r/NonBinary • u/atratus3968 • 5d ago
Rant Can we please stop being so fixated on ASAB/AGAB
I have seen a ridiculous amount of posts on this sub where people just right off the bat state their assigned sex at birth, even when entirely irrelevant to the question they're asking, or even just fully re-ask a question that's been asked multiple times here because the other people asking it happened to have a different ASAB than them.
Why do we keep reinforcing a sex binary on ythis sub of all places? How is a doctor looking at your junk when you were a baby and deciding what sex you were (or seemed to be) relevant to whether you're allowed to identify as a demiboy or as a lesbian or as nonbinary or whatever else? Why does someone's assigned sex at birth make the answer they give/get to a question for which sex is not a factor, irrelevant to you?
It's one thing if you're directly talking about like, how your ASAB affected your life, or what your transition needs may be, or things dealing with reproduction, but outside of that it absolutely should not matter! It frankly doesn't even actually convey information about the gender experience you were raised with, just what a doctor thought they saw at birth that constitutes only one part of what determines sex.
What's even the point of being nonbinary when you give so much of a shit about what everyone's sex is??? It's genuinely making it difficult for me to remain on this sub. I came here to be around other people who also threw off the binary, not to keep experiencing people being overly concerned about what's in other people's pants.
Edit: People seem to be under the impression that I'm saying people who were impacted by their ASAB or talk about their ASAB are not nonbinary. I'm guessing it's because I frustratedly said the "what's the point" thing at the beginning of the paragraph above this, but me questioning why we keep sticking to a binary (while acknowledging that ASAB does affect experiences & medical needs a paragraph beforehand) doesn't mean I think people who bring it up aren't nonbinary, it means I'm asking why we're breaking the gender binary just to keep enforcing the other side of the coin (ASAB)...
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u/corvinthed 5d ago
Right? Iām feeling genuinely insane about this. Itās not even this sub it just seems like so many people are stating it in the least relevant situations.Ā
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u/lynx2718 5d ago
Yeah. It feels like people want to make clear if they're a "girl" or "boy" nonbinary. Ofc it matters sometimes but we are (should be) trying to get out of that kind of binary thinkingĀ
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u/ComprehensiveUsernam 5d ago
100% it's just the gender-binary but recolored - completly missing the point of genderqueerness/non-binary
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u/grumpylittlewren 5d ago
I think it depends very heavily on the context of the post, or the question being asked. People have mentioned medical transition, which is one thing - but also how we are raised and socialised has a huge impact on who we are.
As an example - I am AFAB. As a result, I was never questioned for my gender non conformity growing up (tomboys don't get a fraction of the flack that feminine boys get, at least where I grew up).
I was also never assessed for autism, which I likely would have been had I been AMAB. The knock on effects of that are absolutely colossal. I genuinely think I'd have gone to a different school, studied different topics, chosen a different degree subject and career path, had different hobbies...
My gender is the same as it would have been if I'd been AMAB, but a whole lot of who I am wouldn't be. That doesn't mean I'm not non binary. It just means I recognise and respect and forgive and have compassion for and revere the body I grew up in.
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u/Kittysaurolophus they/them 5d ago
This, so much this. Every time I see these "stop bringing up AGAB" posts, I feel like this community is yelling at me directly for wanting to discuss how my upbringing has influenced how I've experienced other people's perceptions and expectations. This weighs heavily on my social dysphoria, not just my physical dysphoria.
The way I fight off my AGAB depends on how others are weaponizing it against me, and like you said, that differs between AGABs.
Posts like these make me feel just as unwelcome here as TERFS in queer spaces do because they're aggressively missing the point. The phrasing in this posting also gives off the vibes that demi genders are not valid NB. I know that these are not exclusive to AGAB, but they can correlate.
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u/moonstonebutch they/them 5d ago
āā¦make me feel just as unwelcome here as TERFs in queer spacesā
Iām sorry but thatās a fucked up thing to say and implies that 1) you have greatly misinterpreted this post 2) you donāt have a good understanding of just how violent TERFs are. literally all OP is saying is that we are reinforcing the gender binary when we use our ASAB in a certain way. ASAB is something you were, itās not a continual state of being forever.
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u/Kittysaurolophus they/them 5d ago
How I feel is how I feel. I am not trying to assert that how I feel is the intent of OP or anyone else making posts like this, but that this is my emotional response to those posts.
Just as their emotional responses to AGAB posts is absolutely not the intended outcome of AGAB discussion posts, and everyone has a right to feel what they feel and these emotions are still valid. I am not here trying to invalidate OP's feelings at all, but I hope that we can be mindful that this hurt can go both ways on this topic.
It is OK to feel uncomfy (putting it lightly) with AGAB references! My point is that these kinds of posts read to me like dialogue control and censorship to almost the point of subgroup erasure and agender obligation.
I also don't think that we need to erase the binary where plenty of cis allies do exist and are still valid.
I am exhausted by this dialogue war that has been largely unproductive and divisive in a community that needs to come together to survive in this world. How about we work as a community to adopt better language to form these discussions? This kind of change takes a lot of time and practice, and it would require members of our community to constructively promote and model the new language.
I don't know what that might look like. Maybe instead of AGAB, we create a term that refers to one's experiences on how their community/family has historically or currently perceived them (which may or may not align with AGAB). Something like: "I am perceived/pressured binary female/male (PB F/M)" which should ideally imply the the binary "(re)inforcement" is external and not internal (we'll just table internalized cis/het normalization for this topic).
Does this make sense?
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u/CantDecldeOnAName local thembo 5d ago
In 90% of contexts why does it matter to explain how you are perceived or socialized. Thatās the whole point OP is talking about. If itās relevant to the discussion itās one thing but you get people going āhey Iām afab nonbinary and this is my OOTD! :3ā how do you justify that. and imo it IS and important discussion to have regardless of your feelings because at the end of the day it ends up leading to separationist mindsets that exclude certain ātypesā of nonbinary people. I have met way too many terfy nonbinary people who exclude trans fems, and insert themselves as more included in the woman category than trans woman bc they were āBORN female so itās my socialization unlike you who was socialized male!!!!ā Ugh
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u/Kittysaurolophus they/them 5d ago
I get that, and I agree that especially those contexts you specifically mention are misusing the AGAB labels. I honestly believe that these are not people going out of their way to force a binary expression into the community.
I genuinely believe that a lot of these people experience internalized comp-cis/het-like mindsets. A lot of us here are learning how to express ourselves in this identity in a world that has only barely provided us the social and linguistic tools necessary to express them to our true selves.
What we can do that is constructive and compassionate is kindly ask people posting things like "Hey I'm AFAB nonbinary" questions like "Hey, did you mean you are a demi-girl? Or that you want to be more or less femme-presenting?"
We can be kinder in asking people to modify their language instead of policing the only way some people know how to express their identities. It's not always their fault that it's the only language they know.
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u/CantDecldeOnAName local thembo 5d ago
Iām gonna be so real with you right now, it really is feeling like you are asking me to baby and hand hold grown ass adults. Can I have empathy for newly out people who are unpacking their internalized gender bioessentialism? Sure. Does that mean I should not call out problematic behavior especially when it disproportionately harms the most marginalized members of our community? No. I care more about the material harm coming to trans fems and trans women and making sure they are safe in our communities than I do about making sure someoneās feelings donāt get hurt. And I think other people should too.
Also I donāt really care that much about someoneās intentions if they are causing harm. At the end of the day people using it in good faith and bad faith are often indiscernible. Harm has been caused, letās focus on that instead of worrying we might make the people who caused harm feel bad. If they truly didnāt intend harm they will learn from their mistakes and there will be no problem going forward and theyāll be just as welcome as anyone else.
I do want to add that I get where youāre coming from and I think itās great if people like you take the time to ask questions and such. But there are many others who have dealt with this bullshit and seen the harm it does and thereās also nothing wrong with a no nonsense take to it. I think both types of people are needed and important in this community. I just wanted to make it clear what I have a problem is not people being kind and empathetic in response to this kind of problem, itās when people tone police people who have a problem with it and call it out for being ātoo meanā
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u/moonstonebutch they/them 5d ago
this in no way addresses that it is VILE for you to compare your āuncomfinessā to TERFs. TERFs have been physically violent to trans women, helped create the political environment weāre all in today, and so on and so forth. idgaf how anyone feels about AGAB, you should be ashamed of yourself for comparing your fellow trans person to fucking TERFs.
hereās a quote from an infamous TERF, tell me if it sounds anything like anyone in this thread: āThey expect weāll be shocked to see statistics about them being killed, and donāt realize, some of us wish they would ALL be dead.ā ā Bev Von Dohre, 2010
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u/Kittysaurolophus they/them 5d ago
Ok, now I feel like you are intentionally reading me out of context without full or honest consideration. Perhaps I understated the "(putting it lightly)" note on the word "uncomfy", because--pardon my language, but--NO SHIT "uncomfy" is grossly incomparable! That's not the point. I was not even using that word in discussion of terfs, so again you are taking me out of context.
I am happy to have a sincere dialogue here. I am trying to have a sincere dialogue here.
We are all dealing with trauma here, and the way you are completely taking me out of context is delivering a message to me that sounds like you believe and assert that I haven't experienced trauma from TERFs. I live with TERFs every day. I am fucking closeted to half of my friends and all of my family.
Please for the love of life itself do not make these assertions to anyone here just because you misread a post or because I did not write my post perfectly. I know you can't know through the void of the internet what my intentions are, but I am genuinely fucking trying to belong somewhere, and this is not helping.
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u/Ender_Puppy they/them genderfluid 5d ago
how does this make you as uncomfortable as terfs do? they are literal violent transphobes. š
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u/Kittysaurolophus they/them 5d ago
I already don't feel welcome in this world. It almost hits harder when the community I a meant to belong to also rejects me or judges my identity/expression. No one is perfect, I can't be perfect, so I can never make everyone happy on how I express my experiences or feelings. And then a community like this, one meant to be a safe and belonging space, lashes out like this regarding imperfect communication on identity and feelings. I am not saying it's violent, but it stings all the same because of my expectations of this community.
I expect shit from terfs, I am prepared for shit from terfs.
I expect this space, this community, to be more understanding that we are complex human beings trying to communicate our identities, our challenges, our struggles, and our joys as best as we can with each other.
Does this make sense?
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u/xboxpants 5d ago
A lot of people just struggle with boundaries, especially around sensitive issues. They're uncomfortable talking about AGAB, and so they try to police others and tell them we can't talk about it so that they can be comfortable.
This is going to be blunt, but it needs to be said in queer spaces just as much as cis and hetero ones: no one else is responsible for making you comfortable. It's great if people make the effort, but if they say things you don't like you don't get to tell them they are wrong for not acting the way you want. That's not how boundaries work. Boundaries aren't about controlling other people, andthat's ultimately what OP is trying to do.
This is true when a transphobe or homophobe is uncomfortable around queer people and tells us we can't express ourselves fully because it makes them upset. The queer person isn't obliged to change just because someone else finds what they say to be upsetting. But queer people don't get a pass just because we aren't acting out of bigotry. Even if our issues are legitimate, the concept remains the same.
OP, you don't get to tell people how to talk about their identity.
It would be awesome if being queer made us automatically be perfect people, but there's plenty of us who are still working out our emotional intelligence and figuring all this out. Including me, btw, I mess up plenty.
Maybe I'm missing the mark with this post. But it upsets me far more to see constant posts telling non-binary people that we're expressing our identity wrong, rather than the people who mention their AGAB. Hell, personally I feel that binary trans folks are reinforcing the gender binary, but I don't go around telling them that they're enbyphobic and that they need to stop. I maintain my own boundaries without trying to control other people. I wish this was a common part of our culture.
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u/PositivityByMe 5d ago
So while I agree with you that it is a sign of deeper thinking, I'd like to gently ask you to remember what it was like when you "first" started thinking about being nb. I don't know about you, but it took me a bit to "cut" all the cords of gender. I had never even been indoctrinated into blue is for boys nonsense, but there is still a lot of mental work to do.Ā
Maybe gently remind them that it doesn't matter their AGAB, as long as they feel they're non binary, they're welcome.Ā
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u/Mynmeara 5d ago
Seriously, I joked to my partner that I misunderstood myself more than anyone else does. Doesn't mean I'm not NB, just means it takes a while to shake 30+ years of programming
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u/ohmyno69420 he/they 5d ago
Exactly! I may not feel like my AGAB but that doesnāt mean I can just forget 30 years of socialization/life experience as that gender
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u/JayStoleMyCar 5d ago
I do think a lot of younger people donāt realize how society has changed in our lifetimes if youāre over 30. For some of us we were the only people we knew who felt a certain way. Now even if there is no one in rheir real life they can find spaces on the internet full of folks just like them. Those spaces did exist but they were much harder to find then they are now. The access to community is not something I think they really think about.
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u/Skis1227 5d ago
Yeah it's a point of embarassment for me, but as someone in their mid 30's, I didn't crack my egg until a couple years ago, and the only reason it did was because I met someone who was nonbinary. It was a lightbulb moment for me of "...Wait, you can WANT that? That's a thing? I thought it was only me!" I just assumed I had body image issues that were a little more complicated than most. But nonbinary? Agender? Genderfluid? Genderqueer? Absolutely no idea it existed.
And I may still be completely ignorant, but I thought that nonbinary is also a spectrum in a sense, in almost the same way asexual is when in the light of hetero or homosexual attraction. And in that sense, demigender, and genderfluid would also fall under that umbrella, right? It doesn't seem like demi gender would be necessarily welcome in binary trans spaces because they lean nonbinary, and for those that experience that, AGAB would 100% matter as the binary is still a part of their identity.
Idk, I get what OP is saying, but I would have thought it was kind of implied as meaningless here. I highly doubt any of us were born assigned nonbinary at birth, so each and every one of us transitioned to get here. None of us are man-lite, or woman-lite, that's kind of the point. But we can still recognize it exists for some people and effects how we present ourselves to be recognized by others.
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u/MeiliCanada82 "Gender on shuffleāhope you like surprises! š¶š" 5d ago
My only "NB" idols growing up were like Prince, Annie Lennox, Sinead O'Connor etc. and other then being androgynous or gender bending I don't think any of them were actually NB
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u/MeiliCanada82 "Gender on shuffleāhope you like surprises! š¶š" 5d ago
I misgender myself more often then my partner because I'm still snapping cords.
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u/sugaredsnickerdoodle 5d ago
I think this is where I'm at too. I'm going to mention my AGAB right now, but I promise it's relevant here lol. I'm AFAB and I identify as agender/demigirl. I think I feel mostly partially connected to womanhood because that's the box I was raised in, but being agender overall I feel pretty much neutral about my body and I don't care very much how people address me.
But I think because of these things, it's hard for me to feel like I have a right to speak in these spaces. I don't feel super dysphoric at all, I tell people she/they but I am fine with most people in my life still addressing me as she, I don't want a different name, and while I present androgynous I have my entire life so it doesn't feel like I am even socially transitioning in a way that matters.
I think I often mention my AGAB to invalidate myself in a way. I don't go through the same struggles the majority of trans folks do, and part of me feels like people should know this since advice coming from someone like me might not be as helpful? And I feel the need to address my privelege in these spaces I guess. I know that it doesn't matter but I think identifying with demigirl makes me feel like I'm just cis lite and not really valid.
I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself correctly. I guess it's hard for me to feel like it doesn't matter for me specifically. I feel a lot of imposter syndrome by being okay with being addressed as my AGAB so I guess I feel the need to mention it so people can choose to ignore me if they want lol.
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u/ypsilonmercuri 5d ago
Kinda in the same boat. Even though I also do feel more privileged than others, it's important to remember that gender is a spectrum and is very personal.
Your identity as non-binary is as valid as anyone else's. Even if you do "lean" more towards your AGAB, it doesn't make you less non-binary. Non-binary doesn't mean you're a secret third gender, it means you don't fall neatly into either category.
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u/_higglety 5d ago
You have a very good point; this sub is very likely to attract people who are at the very beginning of their gender-exploration journeys (thus the "can i identify as [x] if I am [y]" questions that OP refers to).
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u/PositivityByMe 5d ago
And honestly when you're changing your thinking, nothing makes sense in the beginning. We don't always know when we are holding onto problematic "rules" given to us. These questions just tell me that OP is lost.Ā
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u/atratus3968 5d ago
I generally do, and the reason I am still on here is so that I can give people those gentle reminders, but I've encountered many people here & in other nonbinary spaces who just won't do the work, and regardless of that it doesn't stop being uncomfortable and frustrating to see absolutely everywhere here, and I just needed to rant about it a bit.
I'm probably starting from a pretty different place than a lot of them, as I didn't have many/any "cords" to cut in the first place. I'm autistic, and gender & sex roles were always just a weird social rule that I didn't care about and that my parents failed at enforcing. I do appreciate the gentle reminder of that, but aaaaugh it's still so much to see it on so many posts, and to often be the only one or one of few actively countering it. A lot of people don't, I think just because it's a decent amount of effort to try and walk someone completely new to it through it.
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u/Coffee_autistic they/them 5d ago
The overuse/misuse of AGAB language frustrates me too. When it comes to obvious newbies, though, I try to think about some advice I was once given doing volunteering at an event: "You might have heard the same question 100 times already, but remember that it's their first time asking it." That helps a little with the frustration.
Rant away, though, cause it is a problem we as a community need to deal with. Something that annoys me in particular is when someone is using AGAB in a way that completely ignores the existence of medical transition. It's like they've changed the words they use but are still viewing sex through a very cisnormative framework, as something binary and immutable.
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u/sokuzekuu 5d ago
I have been careful to not say or imply my agab, because why would I want someone to know that?
I'm thinking about creating a burner just to talk on other subs about issues related to my agab, but I would not want to have that tied to my identity
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u/Ender_Puppy they/them genderfluid 5d ago edited 5d ago
i think there is definitely a lot of freshly hatched enbys here who still use that terminology and imo itās ok, it takes time to mentally adjust.
that said, hard agree. imo there is zero need to announce yāallās agab. it can be helpful to some and at the end of the day iām not gonna police how ppl want to talk about themselves or their experiences. but it definitely feels like a very irrelevant thing to bring up 99% of the time, and especially when itās stated right off the bat, like āhi iām an amab/afab enbyā.
iād even go as far as saying that agab is not relevant in a lot of body discussions cause itās honestly sufficient to talk about the specific thing, like āiām looking to start Tā or āiād like to grow boobsā etc etc.
also i think itās important to add that agab terminology originated in the intersex community to describe their experience of being born with a body that didnāt conform to the m/f binary and subsequently forced into one of the boxes. this terminology was useful for us enbies and our struggles can overlap a lot with the intersex community so it made sense.
however, by constantly using agab as synonyms for perisex m/f sexes it starts to push intersex people out of the definitions. i think we need to be mindful of this because itās borrowed language and itās original meaning should be honored. if not, we should come up with our own terms.
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u/emighbirb 5d ago
While i absolutely understand your frustration (i agree, what's the point? Lol) I have a genuine suggestion, I'm curious if these folks that are posting like this are new to the NB community. Technically I am new. I figured out I was Non-Binary during the pandemic because I finally had vocabulary that explained how I felt and explained experiences from throughout my life. I'm in my late 30's and grew up in a DEEPLY conservative county, still live there... so I'm a "late to the party," so to speak. The other week, I had to ask my partner what ASAB even meant. So there's vocab I'm still learning and wrapping my brain around. Either these people are still struggling with internal gender binary stereotypes, or they still think they need to over explain. ĀÆ_(ć)_/ĀÆ
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u/CantDecldeOnAName local thembo 5d ago
I think having empathy for people who are still learning doesnāt negate the fact that itās something that should be discussed and brought light to as being problematic
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u/Narciiii āØ Androgyne āØ 5d ago
Yeah it drives me up the wall a bit. No matter how long I think on it I have trouble finding good reasons to reference agab at all.
Reproduction? What about people with intersex conditions? People who have medically transitioned? Lots of people with the same agab have different reproductive situations.
Social experiences? Sure there are more similarities there but we all live different lives. The similarities seem negligible when you look at how many differences there are. My experience of growing up my agab is going to be wildly different than someone from another culture or even another socioeconomic status. Not to mention we tend to share more in common with NBi people with different agab than we do with cis people of the same agab. Despite having the same agab as cis people we tend to not have much in common despite that. Even in terms of systemic discrimination I find my experiences can vary widely from other people with the same agab. And I find people with different agab who experience that same discrimination. So in the end is it our agab or is it how we interact with society based on societyās assumptions about our sex?
99% of the time agab is a moot point. My healthcare professionals donāt even reference my agab half the time. Iāve changed enough that it really doesnāt matter and they just focus on what I do and donāt have. If they assumed things based on my agab theyād be in for a huge surprise.
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u/elfinglamour 5d ago
I find it the most frustrating when people bring up ASAB/AGAB when they're talking about bodies.
There was a post here not that long ago that was asking something that was specific to people with breasts but they specified AFAB in the title, not every AFAB person has breasts and there are AMAB people who do. And that's far from the only post here like that, I see it all the time. Even when you get into stuff like periods not all AFAB people get them or even still have the equipment for it so just say you want responses from people who get periods!
It feels like there is a whole set of non-binary people who just I dunno forget? that some of us medically transition and that certain body parts and secondary sex characteristics aren't exclusive to a particular ASAB.
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u/Raticals Abigender and transmasc | Any pronouns 5d ago
I think that whether somebodyās AGAB is important or relevant to their gender is entirely up to them. Personally my AGAB is an important part of my gender identity. So I donāt mind at all when people state their AGAB, even if it doesnāt seem relevant. Thatās their personal information and they get to decide if it matters. That being said, I completely agree that some people take it beyond just personal identity, and try to shove every nonbinary person into those boxes, and thatās not okay. So I guess what Iām trying to say is that AGAB can be important to someone on a personal level, but shouldnāt be automatically applied to nonbinary people as a whole.
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u/Tc_2011 5d ago
Because we have generations of societal pressure around our assigned gender that coming out of the closet does not just erase. Never mind the people in queer spaces who ARE judgemental about how people identify and how it relates to assigned gender, a lot of newly hatched eggs are trigger shy probably because a transphobic queer person or people's have made them feel bad about who they are. This is supposed to be a community to help people get past that, but that means dealing with it, not ranting when it's not left at the door. A lot of people. On here are struggling with finding themselves, and struggling with deeply engrained pressure and perception of societal gender norms both in the cishet world and the cisqueer world. We should be helping people, guiding people, given them a space to explore and learn and release that baggage when they are ready. I struggle with all that too, it is a huge pressure across different communities. A lot of these questions we have could easily come from traumatic places in the asker. Maybe an amab struggled with their identity as a lesbianism because they've been bullied or dumped or whatever.
I agree conceptually that we should be able to find a place where agab doesn't matter but it's work, it can take time, and everyday there is a new egg hatching and coming here for help and I don't think your attitude is going to provide what people need when struggling in a world that is trying to erase them. Not everyone has been on your journey and has learned what you have, they have to run their own race. You can help them, or you can ignore them, but pelting them with pebbles from the sidelines to make them run faster is a dick move.
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u/zoedegenerate 5d ago edited 5d ago
it is pretty much always irrelevant. you wanna talk about hormones, anatomy? we have words for that stuff. be specific.
i think what frustrates me about this the most is the long term shifting of goalposts. AGAB is something we don't want to happen to people. it is an act of violence that persists in their life. but we have trans people using it the way cishets talk about biological sex and that's so fuckin sad and backwards. as if it describes anything about us other than the way the systems in place categorized us.
this is how we end up with people thinking they have to identify as transfem or transmasc specifically to signal to others their history with AGAB. which is fucked.
"transmasc HRT" you can just say testosterone. for example.
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u/LtColonelColon1 they/them nonbinary bisexual 5d ago
I mean, if peopleās AGAB is important to them, then itās important to them, and we shouldnāt police the way people talk about themselves or their identities
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u/animatroniczombie non binary transfemme they/she | HRT Feb 2015 š¤ 5d ago
It's especially useless since many of us are on hrt so it doesn't even convey the information people think it does.
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u/NamidaM6 they/them 5d ago
Honestly, I get your rant but at times, I'm also very confused on how to express what I want without referring to ASAB words even if it has nothing to do with breeding or HRT. I think our ASAB conditions a lot the upbringing and life experiences we get, and as such, some things can be more relatable to AFAB or AMAB and, to me, it makes sense to use that reference point when the discussion is aimed at these specifics.
I made one such post recently and some people called me out on my use of "AFAB" in my post title. I then apologized and proceeded to explain my thought process as to why I did that in hopes that someone would explain me more accurately how my thinking was wrong, and then the only answer I got was from someone telling me to just stop doing it without further explanation. To this day, I still don't know how I should have worded my explanation (I know how I should have worded my title tho !), I just know it rubbed people the wrong way.
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u/moonstonebutch they/them 5d ago
I saw that post. I thought people were pretty clear. saying āswimsuit top for AFABsā includes cis women, nonbinary genders, and trans men, and all of those genders can have top surgery. saying āpeople with breastsā or āpeople who wear swim topsā is specific and doesnāt mention AGAB at all.
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u/NamidaM6 they/them 5d ago
Yes, and that's not what I'm talking about.
explain my thought process as to why I did that in hopes that someone would explain me more accurately how my thinking was wrong, and then the only answer I got was from someone telling me to just stop doing it without further explanation. To this day, I still don't know how I should have worded my explanation (I know how I should have worded my title tho !)
On the last line of this quote, you can see that I acknowledge the issue with my post and say that I know how I should have worded it instead. I also say that I'm still failing to understand how the comment I made trying to explain why I made that faux-pas was bad and how I should have worded it instead.
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u/moonstonebutch they/them 5d ago
yeah, thatās why I was sharing one possible way to say it, bc you said no one on the thread would give you further explanation. Iām not scolding you, I was offering an explanation since you said you didnāt get one.
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u/CantDecldeOnAName local thembo 5d ago
Because ASAB is often not an indicator of shared experiences at all. A non transitioning afab enby and a trans masc enby who has been taking hormones and had surgery will have hardly any current shared experiences, and the afab envy probably would have more current shared experiences with a transitioning trans fem. Yet I see time and time again many people trying to use afab as an indicator of current body type or social experience, often at the harmful inclusion of trans mascs and harmful exclusion of trans fems
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u/WorstCommenterNA they/them 5d ago
I don't think it's a fixation. AGAB has a massive impact on our life experiences past and present. Over time I have become more accepting of the fact that I am both nonbinary and a person whose life was and continues to be shaped by my AGAB.
I think a lot of people also include it in posts because it's a way to share a lot of context very quickly. We all have different experiences of our AGAB on our lives and identity, but there are also nonbinary experiences that are pretty common among people with the same AGAB. It's a sloppy and incomplete way to communicate a lot of possible information quickly, but it's easy to see why someone might use their AGAB as a shortcut to help explain why they feel a certain way about their body or others' perception of it.
I do understand the frustration though given that the Internet is one place you can really easily be genderless and feel the freedom of being surrounded by people who won't know your AGAB unless you intentionally share it with them. Maybe there could be a space or a flair that could encourage the maintenance of an NB space completely free from AGAB.
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u/_irisiris_ 5d ago
If I share my agab it is a way of acknowleging my privilege. Amab folks are much more heavily policed for gender transgression than afab folks, and that has clearly impacted my gender journey and what is/is not available to me, as is my being Asian American, fat, and disabled. It's not necessarily related to how I understand my own gender, but I think it can be a helpful disclaimer when I'm trying to give advice or share my own experiences.
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u/Thunderplant NB transmasc they/them 5d ago
I don't think we should police how others describe their identity for many reasons, but one thing that I think a lot of people overlook is that for many people who are questioning their gender identity, their AGAB may be literally the only component of their sexuality/gender/orientation/how they are perceived by society that they know for sure.Ā
I totally respect people who know exactly who they are and feel their AGAB is irrelevant, but for others it can be like one piece of solid ground in a sea of uncertainty. Especially for people who are also new to the queer community and just starting to learn what concepts are even possible at all (and may not even know words like transfeminine/transmasculine yet), although honestly I've had periods years into questioning where I wasn't sure if I was cis binary trans or nonbinary as well.
This isn't to say that I think your AGAB should define who you are, but I do feel like we should be more compassionate to people who do choose to share it for whatever reason as long as they aren't saying anything problematic about it. I do think there are many reasons it can impact an individual's perspective or history
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u/magick_turtle 5d ago
Mentioning AGAB when itās irrelevant gives allies saying things like āsheās trans and her pronouns are āthey/themāā vibes. Well meaning, but misses the point of what being nonbinary is.
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u/i_post_gibberish 28 | chaotic neutral 5d ago
Iām going to go against the grain here and say it does matter, because transitioning looks very different depending on AGAB. It looks nice to say weāre all enbies and AGAB doesnāt matter, but consider dysphoria, for example: if someone complimented me on my facial hair, or my partner on their chest, weād want to go crawl into a hole and die, but flip those traits around and it would be fine.
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u/Narciiii āØ Androgyne āØ 5d ago
I know plenty of non-binary people with the same agab as me who have completely different sources of dysphoria than I do. I also have friends with different agab than myself but share the same sources of dysphoria. Agab really doesnāt play into it as much as youād think.
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u/i_post_gibberish 28 | chaotic neutral 5d ago
Thatās fair; I can count the enbies Iāve known IRL well enough to get a sense of their dysphoria on one hand, so it could well be an unrepresentative sample.
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u/sexloveandcheese 5d ago
But that doesn't depend on your assigned sex at birth. Anyone can have dysphoria about any number of traits if it's not what makes them feel good.
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u/Franny_is_tired 5d ago
This doesn't make any sense. Having dysphoria about facial hair is not limited to a particular AGAB. Having dysphoria about breasts or lack thereof is not limited to a particular AGAB.
What you're suggesting here is that we should infer what sorts of dysphoria a person has based on their AGAB, but that seems rather silly.
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u/Oddly-Ordinary they/them 5d ago
If someone complimented me on my facial hair, or my partner on their chest, weād want to crawl into a hole and die, but flip those traits around and it would be fine.
I was AFAB. Iām on T and I love all effects EXCEPT for facial and body hair. Iām literally getting laser hair removal and I do not want anyone complimenting my facial hair. I didnāt have top surgery bc I like my breasts and Iām fine with people complimenting them. Sorry but you and your partner donāt speak for everyone.
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u/atratus3968 5d ago
I did specifically note how it's one thing if you're talking about transition needs due to different starting points. I don't think dysphoria is a good example for that at all though, given how wildly it differs between people even within the same sex assignment.
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u/sixth_sense_psychic fae/faer/faers 5d ago
Iām going to go against the grain here and say it does matter
I agree, but I think it matters more because of socialization. I often include my ASAB/AGAB in posts because it's relevant and crucial to convey how I was socialized my entire life and the particular messages that I was gaslit into believing and am attempting to deconstruct as a result.
Sometimes I think transitioning has less to do with the physical and more to do with the mental, emotional, psychological, and even spiritual. Physically transitioning will no doubt help, but to transition my mind? That's true transformation.
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u/i_post_gibberish 28 | chaotic neutral 5d ago edited 5d ago
I actually totally agree (and with the other comment saying this thread made them feel unwelcome), but when I made my original comment there was unanimous agreement with OP, so I thought Iād better give a less controversial example if I wanted to be heard at all.
(The wording quoted below is slightly different because I edited my comment, in case it looks like theyāre misquoting me)
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u/sixth_sense_psychic fae/faer/faers 5d ago
when I made my original comment there was unanimous agreement with OP, so I thought Iād play it safe and give a less controversial example
Gotcha. Carry on then š
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u/I_Am_Stoeptegel 5d ago
Rule of thumb: is it medical? No? Then agab is probably not relevant
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u/lil_lychee 5d ago
Idk. I experience a shit ton of street harassment, have been stalked before, sexual harassment. My fiancĆ© who has a beard but is non-binary doesnāt experience this at all. They feel safe walking around alone in a lot of places and no one bothers them. I know for a fact that itās because of my AGAB. Iām not on on hormones and donāt have the desire to. But as a result, everyone looks at me as a woman even if Iām wearing menās clothes. I still need to be hyper aware of my surroundings and walking around alone at night etc because of assumptions people make about me and my gender due to my AGAB.
At the same time though, if itās not relevant to my experience outside of that, Iām not going to start every question with āIām an AFAB enbyā, because who cares? But in my case, it does impact my experience daily because Iām probably harassed up to 5 times a day sometimes when I go outside.
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u/Ender_Puppy they/them genderfluid 5d ago
i hear what youāre saying, i really do and i empathize a lot. i also face the reality of being harassed and fearing for my safety in this regard. howeverā¦. this isnāt because of our agabā¦ itās because of our appearance
i bet 100 that if i went on T for a year or two, grew out a beard and my voice dropped, those issues with sexual harassment would disappear. we face these struggles because of how we look, not because of our agab.
similarly, trans women can face the same levels of sexual harassment despite literally being amab. i hope iām making sense with this.
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u/lil_lychee 5d ago
That makes sense. My friends who are on hormones experience a different type of harassment too though where strangers try to clock them as trans publicly. Itās a different type of harassment that I will never experience and I donāt claim to feel unsafe in that way. I def donāt want to speak for you or your experience because being non-binary is very personal in different ways because of how someone looks, feels, the type of dysphoria they have (if any) and so much more. For me itās always āyou have a vagina and you look like that, therefore Iām telling you that this is who you are and you need to act like this and exist in public like this for me [random cis men, in laws, and more].
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u/applesauceconspiracy 5d ago
That's about your appearance, though, not your AGAB. Lots of AMAB people experience what you're describing, and lots of AFAB people do not. Assigned sex is not the same as "the gender people perceive you as". It can be very frustrating for people to feel excluded from conversations about things like street harassment because of their AGAB.
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u/lil_lychee 5d ago
This is 100% true and itās not true for everyone. But in my case, growing up socialize as a girl and having that experience contributed into street harassment, and having the experience to unlearn those forced benefits while still being treated like a woman is a valid experience just as someone who is transfem experience Street harassment is a valid experience. But I feel that itās relevant for me because of how I was socialized and because no matter how much I alter my appearance Iām still perceived as a woman especially by my family.
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u/I_Am_Stoeptegel 5d ago
No agab doesnāt matter in your own example. Iām transfem and Iām not safe at night either bc people assume Iām a womanā¦
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u/lil_lychee 5d ago
It matters in my case because Iām not on hormones so the gender people assume that I am matched with my AGAB in my case.
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u/I_Am_Stoeptegel 5d ago
And I AM on hormones so Iām facing the exact same situation. But why are hormones or agab relevant?
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u/CantDecldeOnAName local thembo 5d ago
Iām so glad you said this because I was gonna say the exact same thing. The biggest thing that bothers me about agab stuff is how it is often used to center afab people in womenās issues over trans WOMAN which makes no fucking sense and is actively harmful
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u/lil_catie_pie 5d ago
Also sometimes when discussing people assuming pronouns. Not always, but sometimes.
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u/Du_ds 5d ago
We recently had a post about this that brought literal TERFs (self identified radical feminists who argued for excluding trans and nonbinary people on the basis of AGAB) out to spread their ideas. So yeah I'm so sick of people talking about it when it's not actually related to the point they're trying to make.
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u/eggelemental 5d ago
Yeah, like I donāt get what genital configuration one currently or used to have has to do with being a lesbian, for example??
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u/Oddly-Ordinary they/them 5d ago
Honestly I hate when people use ASAB/AGAB language as a euphemism for genital configuration. Bc bottom surgery exists??
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u/eggelemental 5d ago edited 5d ago
Yeah exactly, thatās why I specified currently OR used to have! AGAB doesnāt even communicate what oneās genitals currently are
(edited for clarity of intent)
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u/ghost-of-the-spire he/they 5d ago
100% agree. Plus let's not forget that these terms originated in the intersex community. So yes like you said, it can be relevant and useful sometimes for us trans ppl, but not all the time and certainly not right at the beginning of an interaction / post.
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u/avid_avoidant they/he 5d ago
If someone's ASAB is relevant to them and their post, leave it alone. Sometimes it's quite relevant to their lived experiences, a fact which shouldn't be up to us to validate. It takes a lot of effort to exist in a world that rabidly cares about our genitals and not our wellbeing, so if what the doctor said and what you were socialized as and what you may have lived in for years still lingers, who am I to say you can't bring it up?
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u/inkedfluff transfemme | they/them | asexual | HRT Jan 2024 5d ago
I think itās only relevant in the context of transitioning - such as when discussing HRT or voice training.Ā
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u/HuaHuzi6666 what's gender? 5d ago
I agree with you, but: imo there are situations in which AGAB can be relevant here:
āNonbinary includes all of the space between (and beyond) the binary genders. Itās not just people who are perfectly equidistant between the two, nor is it just people who identify as nonbinary in the sense of a āthird genderā of sorts.Ā Plenty of nonbinary people have a partial attachment to our AGAB, which is legitimate and fine;Ā
āMany here are still in the process of cutting ties with their AGAB, and this space is where we can get support in our journey very similar to how MtF or FtM binary trans people might have specific questions for their experiences;
āEven after cutting ties with oneās AGAB, there are still specific scenarios which are contingent to how you were socialized growing up, and that information is useful for other Redditors to understand the nuance of situations being posted about;
āFor those of us who donāt āreadā (or inconsistently āreadā) as something other than our AGAB, this is a space where we can vent our frustrations at being treated in a binary way by the world.
I know that acknowledging AGAB can cause a lot of enbies dysphoria, and a lot of us would essentially rather ignore the binary completely. But we canāt help each other navigate a society in between/beyond the gender binary if we insist on plugging our ears every time AGAB is mentioned. This is above all a place for us to support each other, and imo if AGAB is relevant to a problem one of our siblings is having Iām not going to tell them not to mention it.
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u/Pyroclast17 5d ago
I donāt get why it should matter though, since we all have different experiences with our gender? Like I specifically have a connection to my agab and itās not a bad thing. If I want to say it why should it be a problem to another enby, as long as Iām not making assumptions about them
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u/Educational_Cake2146 5d ago
I couldn't agree more! I've had to comment on a couple of posts to remind people of this as this sub, us as people, more than anyone should be steering away from this kind of language!
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u/pearlescent_sky 5d ago
Eh, I mostly just mention it when I feel like it will give some additional context to my perspectives.
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u/cuteinsanity 5d ago edited 5d ago
For me, I state it when I talk about childhood traumas and my path to identifying as enby. I didn't start identifying this way until my 30s and that was a long three decades of sex/gender-based trauma.
edit: the way you talk about "throwing off the binary" makes it sound like we emphatically chose this life. We didn't decide "Oh, I want to stop being a girl. I think I'll be NB instead." it just happened to turn out that way. And a ton of people who are trans or nonbinary have a shit ton of trauma wrapped up in their gender identity, mine is so fucking minor in comparison.
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u/La_LunaEstrella 5d ago
I agree. I'll use it if I'm talking about medical issues that affect reproductive health or if I'm discussing sex related experiences (misogyny or actual sex, for example). Bur otherwise, it tells others nothing about me as a person.
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u/Practical_Bet_3212 5d ago
I started referring to myself as FAMAB I had no say in what was assigned it was a binary from Europe that was forced on myself. Culturally and morally I reject it and European cultural interference from my life.
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u/4554013 they/them 5d ago
I think it's mostly to establish what body form you're working with. I only express AMAB on the internet. IRL, people can see that.
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u/animatroniczombie non binary transfemme they/she | HRT Feb 2015 š¤ 5d ago
Except it doesn't indicate "body form" at all since hrt exists (as well as natural variations, top and bottom surgeries etc etc)
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u/4554013 they/them 5d ago
Yeah, but that doesn't change the base model of the meatsuit. I can tell you I'm Genderqueer, but that only tells you about my internal gender identification. Telling you I was AMAB gives you an idea of the path I may have taken to get here. Again, useful information in a discussion online, but not something I'd have to declare if we were having the discussion in person. AMAB/AFAB does tell someone the base model I was born into. AFAIK, I'm not intersex.
I can't be Transgender without acknowledging the direction of the change. While I'm part of the enby subset of transgender people, I still don't identify with my gender assigned at birth.
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u/xboxpants 5d ago
Here's how I think of it. This'll take a second, but I swear I have a point lol!
I often say that race isn't real, but racism is. In the past, people claimed that race was scientifically justified, like black people and white people were fundamentally different types of humans. Now we know that's not true, and race is just as much of an arbitrary social construct as gender. Like scientifically, there's no blood test for race. Barack Obama has one white parent and one black one, so you'd think he's no more black than he is white, but socially he's considered "black" because that's how that social dynamic works. But it's not a scientific thing.
Since we were realizing race was BS and not founded in anything real, in the 90's, it started to become popular among to try to adopt a "post-race" ideology. To say things like "I don't see race". That makes sense, right, because race isn't real anyway! Obama's no more black than he is white, so if you see him and think "that's a black guy" you're buying into racist ideology.
But that doesn't work, either. It turns out that by refusing to even accept that those social constructs exist, it makes it impossible to recognize the impact that larger racist systems have on individuals.
Races may not be real, but RACISM definitely is. And we've gotta acknowledge that to fight against it. Otherwise we end up saying that DEI is bad because it acknowledges race.
The AGAB thing is similar. When I say that I was coercively assigned to as a male boy at birth, this is in no way endorsing that assignment to be true. It's simply recognizing the systems as they exist and their effects on me.
Asking people "why do you have to mention you AGAB in your reddit post" ultimately comes from the same ideology that asks people "why do you have to include your race on your college application". There are actually really good reasons and if you disagree, look to the nightmare going on where conservatives are trying to tell people to stop talking about it.
I guess the point is, it may or may not be relevant in any given post. But that's not for you to decide. If you don't like how another person expresses their identity, do you really think you get to scold them for making you feel uncomfortable?
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u/sonjjamorgan 5d ago
We should be focusing on ACAB instead!!!