Talk:Irreversible Damage/Archive 5

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Lead (once again)

Latest comment: 3 years ago131 comments9 people in discussion

The current lead reads:

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters is a 2020 book by Abigail Shrier and published by Regnery Publishing. In the book, Shrier states there had been a nearly 400-fold increase in teenagers in the United States identifying as transgender from 2010 to 2020, and attributes this to rapid onset gender dysphoria (an unrecognized and contentious diagnosis), which Shrier considers a form of social contagion.

I have three issues with this version:

1. The demographic stats of trans kids is not really part of her book's thesis. The statistics aren't something she came up with, what the book does is attribute the increase to Littman's "ROGD" hypothesis. The sources we have don't focus on her "claim" that there has been an increase in the number of openly trans kids. They focus on her language/treatment of child subjects, her activism, and her endorsement of Littman's hypothesis.

2. "Rapid onset gender dysphoria" is not and has never been a diagnosis. The RSs we have don't call it a diagnosis. Even Littman/Marchiano/etc don't call it a diagnosis. Even Shrier doesn't call it a diagnosis. It's a hypothesis, and one that departs significantly from medical consensus has been met with considerable controversy among the medical and scientific community. We must frame it as such.

3. ...which Shrier considers a form of social contagion: again, the "social contagion" thing is not an innovation by Shrier. The premise of the "ROGD" hypothesis is that gender dysphoria and transgender identity are a social contagion, that's the whole point. I believe the paper contains the phrase "cluster outbreaks of transgender identification", which sums things up pretty well. The current wording makes it sound like Shrier is independently interpreting this as a social contagion, which she is not.

The most glaring issue here is #2, but #1 and #3 are important as well. Srey Sros^talk 02:06, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

One more issue now the the lead has changed. It now reads:

Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters is a 2020 book by Abigail Shrier and published by Regnery Publishing. In the book, Shrier states there had been a "sudden, severe spike in transgender identification among adolescent girls" in the 2010s, including a quadrupling of the number of those seeking female-to-male reassignment surgery just from 2016 to 2017. She attributes this to rapid onset gender dysphoria (an unrecognized and contentious diagnosis), which she considers a form of social contagion unrelated to true gender dysphoria.

All of the above issues still apply, especially #3 now (she considers a form of social contagion unrelated to true gender dysphoria). Additionally, the quote from Shrier is hardly deathless prose. Including it both dilutes the meat of the description of the book we already have and unnecessarily misgenders the book's underage living subjects. Srey Sros^talk 02:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Pinging @Korny O'Near, the author of both versions mentioned above. Srey Sros^talk 02:14, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for starting a discussion on this. Your issue #1 I don't really understand. The demographic stats (i.e., the massive jump in self-identification) are a major part of the book's thesis - it's essentially right there in the title of the book, and I don't think you can understand the book without it. (If there's no jump in cases, then talking about social contagion makes no sense.) Also, it's not clear to me that the statistics are truly uncontested. #2 is just a matter of verbiage; I think "unrecognized and contentious diagnosis" is an accurate and clear way to describe the issue, but if you want to change it to "hypothesis", that's fine with me. #3 I think you're right about - I hadn't read the rapid onset gender dysphoria article carefully enough, so I didn't realize that social contagion was already part of it. That should probably be reworded.

I didn't understand your statement that including the quote from Shrier "dilutes the meat of the description of the book". The description of the book is pretty poor right now - it doesn't even mention girls (or whatever you want to call them), who are the primary focus of the book - again, as noted right in the title. And it says nothing about the jump in transgender self-identification. There may be better ways to phrase the intro, but just leaving out that information gives an extremely misleading view of what the book is about.

By the way, I have to give an LOL to Newimpartial for reverting my most recent edit on the grounds that it has "Excessive dependence on the author's POV" - in other words, it's no good because it too closely describes the views of the author. Korny O'Near (talk) 02:38, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I just made another attempt at improving the intro, based in part on this discussion - this one involved just adding two sentences. Hopefully this is acceptable now for everyone. Korny O'Near (talk) 16:47, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, that was better than the last one, but I still think it quotes too much. In particular, you managed to get in Shrier's term girls two more times, which isn't exactly NPOV - that pretty much takes one side of the underlying dispute, right there. Newimpartial (talk) 16:53, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm glad you brought that up. It's the word "girls" that actually makes using quotations useful or even necessary, I would say. The problem is that to use a term in wiki-voice is to take sides to some extent. Shrier's thesis is that 99% or so of teenage biological girls who identify today as transgender are actually deluding themselves. To call these people "girls" is to agree with her thesis, while to call them "assigned female at birth" or that sort of thing is, I think, implying that she's wrong. I think quoting her neatly solves that problem, by making it clear that these are her words. Nevertheless, if you think that still takes her side too much, feel free to change the wording. Korny O'Near (talk) 17:07, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree that "assigned female at birth" would be implying that she's wrong - it is the NPOV, reliably sourced term. Referring to this group as "transgender boys" would be saying that she's wrong, and nobody has proposed to do that to my knowledge. By quoting Shrier repeatedly calling them "girls" without comment, the current text is normalizing Shrier's POV that they are girls, which is literally the main point at stake (and where hers represents the minority view). Also, biological girls doesn't help nor would that term add anything helpful to the article, since the whole idea of "biological girls" represents a POV layer as opposed to AFAB, an expression the entire purpose of which is to be accurate and scrupulously neutral. Newimpartial (talk) 17:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

You make a reasonable point. I just changed one "girls" in the intro to "assigned female at birth". The other "girls" seems harder to get rid of, in the quote "high-anxiety, depressive (mostly white) girls who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder". Here she's talking about not just people whose gender is in question but girls from previous generations (unless their gender is now retroactively in question too). I think the context of the quote makes it clear, though, that these are simply Shrier's views. Korny O'Near (talk) 17:39, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I made this edit. Crossroads ^-talk- 18:07, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Newimpartial, [1] there is no reason whatsoever to shoehorn in the WP:JARGON of "assigned female at birth". These were not arbitrary assignments of intersex babies and terms like "birth sex" and even "female fetus" are in use to this day in PubMed. We are in no way obligated to use this confusing term when we can reword to avoid it (rewording to avoid a confusing construction is a clear principle at MOS:GENDERID). Crossroads ^-talk- 21:02, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Another possibility: Shrier states in the book that there was a "sudden, severe spike in transgender identification" in the 2010s, including a quadrupling of the number of those seeking female-to-male reassignment surgery from 2016 to 2017. She attributes this jump to social contagion among "high-anxiety, depressive (mostly white) girls who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder". Crossroads ^-talk- 21:14, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Crossroads, have you seen any recent, reliable sources on transgender boys that characterizes them as girls? If so, I would appreciate you presenting it here. There are many, many reliable sources on this topic using assigned female at birth, which is why I believe it to be the neutrally descriptive term. Newimpartial (talk) 21:17, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Completely irrelevant. If we are already quoting Shrier's use of "girls", that can simply be moved up. There are many reliable sources that use WP:JARGON - it's a hallmark of academia - but it doesn't require us to use confusing constructions when we can avoid doing so. Even MOS:GENDERID speaks against that. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:03, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Please see WP:GRATUITOUS: Offensive material should be used only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available. I don't think this falls under that umbrella. Srey Sros^talk 22:06, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

"Offensive" can mean different things; in that guideline, it specifically means "material that would be considered vulgar or obscene by typical Wikipedia readers", which is obviously not the case here. Korny O'Near (talk) 22:13, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

SreySros, this states that ROGD considers transgender identity and gender dysphoria in general as a social contagion, which is flat-out wrong. I'm glad we've gone back to the long-standing version. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:05, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

You may be right that "assigned female at birth" constitutes WP:JARGON; I would guess that most people have not heard this term before, even among native English speakers, and it's not clear who's doing the assigning. What about calling them "biological girls"? Korny O'Near (talk) 21:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Definitely not to "biological". See terms to avoid. GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:18, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Korny, I haven't seen any recent, reliable sources on this topic that use biological girls, and I've seen plenty that use assigned female at birth. Have you seen any that use the former? Newimpartial (talk) 21:17, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't think the views of GLAAD or other activists are relevant here. And a Google search on "biological girls" finds a substantial number of reliable sources. (So do searches on "biological boys", "biological women" and "biological men" - some of these are found in scientific papers as well.) That said, I'm open to other ideas. Korny O'Near (talk) 21:24, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't know what the linked search gives you, but what it gives me is a lot of non-expert op-eds, quotes in local newspapers, and self-published sources. I wonder what you see. Newimpartial (talk) 21:28, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Some of them are reliable sources, but anyway a Google search on "biological women" is more persuasive - there are news articles, scientific papers, and so on. Korny O'Near (talk) 21:39, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

On that search, I do see two plausibly reliable sources on the first page, one of which is entitled the myth of biological sex. They are quite dwarfed by the WSJ opinion pieces, even then. Newimpartial (talk) 21:46, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't know what that means. Korny O'Near (talk) 21:50, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

GLAAD's views are, to my understanding, quite mainstream, though there are unfortunately quite a lot of people who use the term not realizing it's offensive. I think we generally avoid language that has been identified by various such organizations as problematic when there's no reason alternate wording couldn't be used. I suppose it could go to WT:MOS for a formal decision but that seems like overkill when we could just word things differently. Frankly someone is going to need to understand basic trans terminology like "assigned female at birth" if they're going to understand this article, which contains plenty of transgender-specific terms ("reassignment surgery", "gender-affirming psychiatric support", "transgender hormone therapy", "gender dysphoria", etc.) We would not be able to have any kind of detailed article on this book at all if we avoided gender- and trans healthcare-related "jargon" entirely, since those are the foci of the book. Providing a wikilink like we are doing with the other terms seems reasonable as far as helping our readers understand.

I'm also not sure why we're prioritizing not confusing our readers who are unfamiliar with assigned gender at birth, rather than not confusing our readers who will be led to believe that "girls" actually means girls, not people of other genders who the author has decided to describe as girls. Personally I find the quote confusing because unless one is aware that she is using nonstandard gender descriptors, it sounds like she is describing AMAB trans girls. GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:52, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't think this particular view, that it's bad to say "biological sex", is mainstream at all (quite the opposite, probably), and I'm not aware of any Wikipedia guidelines on this sort of thing. Korny O'Near (talk) 22:03, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, I do. I am also not aware of any guidelines on this specific issue. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:07, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "mainstream" here; I doubt you're imagining that, if you asked people on the street whether the phrase "biological sex" is offensive, a majority of the people would say yes. Korny O'Near (talk) 22:16, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm confused... now it sounds like we agree? GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:21, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

No. I think maybe 1-2% of the general population would agree that a term like "biological girl" is offensive or even just misleading, and that GLAAD and other activists are thus out of the mainstream on this issue. Korny O'Near (talk) 22:32, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, I'm misunderstanding your comment I guess... But I did not mean "mainstream" in the "random sampling of passersby" sense, I meant among those are familiar with transgender topics and healthcare. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:47, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Newimpartial, this revert is unnecessary. Both Korny and I are agreed that AFAB is WP:JARGON and unclear to most readers not familiar with trans discourse. Do you deny this? You are the only one pushing that version. There is no reason to use AFAB when we can simply shift up the quote of "girls". We don't use terms like AFAB to make a political statement or to stick it to the author of the book. We are supposed to be clear and understandable first and foremost. You have given no valid reason for this contentious term.
What is actually wrong with saying Shrier states in the book that there was a "sudden, severe spike in transgender identification among adolescent girls" in the 2010s, including a quadrupling of the number of those seeking female-to-male reassignment surgery just from 2016 to 2017. She attributes this jump to social contagion among a high-anxiety, depressive, and mostly white group "who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder". or Shrier states in the book that there was a "sudden, severe spike in transgender identification" in the 2010s, including a quadrupling of the number of those seeking female-to-male reassignment surgery from 2016 to 2017. She attributes this jump to social contagion among "high-anxiety, depressive (mostly white) girls who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder".? Crossroads ^-talk- 21:59, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
Crossroads, Korny was the one who made this edit in the first place. You were the only one insisting on the removal of the standard term. Newimpartial (talk) 23:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

You can count me among those "pushing" the revision. It is not to "make a political statement or to stick it to the author of the book", it is to be accurate and understandable. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:09, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I also support using the clearer, less offensive and more precise AFAB terminology. Srey Sros^talk 22:13, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
To both of you - why not use my second version offered above, then? Seems a good compromise since there is nothing gained by using AFAB. It leaves "girls" in place and works without superfluous wording. GorillaWarfare, I disagree that most of those other examples are jargon to this extent. I think that many people are unaware that AFAB counts about half the population. Because it sounds arbitrary, people may think it applies only in cases of intersex; plus in many cases a baby's sex is detected prenatally via ultrasound for example. I stand by the idea that it is jargon and makes the article less understandable. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:29, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
The problem I have with that version is that, as I have said repeatedly on this talk page, it reinforces the article's tendency to promote the terminology and POV of the book's author over NPOV and the terminology mainstream, reliable sources prefer. Since literally Shrier's whole point is to undermine gender-affirming care, as she herself makes clear, NPOV demands that we respect mainstream expertise in the overall framing of the article, rather than her own admittedly controversial perspective. Newimpartial (talk) 23:20, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

As I said above: "I'm also not sure why we're prioritizing not confusing our readers who are unfamiliar with assigned gender at birth, rather than not confusing our readers who will be led to believe that "girls" actually means girls, not people of other genders who the author has decided to describe as girls. Personally I find the quote confusing because unless one is aware that she is using nonstandard gender descriptors, it sounds like she is describing AMAB trans girls." The quote is not more understandable than AFAB. GorillaWarfare (talk) 22:47, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I thought you meant the quote by Shrier... I was proposing this version where "girls" only appears where it currently does: Shrier states in the book that there was a "sudden, severe spike in transgender identification" [among teenagers(?)] in the 2010s, including a quadrupling of the number of those seeking female-to-male reassignment surgery from 2016 to 2017. She attributes this jump to social contagion among "high-anxiety, depressive (mostly white) girls who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder". Just making sure what I said was clear. Crossroads ^-talk- 22:52, 30 March 2021 (UTC)
I think the issue applies to both usages—it seems to me she is referring to the same group of people as in the first quote, am I misunderstanding? And aren't both quoting Shrier? GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:12, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

There may be valid reasons for using the "AFAB" terminology, but I don't think avoiding confusion is one of them. It's hard to imagine that even the most hardcore of transgender activists would read about a book subtitled "The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters" and think it's about children with male genitalia. Korny O'Near (talk) 00:48, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I am treating the latter usage of "girls" as a given since it's already there and it seems to be a settled matter. My point is that we can drop the "AFAB" bit. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:37, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
And so far, your view is minoritarian, not to say Quixotic. Newimpartial (talk) 12:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

No, "assigned female at birth" is not a majority or mainstream term, for the standard definitions of "majority" and "mainstream". I personally think "biological girls" is a good compromise term - it's clear to everyone what's being discussed, and I don't think the term is offensive to anyone but activists (as far as I know). Korny O'Near (talk) 13:27, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Just my personal opinion on style, but however it goes, we should avoid terms like "girls" and "boys". If needed when discussing sex, we should use male and female, because those are the technically correct terms. "Girl" and "boy" is colloquial, and probably implicitly diminutive. GMG ^talk 13:49, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

But Korny, "biological girls" is a term deployed by one side of this debate- a populist side without much scientific or specialist support. "Sex assigned at birth", like AFAB, is a term used by neutral, reliable sources. Newimpartial (talk) 13:53, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Um...Even the source you cite pretty much just boils it down to male and female. At some point this becomes a WP:JARGON issue. Remember, we're trying to write at about a secondary school level. If possible, we should dispense with technical language and just use language that most readers would understand. GMG ^talk 13:59, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

The source I cited is very careful to distinguish sex assignment from gender identity, and doesn't use terms like "biological girls" or "biological women" for anyone. I am recommending the neutrality of its language, not its complexity. Newimpartial (talk) 14:11, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

GMG - you may be right that "female" would be better than "girls", especially since it seems like some of the people Shrier talks about are in their early 20s. (Of course, quoting Shrier saying "girls" is fine.)

But more importantly - can anyone explain what the difference is between "assigned female at birth" and "biological female", and why the former is supposedly the only term used by the enlightened majority, while the latter is relegated to Neanderthal knuckle-draggers? Korny O'Near (talk) 14:21, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Sure. We're talking about gender here, and the idea that someone is "biologically female" or "biologically male" suggests that biological attributes trump gender identity. We do not describe adult trans women as "biologically male", we shouldn't do so with children here. When a doctor examines a baby and says "it's a boy!" or "it's a girl!", they are making assumptions about that baby's gender that do not always turn out to be true. Some might call it an observation or an assignment or an assumption, but it is generally described as "gender assignment". When that assignment turns out to be wrong, it doesn't mean the kid started out one gender and then became a different one. A sexuality comparison might be useful: when someone comes out as lesbian, we do not assume they were straight up until that point. Describing a trans man (or child) as "biologically female" suggests that they were female to begin with, and then became a man, which is not a suggestion we should be making; it is accurate that they were assigned female, but their biology has nothing to do with their gender.

I agree with Newimpartial that when we have a decision between simplicity and avoiding jargon, and neutral and accurate language, we must go with neutrality and accuracy even if it requires a little more explanation or a wikilink.

Hope this helps. Happy International Transgender Day of Visibility, by the way

GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "Assigned female at birth" makes technical sense when talking about intersex people where a doctor/the parents said "IDK, girl I guess". If you are born chromosomally female with female genitals, then no one "assigned you". You were just born female. Again, my main issue is not ideological, but with language usage. GMG ^talk 14:34, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Also no offense GW. We've worked together on these topics before, and I'm happy we had to opportunity to meet in Boston. But you seem to be vacillating between issues of sex and gender. I have no presumption that you need anyone to explain to you the difference. You are well versed. Maybe more so than I am. But you seem to be muddling them together a bit. GMG ^talk 14:38, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) My comment, which you edit conflicted with, explains why one is not "born female". I am a cisgender woman but I object to the suggestion that I was "born a girl". If you want to talk biology, I may have been born with XX chromosomes (I have no idea, they've never been tested), but that has nothing to do with my gender. The GLAAD resource I linked above (link again so you don't have to dig for it) explains this in brief, or I can try to find you a more extensive explainer if you'd like. GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:41, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

There are multiple, different issues raised here. "Assigned female at birth" is the term that has emerged in reliable, specialist scholarship to reflect how bodies are labeled and what it is that we are usually talking about when we might otherwise say, "biological X". This is now the standard term used in a wider speech community of non-specialists, including most university settings. (And as to your "chromosomes are not assigned" comment, GMG, if you had your chromosomes tested around the moment of your birth then you are probably not a simple case of "chromosomally A with corresponding genitals". The literature on "sex assignment" presents a much more accurate account of how newborn bodies are labeled "male" and "female" than your folkloric chromosome story. Just FYI.)

"Biological girls" and "biological women", by contrast, are terms that are essentially only used by what you refer to as Neanderthal knuckle-draggers (not my term), and the reason for that is that the whole purpose of those phrases is to deny that the terms "women" and "girls" are polysemic and somewhat fraught, and to insist by contrast that "if someone is AFAB, we should be able to call them girls/women regardless of how they identify".

"Bioligical female" is different, and there is plenty of RS literature that uses phrases like "biological female bodies" (or "(biological) female bodies") to indicate essentially AFAB. But the use of "female" (and "male") as nouns to represent e.g. "(biological) female persons" is still controversial - partly because many people still find it offensive to be referred to as "females" (or "males"), and partly because that usage does the same thing as "biological women", denying that "female" is a fluid term and insisting that what matters is biology. This is particularly evident in the discussion around "women's sports", where there have been many, rather poorly conceived attempts at defining the limits of "biological female bodies" but where many op-ed writers now intervene as if they saw no practical, much less ethical, problems in excluding trans women from "women's sports". Newimpartial (talk) 14:45, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Gee fizz. All the ec. I understand that's the type of definition GLADD uses. But I don't consider that as mainstream as the AMA:

Sex refers to the biological characteristics of males and females. Gender includes more than sex and serves as a cultural indicator of a person’s personal and social identity. An important consideration when referring to sex is the level of specificity required: specify sex when it is relevant. Choose sex-neutral terms that avoid bias, suit the material under discussion, and do not intrude on the reader’s attention.

"Assigned at birth" is not FRINGE, but neither is it the mainstream use of language, again, unless you're talking about intersex people. GMG ^talk 14:54, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I have to disagree. Statistics Canada is about as mainstream an organization as I can think of. And I don't see the AMA providing support for "biological girls", though I could be wrong about that. Newimpartial (talk) 14:59, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not supporting "biological girls" or "biological" or "girls". If you're talking about sex, just say "female". "Assigned female at birth" is only a construction that is used in fairly niche sources specifically dedicated to transgender issues. It is not mainstream English usage. GMG ^talk 15:02, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Except a transman is not female, nor is a transwoman male. They may have been assigned as such at birth, but it is inaccurate to say they are female and male respectively.

"Assigned female at birth" is only a construction that is used in fairly niche sources specifically dedicated to transgender issues. As I mentioned above, this article is about a transgender issue and necessarily already uses niche language ("gender dysphoria", "transgender hormone therapy", "sex reassignment surgery", etc.). When discussing very specific topics we sometimes have to use niche language, such as those terms and assigned gender at birth. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:04, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I dunno. Do what you will. But I would still say that the normal English speaker is going to say "born female", because newborns don't have gender. Besides the fact that the concept of gender assignment is no where included in the body of the article, so it's not clear why it should be in the lead. GMG ^talk 15:18, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Anyway, as I say, I don't see the Statistics Canada source I linked above as "niche". It is a standard definition concerning "sex" by a major national statistical organization.

As far as the deficiencies of the body of this article are concerned, don't get me started. :| Newimpartial (talk) 15:20, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict × 3) You're probably right that the article lead ought not to include topics not discussed in the article body; I think once this topic is settled the article can be adjusted to mention it in the body as well as the lead. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:26, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare - those are all concepts that don't really have more standard terminology (except for maybe "sex change operation" for the last one), so it's not really the same thing. Also, a trans man is still female, in some biological senses, and to deny that completely sounds like an ideological, not scientific, point of view. Do you really think they're not female in any way? If so, what about the animal world? There presumably exists some small percentage of animals who feel like they should have been born with the opposite set of genitalia, but we'll never know, since they can't talk. In the interests of accuracy, should we stop using the words "rooster" and "hen" and instead only talk about "AMAB and AFAB chickens"? Korny O'Near (talk) 15:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

No, a trans man is not still female. They may have sex characteristics that are commonly associated with women, but that does not make them female. As for the chicken question, that does not strike me as a good faith question; we don't need to go down the slippery slope fallacy. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:29, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether it could be called "good faith", but I think it's a good question: it cuts to the core of how some ideological views around transgenderism represent a denial of biology. Korny O'Near (talk) 15:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

While that is a common talking point among anti-trans activists, that is not actually true. There are a lot of resources out there that explain the intersection between trans/non-binary identity and biological sex from a trans-positive point of view, so I will allow you to avail yourself of them. I would rather not get into such an in-depth ideological discussion here. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:47, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Korny, to get back to your terminological isssue, there are differences, in many reliable sources, between phrases like "an intact male (or female) reproductive system" and "a female", or "a male person". The former - using male or female to describe something fairly specific, like anatomical features or hormones - is something some (not all) reliable sources do, and can't be considered "fringe". On the other hand, statements like a trans man is still female, in some biological senses are not anything I see in reliable sources published over the last ten years or so, and line up with referring to trans men as "females" or "girls" in your knuckle-dragger category. The standard term that has emerged for the set of cis women plus trans men (and certain nonbinary people) is AFAB, not females or biological girls, and the usage in recent, reliable sources is remarkably consistent on that point. Newimpartial (talk) 18:22, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, I'd still like to hear anyone try to answer why basic rules of biology are now considered different for humans than for any other species, but moving on: there are in fact, not surprisingly, a massive number of reliable sources (news articles, health articles, biology textbooks, scientific papers, etc.) from the last 10 years that say that, for example, XX vs. XY chromosomes are held by men and women, respectively (here's one example); or that men have penises while women have vaginas; and so on. Are there a lot of reliable sources that directly say "trans men are not really men"? I don't know. But functionally, that's what any of these statements about chromosomes and genitalia imply. And terms like "biological women", "biologically male" and so on are also found in reliable sources, as was noted earlier. I don't know what specific evidence you're looking for, but whatever it is, I'm sure it can be found. Korny O'Near (talk) 18:39, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I'd be curious to see the massive number of reliable sources saying that XX vs. XY chromosomes are held by men and women respectively

Many sources that are not writing about transgender issues or trans healthcare will generalize by saying that XX chromosomes are held by women, women have vaginas, etc. because this is true for 99% of the population (or so). But this is not the same as saying people with XX chromosomes are always women, or that only women have vaginas, which is a fringe view. I will actually note that your source somewhat contradicts you; later on it mentions outlying cases such as 46,XX testicular disorder of sex development and describes these individuals with XX chromosomes (typically held by AFAB individuals) as males.

In this case we are describing a transgender topic and so we should be precise. I would argue that the sources ought to be precise also, and just say "people with XX chromosomes" if that's what they're actually trying to talk about, but that's a different and not terribly relevant argument. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:48, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I will try once more to explain, but first, Korny, your claim that biologically male is used in recent sources other than op-edsters and axe-grinders has, ahem, not been provided with evidence.

The basic point is that terms like "male" and "female", "men" and "women" mean different things in different contexts - to oversimplify, they can refer to biology or identity/social role. The reliable sources use more precise terms, like "AFAB" or "male gender identity", to specify not only M vs F but also the context of meaning. Terms like "biological girl", or referring to decontextualized "girls" or "females" (as in certain versions of or proposals for this article's lede), are precisely eliding these distinctions and pretending that we make social determinations of roles and interactions - like deciding what pronouns to use - in the basis of biological characteristics of bodies rather than social identifiers. But that isn't the way laws work in most jurisdictions, that isn't the way the recent scientific sources treat these topics, and it isn't the way our articles should read, either.

Nobody is saying that biology operates according to different fundamental principles for humans than for other mammals; however, when we write encyclopaedically about men and women we are not writing about bulls, heifers and cows; we are writing about people who inhabit complex societies with roles and identities that carry some significance to them. We do our readers a disservice if we write as though what matters about adolescent girls is their potential future fertility rather than who they know themselves to be - especially as, unlike the case of heifers, their identities and how they live them out will largely determine their actual, as opposed to potential, future fertility. Newimpartial (talk) 19:03, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure what to respond to here, but I thought it was interesting when you wrote that terms like "biological girl" ignore the societal aspects of being a girl. In fact, it's quite the opposite: it accepts that there are societal aspects to being male or female, and that these can be different from one's innate biology. Korny O'Near (talk) 19:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

But the whole point of biological girl as a category is that it groups together cis girls, teen transmen, AFAB nonbinary teens, and people who just haven't figured things out yet and interpolates them as girls - which is, as you point out, primarily a social category. Careful language that allows these aspects to be distinguished thoughtfully features quite different terminology. Newimpartial (talk) 19:49, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

No, it interpolates them as biological girls. Korny O'Near (talk) 21:29, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Are there any sources at all, Korny, that use biological girls as anything other than a phrase identifying young people based on AFAB anatomy and then prescribing identities or social roles for them based on this "biology"? Because that's literally all I can find. Newimpartial (talk) 04:47, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't know, but there certainly are for "biological women" and "biological female". Korny O'Near (talk) 13:02, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

But you were proposing the term biological girls. Newimpartial (talk) 13:08, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Not really. I was originally, but then GMG made the good point that this term was unnecessarily "diminutive" (and some of the people in question are college-age), so something like "biological(ly) female" is probably better. I used "biological girl" here because I was responding to your point. Korny O'Near (talk) 13:22, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Sigh. Let's do this the Wikipedia way. Wikipedia don't care what you think, and it don't care what I think. The language in the lead re:"assigned female at birth" isn't supported by the cited source, and it isn't supported by content in the body. So if you want to include it, stop arguing, and find a source, and include content in the body. It's actually fairly simple. I'm not an ideologue, but I can certainly be a pedant. This needs to be a source that is actually related to the subject of the article, and not just "some source" where someone has used this language. GMG^talk 20:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
- To be clear, if someone don't start finding sources about the subject of this article that supports their preferred wording in the lead, then I'm going to conform the lead to the cited source. GMG ^talk 20:44, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
I disagree that we need to use the author's wording when she is describing a group of people, but sure, here are some sources:
- "...Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters, which claims that an increase in trans identification among teenagers assigned female at birth is the result of kids' having been 'brainwashed' by a 'cult.'" - Los Angeles Review of Books [2]
- "The book, which focuses specifically on trans people assigned female at birth..." - Daily Dot (RSP entry) [3] (already used in article as cite 42)
- "The book, as I reported earlier for the Daily Dot, relies on a series of transphobic conspiracy theories to argue that trans people assigned female at birth are being brainwashed into gender transitioning." - Daily Dot (RSP entry) [4] (already used in article as cite 43)
- "Shrier admits in her book that she misgenders transgender youth, saying, 'I refer to biologically female teens caught up in this transgender craze as ‘she’ and ‘her’' — a choice by the author that disrespects transgender teens’ gender identity and falsely assumes that all trans boys or non-binary individuals assigned female at birth have the same biological makeup." - Gay City News [5] (already used in article as cite 41)
GorillaWarfare (talk) 20:52, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

That's cool. The sources are there, but the supporting content isn't. You know. You've got a few GAs under your belt. Heck, we worked on a GA together. GMG ^talk 21:06, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Easy enough to bring the article up to date: [6] GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:12, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

PubMed uses "female teenagers" as well as "female fetuses" (how are they female if they are only assigned that at birth?) Crossroads ^-talk- 21:24, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

See my 18:48 comment. I could link you a PubMed search for "assigned female at birth", but I don't see the relevance of PubMed searches for various terms to this article. GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:32, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Is Shrier talking about fetuses? You have me confused, now. Newimpartial (talk) 21:35, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, yes that term is definitely also there, but my point is that these other terms are by no means outdated or rejected. Now it is true that "we are describing a transgender topic and so we should be precise", but at the same time we can reword to avoid awkward constructions and jargon, which MOS:GENDERID suggests doing. Newimpartial reverting this back in is bad because we could just say "female teenagers", especially since Shrier doesn't use AFAB and this sentence oddly makes it seem like she does, plus this sentence is about her views on female teenagers in general, not about transgender/non-binary ones in particular. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:38, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

So far it seems like we can't avoid "jargon" without being inaccurate or POV; I certainly haven't seen any usable alternatives. As for that sentence, as far as I can tell she is talking about both cisgender girls and AFAB people who identify as trans or non-binary—all members of both of those groups can accurately be described as AFAB; they cannot all be described as "female teenagers" or "teenaged girls". GorillaWarfare (talk) 21:48, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

She is not including trans men and non-binary persons in that sentence. Her whole spiel is that people are tempted to identify that way to "escape" womanhood/femaleness. Stating AFAB there not only puts words in her mouth using sources that appear to be there solely to justify the term, but actually puts the cart before the horse. The sentence is about girls and insofar as she discusses trans men and non-binary people, the idea is that that does not apply to them, certainly not in the sense it applies to girls, which is why they are allegedly "tempted" to escape those very issues that way. Can we at least just put teenagers then? Crossroads ^-talk- 21:59, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Your assertion that She is not including trans men and non-binary persons in that sentence seems bizarre to me, and in need of some kind of support. Elsewhere in the book, she says'I refer to biologically female teens caught up in this transgender craze as ‘she’ and ‘her’ - note "biologically female teens", with no attempt whatsoever to separate out supposedly "actual" trans people from cis girls victimized by social contagion. The group she describes as girls in the quote formerly included in the lede seem to be exactly the same people. What am I supposed to be missing? Newimpartial (talk) 22:46, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I explained why I "asserted" that. Shrier does use that terminology for the supposed victims of social contagion, but that is not what I or the sentence is talking about. That bit from the book summary is talking about what girls face and what people identifying otherwise are supposedly escaping but not necessarily facing once they do so. And no one has addressed that stating AFAB makes it seem like Shrier uses the term. The whole point of that sentence is as background to the narrative, and is about girls in general and not about trans men or non-binary people. Crossroads ^-talk- 23:27, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I interpreted it similarly to Newimpartial. When I made my edit I thought about writing, "She describes what she sees as difficulties facing teenagers who were assigned female at birth, who she refers to throughout the book as 'girls'—..." but was worried that would be too lengthy. Would that assuage your concerns? GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:34, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Side note re: @Newimpartial: if you're making a dummy edit please label it. I'm kindof an idiot and it took me way too long to figure that out. :P GMG ^talk 23:43, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Sorry: I'm a dummy when it comes to dummy edits. I'll try to do better.

And to Crossroads, I'm still not seeing it. The actual source quote is, While gender dysphoria has always been vanishingly rare among females, social contagion has not. These are the same high-anxiety, depressive (mostly white) girls who, in previous decades, fell prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder. Now it’s gender dysphoria, sometimes along with some or all of those other conditions. She is clearly saying that those "falling prey to ... gender dysphoria" (those expressing a masculine gender identity) are "girls" who would in previous decades presented symptoms of anorexia or MPD. She isn't excluding trans teens from her category of "girls suffering from social contagion" - they are the whole point of what she is doing. So yes, these are in whatever proportion actual trans teens she is talking about, and we have to treat them with respect although she does not. Newimpartial (talk) 00:10, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Let's see if putting it this way works. You are talking about the group with gender dysphoria, but the group in the sentence in the Summary instead talks about "isolation, online social dynamics, restrictive gender and sexuality labels, unwelcome physical changes and sexual attention". The article currently claims that Shrier says this is what "assigned female at birth" people in general go through, but no source WP:Verifies this, and hence it's WP:Original research and must not be allowed. "Assigned female at birth" and "girls" are not the same, as we know. Shrier says these issues are what girls go through, and does not say that trans men or non-binary AFAB people suffer, e.g. "unwelcome physical changes and sexual attention". Her claim is that trans men and non-binary people avoid these things, to a significant extent, and claims that is the supposed "draw" of these identities and typically corresponding medical treatments. To sum up: Newimpartial and GorillaWarfare, where is the source verifying that Shrier says that 'assigned female at birth' people who are not girls, or even just assigned female at birth people as a group, face "isolation, online social dynamics, restrictive gender and sexuality labels, unwelcome physical changes and sexual attention"? Crossroads ^-talk- 01:14, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Adding: All that is needed instead is simple in-text attribution; something like "Shrier states that girls face difficulties such as..." Such a statement is accurate, sourced, and does not imply the misgendering of anyone. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:33, 1 April 2021 (UTC) Tweaked. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:39, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Not to be a jerk about it, but have you read the book? GMG ^talk 01:29, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I have, yes, but I did not purchase it, nor do I endorse the conclusions of the author. Nobody better ever use this comment against me. Crossroads ^-talk- 01:36, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I would maybe take issue with the "sexual attention" bit. Someone feel free to give me the page number. I have the book right here. Maybe I missed it. But it's pegged to chapter one, and I've certainly made it that far. (I have lots of books I don't necessarily agree with, many that I bought specifically for that reason.) GMG ^talk 02:17, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

@GreenMeansGo: Sorry, I have an e-reader version with no page numbers. The first chapter has a subsection about puberty with lines like "The alteration thrusts a young girl under the klieg lights of uncomfortable attention from men her father's age." gnu 57 02:52, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Derp. Alternatively, I'm just a big dummy and I'm on Ch 1, and forgot that the first section is the introduction. GMG ^talk 12:02, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I think the Gay City News source, as well as context from the book, is sufficient to determine she's referring to AFAB adolescents. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:43, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Neither a vague appeal to the book's "context" nor Gay City News supports the claim Shrier says that 'assigned female at birth' people who are not girls, or even just assigned female at birth people as a group, face "isolation, online social dynamics, restrictive gender and sexuality labels, unwelcome physical changes and sexual attention". If they did, then it would be easy to quote where. Why can't we just say "Shrier states that girls face difficulties such as..."? Crossroads ^-talk- 02:25, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay Newimpartial, because you removed the tag showing the problem, are you going to actually show where Shrier says this? Crossroads ^-talk- 04:23, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

It was in the interview quotation I provided earlier, as previously explained.

Crossroads: your argument, while ingenious, does not seem entirely ingenuous. Shrier is talking about a group of (objectively) AFAB people, who she insists on referring to as "girls", and who report symptoms of gender dysphoria which she attributes to social contagion. She is saying that these people, like those in other generations that she also refers to as "girls", face certain social pressures, and that in this generation these "girls" often end up responding with a claim to a male (or at any rate non-female) gender identity. She is literally saying that teens who identity as transmasculine or nonbinary are actually "girls" falling victim to social contagion.

So unless you are going to argue that she is 100% right about this - which would be Original Research of the highest order - then you have to concede what the RS reviewers conclude, namely, that she is describing at least some actual AFAB trans teens as "girls", deliberately misgendering them and disregarding their expressed identities. Even if her "social contagion" hypothesis correctly explained half or three-quarters of gender dysphoria in this population - and there is no evidence for that - she would still be using the label "girls" for AFAB trans teens and it would still be necessary to replace her POV language with the NPOV language of the RSes in the field. The people she is describing as "girls" are all AFAB - cis, trans,and figuring things out, in some proportion - and the article needs to reflect this objective reality and not the author's POV. Newimpartial (talk) 04:29, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

This is all a red herring to the sentence in question in this case. Again, she nowhere says that 'assigned female at birth' people who are not girls, or even just assigned female at birth people as a group, face "isolation, online social dynamics, restrictive gender and sexuality labels, unwelcome physical changes and sexual attention". Her whole point is practically the opposite - the claim that people transition and get away from that; thus the quote applies to girls only. She's saying that girls in general face this issue and that non-girls basically don't (certainly not like girls do). Regarding "The people she is describing as "girls" are all AFAB - cis, trans,and figuring things out", in the book in general sure, but this sentence is not about the entire AFAB category. I don't know any other way to say it. I feel that people are stuck on 'can't misgender', but that is not what that is about and there is no misgendering even if we attribute it clearly to Shrier. Right now we're saying that she thinks that even trans men on testosterone are getting unwelcome physical changes and unwelcome sexual attention (when Shrier speaks of this she is talking about straight boys' attention). It's just completely absurd and backwards, but two editors are dead-set that we just have to use this jargony confusing term here no matter how I explain it. Very frustrating. Crossroads ^-talk- 05:03, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

- I will ask this again, Crossroads: Why do you think the sentence in question does not apply to the teens who then seek solace in "social contagion" and gender dysphoria (according to Shrier)? It seems BLUESKY obvious to me that it does apply to it.

And FFS, your trans men on testosterone comment is completely baffling. The category "AFAB trans teens" (a subset of "AFAB teens") would include all AFAB teens with trans identities, whether or not they are on testosterone (or even blockers). And if you think that AFAB teens - on blockers or not - do not receive the unwanted attention of straight boys, as well as "isolation, online social dynamics, restrictive gender and sexuality labels, unwelcome physical changes and sexual attention", then you are clearly (and perhaps happily) very much insulated from the life experience of this group. So yeah, if you could explain using words why you exclude from Shrier's sentence the people it most significantly refers to - the ones who report gender dysphoria due, according to her, to social contagion - that would be just great, thanks. So far you have just asserted this over and over again without any kind of evidence. Newimpartial (talk) 12:24, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

You're quite right it would be easy to quote GCN here—I didn't only because I'd already quoted the exact phrase above and thought it was sufficiently clear that I was referring to the same portion of the source: "Shrier admits in her book that she misgenders transgender youth, saying, 'I refer to biologically female teens caught up in this transgender craze as ‘she’ and ‘her’' — a choice by the author that disrespects transgender teens’ gender identity and falsely assumes that all trans boys or non-binary individuals assigned female at birth have the same biological makeup." GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:09, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Newimpartial: And if you think that AFAB teens - on blockers or not - do not receive the unwanted attention of straight boys... Okay, but you also stated: that we make social determinations of roles and interactions...in the basis of biological characteristics of bodies rather than social identifiers....that isn't the way the recent scientific sources treat these topics... So on what grounds are these straight boys giving AFAB teens unwanted attention? If it's being AFAB, that contradicts the statement that it's all about social identifiers and not biological characteristics.

if you could explain using words why you exclude from Shrier's sentence the people it most significantly refers to - the ones who report gender dysphoria due, according to her, to social contagion - sure. She is saying that the people supposedly with ROGD came from the group of people suffering these issues - girls - and that these individuals get away from that. Honestly we're going in circles at this point. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:32, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, that GCN quote uses AFAB but doesn't say that Shrier attributes all those characteristics to AFAB. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:37, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

So on what grounds are these straight boys giving AFAB teens unwanted attention? - for the most part, they are interpolating them as "girls". I didn't say anything cognate to "it is social identifiers all the way down" (and that isn't what I believe), but rather people create and act on social identifiers that they impose on others against their will, in this case "girl" or specifically "dyke" being the most relevant to the "unwanted attention" directed at AFAB trans and questioning teens.

She is saying that the people supposedly with ROGD came from the group of people suffering these issues - girls - and that these individuals get away from that - she is also saying, repeatedly and emphatically, that they are still "girls" and should be treated (medically and socially) as such. The argument "she isn't misgendering them, because they aren't really trans" doesn't work, either on WP or in the real world, and I really hope that is not the argument you're making. Newimpartial (talk) 13:21, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

It's not the argument I'm making, and don't even try to imply that. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:33, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

WP should not be misusing "assigned X at birth" in this way. It is medical jargon that refers to intersex persons, and doctors making a judgement call on whether they should be classified as biologically more male or female as to their genitalia (sometimes after surgery to go more one direction or the other). No one who is not born intersex is "assigned" anything; they're simply observed to be physically male or female, i.e. having external or internal sex organs, and it takes no medical expertise of any kind to make that observation. The fact that progressive activists in general (about 8% of the US population, and even lower in the UK and many other countries), including critics of this books and possibly the book itself (I have not read it) love to hijack this term and incorrectly apply it to transgender and nonbinary persons (those whose subjective gender is different from, or fluid in regard to, what is more socially expected based on their genital sex and their secondary sex characteristics) is no rationale for Wikipedia, in its own voice, doing likewise. We have a encyclopedic duty to not abuse language in such a way, as a general matter, as well as a WP:NPOV reason not to do it in a topic like this, in which terminological shenanigans are clearly serving a socio-cultural, doctrinaire purpose. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:01, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

So you are suggestg that Statistics Canada - one of the most respected NSOs in the world - is hijacking language in service of termininologival shenanigans? [7][8] I. Can't. Even. Newimpartial (talk) 13:21, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

It is absolutely not accurate that assigned sex at birth applies only to intersex individuals. See Sex assignment, which discusses the case of intersex people but is quite clear that the term applies to all infants. GorillaWarfare (talk) 13:45, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm just not sure I understand the logic. If you are transgender, then your gender doesn't match your sex at birth. If your genitals and your chromosomes match a sex, then that's the sex you were at birth. I've seen this type of argument in the past: "she was always female". Well...no...if that was the case then she wouldn't be trans, and we wouldn't be talking about her as trans. Your sex at birth and your gender is kindof what defines this whole issue. It seems that in the interest of logical consistency, we have to accept sex at birth as "a thing", or we have to reject transgender as "a thing". If you were always that way, and this applies retroactively, then you aren't transgender. GMG ^talk 14:11, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Correct, transgender individuals' genders do not match their assigned sex at birth (which is generally also their assigned gender). But assigned sex at birth is pretty handwavy—it's not standard to test chromosomes at birth (I know I was assigned female with no chromosomal testing involved), and there are all kinds of variations in genitalia and chromosomes that don't neatly fit into two categories, but many doctors try to make it so regardless. "She was always female" is likely referring to gender and there is a term for the theory that I am forgetting at the moment; I will come back and add it if I remember. (Found it, it was "feminine essence" I was thinking of.) As for "we have to accept...": it is quite possible to accept that sex/gender assignment at birth is a thing without accepting the terminology "biologically female"/"biological woman"/"born a [girl/woman/female]". I think I have been consistent on that point; if I haven't, perhaps I made an error in wording somewhere. GorillaWarfare (talk) 14:47, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I think the general thing folks would say "she was always a woman/always a girl" rather than "always a female," but since there's no "ageless" term for girl/woman as a gender, I suppose someone might use that instead, though I haven't personally heard it said that way often. But either way, this seems to be getting pretty philosophical for a content dispute. I think I might have initially introduced AFAB to the lead (Diff), so wanted to jump in to clarify my view. AFAB works well in this case because it's the only term that describes the exact group Shrier seems to be talking about, without ambiguity (i.e., people who were determined to be of female sex at birth, and hence were raised by girl gender norms). This group includes cisgender girls/women, transgender men, and other non-binary folks, that Shrier seems to lump together as "girls". I get that "biological sex at birth" seems like an easy layman's term, but clearly it creates some confusion, so why not use the standard term when talking about transgender people, "AFAB"? POLITANVM ^talk 14:50, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Just not really sure linguistically how it makes more sense than saying "assigned blonde at birth". When my daughter was born, she was blonde. As she's gotten older, her hair color has darkened. One day she may dye it purple for all I care. She was still born blonde. "Assigned blonde at birth" is...not technically incorrect. Someone made "an assessment" and ticked a box on a form. In a different angle, if she later had some medical issue and we found out that she was chromosomally intersex, just born with female genitals, "assigned female at birth" doesn't really make any difference on way or the other. She wasn't born female. She was born intersex according to [insert specific medical classification]. That was "existentially true" in the state of the universe when she was born, regardless of the form.

I dunno. Maybe I've just had too much coffee and I'm rambling. GMG ^talk 15:01, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

My preference for "assigned female at birth" over "biologically female" is simply because it more accurately captures that there can be enormous variance in the biology (which encompasses anatomy, chromosomes, hormones, etc.) which doctors and others try to reduce to two (or sometimes three, with intersex) categories. I find "biologically female" to be enormously reductive. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:09, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

The conventional understanding of transgender people is that their sex assigned at birth conflicts with their current gender identity. It isn't that they were assigned a sex at birth, and this was wrong, though for some intersex individuals such an argument could be made. The point is that these individuals have a gender identity - which may have emerged soon after birth or much later - that does not align with their sex assignment, and they may or may not have taken steps to alter their anatomy and physiology to break with their sex AAB, not to mention the question of their current legal sex.

TL;DR: "sex assignment" describes a social process by which a society decides how to classify the (foetus/infant/child). "Sex AAB" - which usually happens at birth but may be slightly before or even after - is a more precise term in this sense for all humans, when compared to "sex" (which can mean a vast number of things) or, say, "girl" (which carries even more potential baggage). Newimpartial (talk) 15:12, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Again speaking mostly linguistically, at least in spoken word, you would generally say "born female". The same way I would say "born blonde" in the case of my daughter's darkening hair, or "naturally blonde" in the case of someone why hasn't dyed their hair. "Biologically female" doesn't make any sense either. As opposed to?...Spiritually? Emotionally? Philosophically female? Male/female generally refer to sex, unless you're like...a weird incel using "female" to be dehumanizing and avoid saying "woman". Admittedly, terms like MtF and FtM don't do us any favors in parsing out that meaning. But no one would say that my daughter was born "biologically woman", because that generally refers to gender. GMG ^talk 15:39, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

You might generally say that; I would not. And yeah, I think the female/woman/girl sex/gender distinction is not followed very well. As for the blonde comparison, hair color is not nearly as fraught as sex and gender, so I think it's a tough parallel to draw. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:40, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

If we're having a broader social debate, or writing a technical paper, then yes. Absolutely. But in speech the constructions are treated fairly similarly. AFAB is...kindof a bit of technical jargon that most speakers don't use. GMG ^talk 15:52, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Depends on the person, I guess. I use AFAB/AMAB in speech. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:53, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

But of course, we're smarter than the average bear. Obviously. We edit Wikipedia. :P GMG ^talk 16:38, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

GorillaWarfare, do you think that other groups of people - including the bulk of the population, cisgender and heterosexual - comes anywhere close to using AFAB/AMAB in their everyday speech? Crossroads ^-talk- 20:23, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Obviously speech communities differ, but cbc.ca - which is a mainstream public broadcaster - uses "assigned female/male at birth" as a completely routine statement of fact. 20:33, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

According to the reliable sources out there, "female" generally refers to sex for nonhumans, but for humans it is roughly equally likely to refer to sex or gender identity, or not to specify whether it is referring to either or both. For an example where the meaning is specified in a RS context, in this instance female/male refers to gender and in this instance from the same source, female and male refer to sex. Newimpartial (talk) 19:51, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Newimpartial, Statistics Canada is part of the government, and governments are not reliable sources on scientific and medical topics, given how affected they are by interest groups. We know this from climate change and GMOs. I agree with those above who state that AFAB is medical jargon and that it is likely to confuse the reader. People will be thinking like GMG's 14:34, 31 March comment: "Assigned female at birth" makes technical sense when talking about intersex people where a doctor/the parents said "IDK, girl I guess".. A significant number of people will read it and think we are talking about intersex babies because "assigned" carries connotations of being unsure and of arbitrariness. I've offered ways to reword to avoid it but nobody is pursuing ideas in that direction; we're stalled out that this term has no downsides and that we have to use it. Pretty much at a loss on this one. Crossroads ^-talk- 20:31, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Crossroads, Statistics Canada is an arms-length national agency, with the population statistics units run by professional demographers; it has at least the standing in the field of demographic statistics that the Centers for Disease Control has in the field of epidemiology, and I dare say it is subject to a great deal less political interference than the latter. Yes, it is a primary source but it is most certainly a reliable source on demographic statistics and demographic classification, as it is also a reliable source on economic statistics and environmental statistics for that matter, since it is much less subject to pressures on those matters than are national governments or international organizations. From the US Census Bureau you might form the impression that national statistical methodologies are routinely impacted by political interference from the executive branch, but the US is actually an outlier in that respect, and the UK and Australia, as well as Canada and the EU, are generally much more successful than the US or China in collecting accurate national statistics without political interference.

As far as the standing of "assigned female" (or male) "at birth" with lay readers, all I can say is that is used routinely in coverage of trans biographies by the CBC, very much a centrist, mainstream broadcaster, and doesn't seem to confuse anyone. Newimpartial (talk) 20:42, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Demographers aren't really the relevant field for deciding what terminology is or is not medical jargon. We're supposed to avoid expert jargon when we can anyway. And really, if I find other census-type agencies that don't use the term, or use "birth sex" or something, is that a valid counterargument? The CBC could, again, be an outlier on a world scale (and you haven't cited an example of them even using it). This isn't a Canadian Wikipedia. How often would that term even come up in these broadcasts? In my recollection, broadcasters usually just say someone is transgender. Crossroads ^-talk- 21:00, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

I dare say that demographers are the relevant field for deciding what terminology is or isn't relevant for collecting characteristics of human populations, including both sex and gender (which are at issue here).

As far as the CBC is concerned, here are the low-hanging fruit, for assigned female at birth [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and for assigned male at birth.[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26] I won't pretend that is a comprehensive list, but I'm confident that it justifies used routinely. Newimpartial (talk) 22:20, 2 April 2021 (UTC)