garfieldAs someone who studies grammar critically, I've come to assume that the structure of language shapes out preconceptions about the world, that many of our biases are embedded in grammar and that grammar's rules have to be broken in order to speak beyond our unconscious beliefs. But I have also been surprised by how often the opposite happens, and people break the rules of grammar in ways that reveal our biases.
For example: people are not AFAB or AMAB. Unless you are talking about a literally newborn baby, people have been AFAB or AMAB. "Assigned" is a past participle, and "birth", for most people, occurred in the past on a single occasion. Just a fun little bit of grammar for you on this Friday.
patience, doing up live 🎧🎚📻@garfiald the verb tense being in the past is imperative here
psyberman@garfiald So I don't really remember all my English grammar rules and tenses and whatnot, but "being verbed" is a legit tense, right? I am tired, my car is backed up in the driveway, etc. This doesn't seem like it breaks any rules?
@kameleonidas You're talking about the present continuous. "I am assigned female at birth" is indeed grammatically sound. That's why I included the caveat "unless you're talking about a literal newborn baby." Since, because of the adverbial phrase "at birth," the sentence "I am assigned female at birth" is only semantically sound if the speaker has just been born. That's the semantic effect of the present continuous tense.
@garfiald I see. I guess it's a shorthand for "I am [a person who was] assigned something at birth". I suppose I've learned how to fill in the gaps when people say things like for example "I am [colour]" (no you're not, your bits have a lot of different colours, and you are much more than just the collection of colours of your bits).
cyborgneticz@garfiald Can you go more into this because I'm trash at grammar (I blame Swamp French for this).
@Cyborgneticz in the phrase "assigned X at birth", "at birth" indicates the time during which one was assigned X. Its like saying "I was playing the fiddle yesterday", you can't say "I am playing the fiddle yesterday". Or indeed, saying anything else happened at birth. You say "I was naked at birth", you don't say "I am naked at birth" (unless you're speaking while being born)
: Indigenous Terror@garfiald so. Should I say "I was afab?"
@magicalmilly that would make a lot more sense in my opinion...
Local Dad, Ben Hamill@garfiald Having galaxy brain about "I am being assigned male at birth" as some kind of bizarre-ass "we are always becoming" kind of philosophical thing.