “socialized as a girl” I was only grouped with them. I honestly don’t relate to women on most levels or to most of their “universal” experiences you’ll find. It feels like a very separated way to discuss how society views/ed me. I will say it doesn’t come up much but I haven’t found a better way to discuss this.
I do agree with this video tho and would never ascribe this label to anyone else. There are much better ways to get to the points trying to be made when using agab as a group descriptor and it definitely does more harm in this context. I’m not really in online communities in general so i was surprised at how much it’s misused. Just wanted to share my thoughts for a better personal use. ❤
I personally say "I was brought up as a girl", because that rings true to me, but I'm not making the assumption that every afab person was brought up as a girl or every amab person was brought up as a boy. Imo, this is something that depends on how someone personally feels about their upbringing, rather than whatever they were assigned.
I also use "perceived/read as male/female", which I find useful in discussions about everyday sexism, like being catcalled on the street. I also find it important to remember that this isn't set in stone, rather whether someone is perceived as male or female can change throughout their life and can even vary day to day depending on their presentation (clothes/hair/makeup etc), the environment, who they're with, the perceiver, and probably lots of other things I'm not thinking about.
I wish I didn't have to use these terms at all, but since unfortunately sexism exists and people will make assumptions based on how their brain automatically categorizes you, I need to talk about it somehow, and this is the best/most precise way I have found so far.
I don't often use amab and afab but you gave me a whole new perspective on them and how they can be hurtful and I really appreciate that!! super interesting video as always :)
I'm so happy to hear you talk about this. I've also noticed an increase in the misuse of AMAB and AFAB, in ways that range from odd/nonsensical to downright harmful (which prompted me to make a video about this topic a few months back ruclips.net/video/au5UBsAZ8lA/видео.html). What frustrates me the most about seeing AMAB/AFAB turned into another binary is that it's the opposite of what those terms are intended to do: point out the coercive, harmful nature of assigning genders based on anatomy in the first place.
I really liked the questions you posed about the usefulness of the terms AMAB and AFAB. The only context where I find it useful is in talking about my past in a way that feels more accurate and affirming. I'm a later-in-life transitioner who's old enough to remember the days when we didn't have the language/framework for talking about assigned gender yet. So the only way trans people could describe our pasts was something like "I was born a girl" or "I used to be a boy." For me personally, saying I was "born a girl" not only feels like misgendering myself, it also feels untrue. I wasn't born a girl, I had girlhood (and later womanhood) forced upon me because of body parts that I didn't even ask for. So in contexts where it's relevant to talk about my pre-transition life, I'm grateful that I can now say "I was assigned female at birth" instead, and explain how much that assignment (and the whole practice of assigning genders) has hurt me as a transmasc enby.
I find it deeply weird when trans and nonbinary people use AMAB/AFAB as part of their identity labels in a present-tense context. Especially when they wear it like a badge of honor. One way I've seen some trans men do this is by using their assigned gender to exert a sense of superiority over cis men (for example, "I'm not like all those gross cis men, I'm AFAB," or "I'm AFAB so I can't be misogynistic like cis men"). That feels really icky to me. Not only does it prevent them from examining the ways they've absorbed toxic masculinity, but it also feels like they're undercutting their own gender in a way? ...almost like they're agreeing with all the transphobes who claim that trans men aren't real men. I can't wrap my mind around what people get out of describing their current selves as AMAB or AFAB, but to each their own... I just hope people become more thoughtful about their reasons and careful about how they use the language of assigned gender at birth going forward.
Thank you again for making this video-it was great to hear your take on this issue!
Why do people feel the need to have something to describe themselves when they’re just trying to talk about how other people used to see them?
Something like “I was born a girl” or “I used to be a girl” is just not true, and “I was assigned female at birth” doesn’t refer to the thing you’re trying to talk about. What you mean is “people used to think I was a girl” or “I used to get mistaken for a girl”. Why not just say that?
@@emmanarotzky6565 "What you mean is “people used to think I was a girl” or “I used to get mistaken for a girl”. Why not just say that?" >> In contexts where that's what I mean, I do say that. But in contexts where I feel it's important to point out the coercive nature of assigning genders to people (especially along a false binary), that's when I say "I was assigned female at birth." Hope that helps.
I'm non-binary and I use AFAB only to critize and address how society views and assume things about me. I use it to describe how my body/voice are viewed and not how they are. I think it's better to avoid using AFAB and AMAB for other people as much as possible as it's not relevant that often.
Gosh I've been saying this!! So often I hear people saying things like "women and afab people" in an attempt to be inclusive but it makes me feel crappy as a nonbinary person because it supports the notion that there is no difference between women and afab people (or men and amab people). If we wanna be more inclusive and move past the gender binary, we need to get in those nuances and talk about the aspects that are actually relevant to the conversation.
I've tried to explain this to people but you've put it much better than I ever could. Thank you! Will definitely use this to send to people
The way people are using AGAB terms literary just turned into females and males but for people who dont wanna seem transphobic or trans-exclusionary.
Okay I just watched the video and.... I guess I've been blissfully ignorant, because I had no idea there were people being like 'afab only!'. That's just sad, and definitely reeks of bioessentialism. It kind of gives me the vibes of "I don't trust men, and amab people are basically men". which is particularly gross within the trans community. Most of us come into the community with some form of internalized transphobia, simply due to the culture we live in, but I can't help but feel like a lot of 'baby queers' haven't done the work in unlearning their own internalized biases.
Thanks for this! I'm a person who has been in queer spaces for almost 20 years now, but have still found myself falling into using AGAB as shorthand to refer to issues of gendered upbringing/treatment/experiences in youth rather than being more precise with my language. I needed this reminder to do better.
i usually don’t comment on videos due to The Horrors of Being Perceived™️ but i just wanted to let it be known that i super enjoy listening to your videos and i’m glad we can acknowledge the issues with the ways this terminology is used and have room to criticise it! i’ve also noticed how it’s been used to exclude trans women and transfeminine people in particular, and i’ve also seen intersex people being left out of discussions and spaces due to this, which is like. really bizarre considering its origins within intersex communities as well? i wasn’t aware of the whole housing thing that you mentioned happening and i. well. that sure is!
and it’s honestly bad and even dangerous for people to assume people will or will not have certain issues just on the basis of what they were assigned at birth? and that anyone based on sex will have the same anatomy and bodily functions???
aaand think it’s easy to feel alone and ostracised by our own communities when terminology like this is being co-opted and used in the ways that they are. quite frankly, it sucks, and i hope we can continue to educate ourselves and make the queer community more welcoming and considerate.
as a trans woman i actually don’t really have problems with this terminology. i find it helpful when referring to my childhood as the way i was treated was heavily affected by others perceiving me as a man. i’m not ashamed of the fact that i was assigned male at birth im just trans and that’s it. i feel like this terminology is useful bc there r certain experiences amab nbs will have that afab nbs won’t and vice versa. that doesn’t mean any either one is less non binary. it’s terminology to better explain how their journey looked
exactly, im nonbinary and i find it useful. i find it more of a problem that terfs and such like to weaponize it, and not that it is a descriptor about how my body is/was or what kind of social expectations are put upon me because of that
Local cis-het dude
You're getting into community issues that obviously don't impact me, but pretty quickly into the video i agreed with you. I've personally thought that the only time amab vs afab was of any real use was in medical situations, but it honestly is used too broadly.
And if I were to see a post with afab only I probably wouldn't have noticed the trans-misogyny because I'd stop at "not me" and continue on. (Too many people have been traumatized by too many cis dudes for me to get angry that I would be excluded)
Anyway, interesting video!
I was an 80's kid so I'm kind of ... middle-aged, so when I see the word "dude", I still think of it as gender neutral. When I was growing up, everyone around me was calling themselves dude (except for my mom). Then I'm reminded of that Good Burger song, "I'm a dude. He's a dude. She's a dude. We're all dudes, hey!"
Yeah, I agree with basically everything you said, another thing that I've started seeing recently as well, is that people have started using the terms femme and masc to basically reinvent the binary, I often see people say femmes when they're talking about cat calling and things like that but I think a much better term to use would be "women and those mistaken as such", anyway, there's more I could say about that but I won't. Linking back to your points, when we discuss situations that may be effected by our AGAB I think it would be a lot more helpful to just specify it, for example, if you want to talk about people's experiences growing up perceived as a women, don't say AFAB, just say that. People always feel the need to reinvent the binary one way or another and sometimes I can't help but feel that it may be a result of the more widespread acknowledgment of non binary identities but without changing any of the systems that we already have in place, part of the truth that a lot of (usually cis people) don't seem to understand is that if you really want to support non binary people then there will have to be large systemic change, not just of the toilets and the sports categories, but of the medical system, the legal system and schools/education as well.
"afabs only" to my transfem ear literally sounds like you're afraid of us or otherwise uncomfortable with our presence. I mean what even is the practical difference between a transphobic "women-only" space and an "afab-only" one? both just mean amab people aren't allowed, so much for validity
as a nonbinary person i was using these terms and had no idea they were problematic, damn. guess that’s what i get for no longer using socials LMAO, sure im no longer doomscrolling but i’m missing out on info like this that would actually be helpful for me
anyway ill try to remove them from my vocab, ty for this vid, i haven’t seen anyone else talking abt this before and i’m glad it came up on my recommended, if it hadnt i woulda gone longer saying hurtful language and that’s actually the Last thing i want, especially since the ppl id be hurting r within my community ):
This is just as annoying as in german discourse, where people sometimes instead of AMAB/AFAB say things like "socialised male/female" people or "read male/female" since they percieve ppl a certain way. dunno if it's only here tho, I just dont remember seeing it that much in english-speaking discourse. Most ridiculous imo is the german acronym FLINTA which means Women, lesbian, inter, nonbinary, trans, agender, but in practise they it mostly means cis women and nonbinary people who are percieved as feminine enough or women enough, plus people say the opposite is cis men, while ignoring inter people can be cis men too
I've noticed people in the U.S. say, "socialized male/female" as well as "read as male/female" back in the 2010's, but I don't think people say that as much as they did back then. Not to disrespect your culture, but the FLINTA acronym makes me feel sick! The only thing I can think of in the english language that is comparable to that is "women, transfemmes, and afab nonbinary people"
@@SkyeID nah all good, you're not disrespecting culture, lol, wouldn't eben consider this culture. I'm pretty annoyed about that too, because it creates a new binary of cis men vs all other gender. And that makes no sense. Especially if you don't take any other forms of oppression into account. Most of these spaces are run by white queer cis women and are not accessible for disabled and neurodivergent people at all. And ofc it's especially those ppl being offended af when you critisice it
@@SkyeID but I think women, transfemmes and afab nonbinary people also seems very arbitrary to me tbh. It's just difficult to put so many different identities under the same term, like there are ways to cater to ppl with the same needs without creating weird acronyms
for me as a nby person i rarely use amab/afab. however when I do use it its not 'right' I guess. but for me I use it to avoid saying woman/vagina I'm reference to myself. which is weird but dysphoria go brr. like if I'm talking about how I've experienced misogyny I might say 'i, afab, have x experience due to being perceived that way'. idk its just bc i don't have a word to use instead and its easy shorthand that explicitly distances myself from 'woman'
i personally avoid using the term on other people. I agree with everything u said, and I don't identify with the term. I definitely see it as a red flag used in the examples you said. the whole Afab only thing is not it.
i sometimes use 'percieved as a man/woman' instead bc thats what i mean but when ur writing multiple paragraphs having a shorthand makes it easier. there is probably a better word to use i just don't know it.
i agree!! i use it for myself to describe my experiences but rarely for others
But your assigned gender at birth doesn’t have anything to do with experiencing misogyny. Misogynistic people don’t know or care about what’s on your birth certificate. If you mean something like “I’m not a woman but I like to wear dresses and makeup sometimes and that causes people to treat me differently”, or just “I’ve experienced misogyny despite not being a woman because people tend to see me as feminine”, you can say that without saying anything that could misgender you. But it’s just incorrect to imply that misogynists somehow know what gender you were assigned at birth and that’s why they want to harass you or underestimate you etc.
I totally agree, I hate when I read around "AFAB only" like... It sounds so bad because I feel like it's "I only want woman because men ew"
In regards to the breast tissue check/pap smears, it's not just trans-exclusionary, it's also intersex-exclusionary.
As you said, it's about not understanding the implications of the language. Which sucks when it's supposed to be on educated medical information.
i couldn't agree more with this. frankly, when someone calls me afab, i just assume they think i'm a woman deep down.
i have a similar problem with the phrase "women and femmes" because i'm never quite sure what a "femme" is supposed to be. They certainly don't mean, like, femme lesbians, right? because that's extremely specific and many femme lesbians are... also women?? do they mean transfemmes? if so, many of them would be included in the category of "women" too, right? are they calling *me* a femme because i *sometimes* wear makeup, even though I would not in a million years identify myself that way? What about butches, many of whom don't necessarily consider themselves women regardless of what they were assigned at birth? i mean, i can't imagine someone who would call a group of people "femmes" would be very open to a woman who dared to be masculine at all, whether she was cis or trans.
also, at the end of the day, since people seem to use agab to refer to genitals most of the time, why are you thinking about my genitals?!?!?! it's none of your business!!!
great comment, i like the string of questions and how you mentioned a whole slew of interconnected problems that the usage of uncomplicated and vague terms like AGABs or "femmes" bring but also Hey fizzgig. fizzgig in pfp. yes
I wear primarily dresses and skirts, but I'm not femme. Calling me femme just because of the way I present myself, and calling me afab because of my assumed genitalia, indicates to me that the person thinks I'm just a woman. It's very invalidating and it's very gross.
I love this video and it is making me think a lot about how I use AFAB/AMAB! thank you for posting! my comment was that, at 13:03, you said it was bizarre that trans women never say "only AMAB people" for housing, and I think it could be because... how do I put this. there's a broad assumption here that AFAB = woman = harmless, and AMAB = man = dangerous. if AFAB people = harmless then it would make sense that AFAB people are never excluded in the same way that AMAB people are. absolutely NOT saying that it's correct, just answering that question you had. that's all! love this video, thank you again!!
that's the thing though, they think assigned female at birth people are harmless, when that is untrue. I was married to a cis woman who abused me, not so harmless.
Love this video, this is something that has bothered me a lot but I couldn’t have articulated it nearly as well as you 💛 A similar thing that annoys me is phrases like “thems and fems” which for some reason try to lump together women and non-binary people. As a very clearly “amab” enby I can’t help but feel like I wouldn’t actually be welcome in spaces like this and what they really mean by non-binary is “spicy cis women”
fantastic video as always! :) on a smaller scale, i think most of your points could also be applied to the terms "masc" and "fem". i've seen so many other trans people (and i used to participate in it myself before thinking about how it affected others and myself) use those words as a new binary. calling interests by trans women "masc" and using that as a way to discredit her, and same thing for trans men and those beyond the binary.. anything that has a strong societal connotation to it already. i've tried to stop using the words entirely and it has completely rocked my view of gender and myself, forcing me to use more accurate language instead of finding the closest umbrella. i think when it comes to amab and afab, the cynical part of my brain believes it is just a lack of interest in learning anything more, or challenging the world because your modified language is like,, enough for Them specifically? not considering those around you in the slightest. i hope with videos like these more people will look inside themselves and realize how limiting their views really are and how language HUGELY impacts it.
great video! def needed this cuz yeah its so true and ive kinda understood this for a while but i hadnt thought it out this much and im glad that ash lowkey called me out lol. i mean i dont use it like the examples he gives in the vid, but i do still have internalized misogyny and shit i need to work thru more. its important to remember that being trans doesnt make me automatically not transphobic.
I've seen a similar trend with femme and masc, mostly the phrase "women and femmes" when what they mean is "people who an outside observer would probably consider to be a woman." It also feels like they're using femme to mean AFAB nonbinary (as discussed in the video) and can't even consider that femme men exist