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[–]Lyssa 42 insightful - 2 fun42 insightful - 1 fun43 insightful - 2 fun -  (31 children)

Well, not exactly... In a lot of cases doctors know that their answer is inaccurate/incomplete but are forced to record it anyway because "intersex" or "indetermined" is not an option. Actually, intersex people are the only ones "assigned" anything.

[–]valleyoftherogue 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (23 children)

DNA is the final arbiter. If there is a "Y" chromosome, that baby is male. No ambiguity about it.

[–]Lyssa 21 insightful - 2 fun21 insightful - 1 fun22 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Has your DNA been observed in the delivery room? Mine hasn't. We indeed do know the chromosomes of my daughter thanks to modern pre-natal screening but that still is not the case for most births. A baby with CAIS has XY chromosomes but female genitalia.

I have recently learned here from another poster that most intersex conditions are apparent for medical professionals but some are not.

In any case: Why should I or anybody decide in those rare cases over the heads of those affected what the "final arbiter" is? And btw: for biologists it would be gonads. Not chromosomes.

[–]Spikygrasspod 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Mmm, but if there's something like CAIS, where the body develops under the influence of female hormones, that person will look female, and possibly have female genitalia, so it might be practical and humane to assign them the legal sex of female. In a world where we treat people as male or female, parents have to make the best decision about how to raise their child, what to tell people, etc. I think that's what assigned means here.

[–]lefterfield 6 insightful - 1 fun6 insightful - 0 fun7 insightful - 1 fun -  (5 children)

Yes, I know they're the only ones assigned anything. But calling it an assignment is still inaccurate in most cases. In some areas of the world it's still true that medical technology is such that doctors have to make an informed guess - but with modern tests, it would be very unusual for an intersex child not to be clearly identified as one sex or the other.

[–]Anna_Nym 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

My understanding is that the "assigned at birth" phrase was used in intersex advocacy to refer to cases where the intersex condition caused development of ambiguous genitalia, and the doctor operated on the baby to normalize the body. It was literal.

[–]lefterfield 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

No, that's not my understanding of it all. It's a term used in cases of intersex babies, when it is genuinely ambiguous what the external genitalia indicate about sex. Surgery may or may not happen(and shouldn't happen, regardless).

[–]Anna_Nym 7 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 1 fun8 insightful - 2 fun -  (1 child)

I tried to track down the history of the term to fact check my memory, but there was too much noise because of stuff like this: "Children who are intersex are assigned female or male based on what medical professionals anticipate their gender identity will be. Oftentimes, intersex children are subjected to surgical operations to change their anatomy to fit their assigned sex. "

Did the person who wrote that really think doctors are out there trying to guess at the gender identity of the intersex baby?

[–]lefterfield 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Quite likely, and very sad.

[–]DifferentAirGC 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

That's what I believe too.

[–]Yubin 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Intersex is just 0.001% of the population. It is incredibly rare.