“Women and AFAB’s”: My Experience with Gender Essentialist Terminology

I was terrified the first time I told anyone I wanted to use they/them pronouns. I thought I didn’t look “trans enough” to claim a nonbinary gender identity, and, beyond my appearance, I wasn’t completely sure what my gender actually was. So when I got misgendered, I didn’t feel I had the right to correct anyone. My body looks too much like someone else, I thought. Nobody should have to take me seriously about my gender, and I shouldn’t be upset if they don’t. 

The major concerns I had when first coming out were about the potential reactions from cisgender people. I was especially worried that they just wouldn’t believe me, that they’d take one look at me and doubt my experience—because of my hair, or my body type, or my voice. But surprisingly, even at BYU, many cis people do believe me and make a concerted effort to respect my identity by using my pronouns and avoiding gendered language. It wasn’t until I held a position in queer, BYU-adjacent leadership that I started to feel especially disrespected, misunderstood, and dismissed because of my gender identity—shockingly, by the people in my own community. This combination of transphobia and misogyny is not unique to the queer community here at BYU. It happens everywhere and, I think, finds its roots in the cesspool that is gender-critical ideology. 

Gender-critical ideologues, better known as Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists, believe that trans people, especially trans women, are a threat to feminism, and more broadly, to women (cisgender, white women, to be precise). These anti-trans ideologues claim to fight for the rights and social equality of women while dictating which physical features make someone a woman and fearmongering about trans women in women’s bathrooms. Their entire ideology hinges on commanding that everyone obey a strict adherence to the gender binary, which leads them to perpetuate racist and misogynistic beauty and gender standards. The anti-trans vitriol doesn’t stop with trans women, however. Their beauty standards are also exclusionary to many cisgender women who don’t fit the TERF mold of what a woman should look like.

TERFs are also especially condescending towards transmasculine nonbinary people and trans men. They believe that all transmasc people are simply girls who were led astray by “transgender ideology” and have ruined their lives by starting masculinizing hormones or getting gender-affirming top surgery. They use infantilizing rhetoric to claim to protect these “naive girls” by deciding that they know what is best even better than trans people themselves.

TERFs’ obsession with dictating which physical traits determine gender leads them to obsessive rants over childrens’ “breast tissue,” harassment towards and disdain for anyone with a penis, and the overwhelming need to know which genitals everyone has. Their over-obsession with body parts has, unfortunately, poisoned some trans peoples’ discourse as well, leading to transmedicalist and gender essentialist thinking. To me, transmedicalism, the belief that one must medically transition to be trans, feels almost more insidious than TERF ideology, especially because it is typically perpetuated by people who should be accepting of all genders: trans people. 

One of what I consider the most rotten fruits of transmedicalist ideas is the developing widespread use of the terms AMAB and AFAB. These terms, originally intended for use in medical settings, stand for “Assigned Male/Female At Birth.” The acronyms AFAB and AMAB were designed to aid doctors in getting a quick idea of what kind of sex-based medical care one might need—though they are still heavily flawed, because people are always more complicated than an acronym. Unfortunately, AGAB (assigned gender at birth) acronyms have escaped even their imperfect medical use and have entered into public queer discourse about trans people. From the rhetoric I have witnessed online and experienced in person, AFAB and AMAB have just become more “politically correct” ways to reduce trans people to identities that are not representative of who we are, and that we have worked so hard to transition away from.

In practice, offline, these terms only serve to reduce and exclude. There are often listings for queer safe housing (typically outside of the required BYU sex-segregated housing) listed as “AFAB only,” perpetuating fear around the assumed bodies of trans women and transfeminine people. The real goal of those listings is to have only cis women and the occasional nonbinary person who they still view, basically, as a woman. I’ve also seen explicitly labeled “AFAB only” therapy groups, community activities, and other similar spaces. Groups founded on gender essentialist terms like AFAB and AMAB erase the identities of trans women and transfeminine people. They also invalidate the identities of trans men and transmasc people, who are essentially reduced to “women lite.” To be clear, I don’t think the intention of these labels is to be maliciously exclusionary or to harm the trans community, and I do believe that there are shared experiences among the people in these groups’ target audience. However, I wonder at what cost does discussing these shared experiences come? What is lost when we aim to include, but instead misgender and exclude? Even further, how do we reckon with the fact that intersex people are almost completely shunned from the entire conversation? 

In my personal experience, I have encountered AGAB terms used as ways to be misogynistic and transphobic. While I was the president of USGA (Understanding Sexuality, Gender, and Allyship), the off-campus BYU-adjacent club was the target of a rumor that its membership was not inclusive because there were only “women and AFABs” on leadership. This rumor was, of course, false. USGA has had and still has many cis women, cis men, trans women, trans men, and nonbinary people of many different genders on its leadership team. But, the falseness of this accusation is not my biggest issue with it. My problem, rather, lies with the assumptions that the statement carries. The grouping of “women and AFABs” seems to suggest that both groups share some intrinsic feminine identity—isn’t this just a fancy way to misgender people? And, even if our leadership team were entirely women, is an all-women leadership team inherently unfit to serve the needs of our queer community? How did this person know the AGABs of everyone on the team? Why, based on appearance alone, would they assume to know? Because of my identity as a trans nonbinary person, and my role as president—which included interviewing and selecting leadership members—this rumor and its implications were deeply hurtful to me. And, my biggest sadness comes from the fact that a trans person was heavily involved in the proliferation of these accusations. 

A lot of TERF-like thinking and discourse ultimately boils down to not truly believing trans people. I will be the first to admit that I am not perfect. I make assumptions in my head about others based on their appearance, and I still slip up and misgender people from time to time. But in our daily interactions with one another, especially in moments where there is time to stop and think about what to write or say, I believe we should be making a stronger effort to validate trans and nonbinary people’s identities. Take trans people seriously about the gender that they are. Correct yourself when you make a mistake, and move on quickly. Don’t use terms that exclude people, and be specific in your terminology. If you really just mean women, say women. If you mean men, say men. If you mean nonbinary people, say nonbinary people. Used correctly, these words are wholly inclusive. Better yet, create more real-world spaces where all genders are welcome. Trans people exist as evidence that we do not need to gender all spaces! There is so much life to be gained in the creation of spaces free from gendered constraints or expectations. Trans people’s existence is a testament to that point—my existence is a testament. 

I am trans, agender, and nonbinary. I don’t meet many people with the same or similar gender as me. When I was in USGA leadership, I met one person whose experience was the closest to mine that I have ever encountered—I’ll call them Chris. Chris joined USGA in their last semester of school at BYU, so I met them as they were leaving school. Chris and I shared and bonded over the same pressures of being the eldest child, as well as the stresses that come with non-affirming parents. One night at a USGA after-party, we sat at the same table and just talked and talked about gender. It was like I was finally speaking the same language as someone else. Their experiences were so similar to mine, and the frustrations I expressed about how I am perceived were finally clicking with someone. Before, my dysphoria had simply been met with sympathetic looks from cis friends, but now I finally felt I was being heard. Chris and I both expressed our profound sense of relief and joy at finally being understood.

Chris and I were not assigned the same gender at birth, but it didn’t matter. My abundantly gender-euphoric experience getting to know Chris is why I am deeply worried about what we sacrifice when we reduce people to their assigned gender at birth. My most affirming conversations came from talking with Chris about the gender we share now. I want our queer community to be focused on who people are today—and to be looking toward the future! I know that scrapping strict gendered ideas can feel impossible. The ideology of cisheteropatriarchy is ingrained into me, and into all of us, and it can feel completely overwhelming. Nevertheless, we must put in the effort to unlearn it, however slow and painful that process may be. 

I believe in a better world for trans and cis people, and I believe in a more affirming BYU/Provo queer community. 

Let’s start building that world through our words.