Anonymous said: in certain specific medical incidents couldn't it be important to know a person's biological sex to treat them because of hormone production and stuff? im not disagreeing with u im just genuinely asking so i can be informed, im an english major so science/medicine are most def not my forte

impromptuonedykedanceparty:

hecaerge:

erase the concept of “biological” sex from your mind. it is a false social construct. also teach yourself not to coercively label someone’s body or genitals. there is no default/standard “female” or “male” body or genitalia.

Yeah, it would not be helpful. Assuming that all trans women’s bodies will act just like all cis men’s bodies is rooted in transmisogyny (thinking we’re really just dudes pretending) and it’s really far from the truth. It’s almost funny, actually - in various medical settings a few years ago, my “biological sex” was described with everything from “m” to “f” to “u”. No idea what that one was supposed to mean. That’s how ~important~ and ~accurate~ it is.

I’ll go a bit in depth, cause concern trolls like this asking about “what if doctors need to know?!?” are super common, and I want one big post to break it down.

Like really, a hell of a lot of us are on hrt, many of us are intersex (hi) in lots of different ways, etc. If you base assumptions about our bodies on our asab, you might get a few really basic things right (I’m obvs not gonna be pregnant, i am at risk for prostate cancer), but you’ll get a hell of a lot of things wrong (ESPECIALLY w/r/t hormones, lmfao).

So, no. It doesn’t help to know our “biological sex” because that is a fake category. I’m not ~really~ a “biological male” who has the same health care needs as a cis man; I’m a trans woman with my own specific health care needs, some of which overlap with cis men or women, and some which don’t. They’ll need to *check for specifics* when it’s relevant, because again, if they rely on a little “m” or “f” on the assumption that it’ll be my ~true biological sex,~ again, they’ll get a hell of a lot wrong.

So instead of focusing on the idea of “biological sex,” there are all sorts of *real* underlying things a doctor might need to know:
-list of medications you’re taking, including hrt: almost always important, and hey, doctors ask this specifically.
-your actual hormone levels: various situations.
-whether you are / can get pregnant: if pregnancy is suspected/contraindicated.

And a few more things, only necessary for very specific situations:
-karyotype (what chromosomes you have): only useful when investigating for a suspected genetic trait/disorder that’s on the x or y chromosome.
-more specifics about yr genitals/fertility/menstruation: for urogenital&reproductive care.
-presence of (uterus / prostate / breasts), location of gonads: cancer screening.

So yeah. These are the things usually assumed from “biological sex” that could actually matter in a medical context. When doctors have patients who’re trans +/ intersex, they should just ask about these things specifically because, once again, “biological sex” is a fake category that won’t tell them what they actually need to know.

And all the stuff about “well XYZ has different symptoms/prognoses in men and women” - not remotely helpful. Those are studies of CIS men and CIS women (or, worse, just the former) when we are literally the gender outliers. Taking those general statistics and then, again, assuming that trans women will be just like cis men because of “biological sex” is groundless. Those usually don’t even claim to identify a cause for the (cis) male / (cis) female disparity. When there is a blatantly obvious difference (like, again, prostate cancer only occurring in people who have a prostate), go by that. They should be treating the actual patient based on their actual body, not based on hazy assumptions from a little letter.

Just to be sure, let me say it one more time, in detail: “biological sex” is not a real, true, “scientific” thing. It is not an objective fact. Naming things is inherently subjective, never neutral, and choosing to label us as “male” is intentionally using an extremely gendered term with all sorts of other meanings brought along. The model of binary, “biological” sex might seem to work well enough for most people - because it was literally constructed to describe and those people, while leaving us as deviants, monsters, unreal. It is a social construct.

The history of it is much more complicated, and I’m no expert - fundamentally it was based in colonial white supremacist thought, to frame white Europeans’ ideas about gender as Superior Biological Facts, demonizing cultures with different systems or directly trying to dehumanize people of color. And while they’re at it, framing various misogynist stereotypes as Biological Facts too, and framing trans&/intersex people as fake or monstrous.