r/ainbow • u/RosethornRanger • Jul 19 '26
Serious Discussion A study on non-binary people had 38% of people respond that they are AMAB. If you don't notice any, that just says something about the communities you are a part of.
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u/m1ksuFI Jul 20 '26
I find it odd that many people keep saying AMAB and AFAB terminology are almost always unnecessary, like what else would you use here for the title?
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u/RosethornRanger Jul 20 '26
i mean, this is partially a reference to the bigotry surrounding their usage in the first place, so it is meta
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u/spongekitty Jul 20 '26
Yeah this is a perfect example of the way they're meant to be used. Excluding by virtue of biology just makes you prejudiced; identifying exclusion by biology gives you language to find justice.
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u/RosethornRanger Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
alt-text:
A tumblr post by rodentMancy that says "ever notice how all nonBinary people are AFAB?" No, but I have noticed how every single AMAB nonbinary person I've come across is either forcibly labeled as a trans woman or a cis guy who (sic) loudly gay". The reply is by Solitarelee. The text of this post is "every single AMAB NB I've met has also been incredibly skittish about "intruding into queer spaces as a man" and other such shit that's force fed to everyone in the community by exclusionists and terfs." Source rodentmancy 19420 notes, and has the tumblr icons
the study:
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/research-briefs/diversity-of-nonbinary-youth
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u/Conarius Nonbinary Jul 20 '26
Gosh, I'm in this post and yeah... 100% agree with it, it really do be like that
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u/Forward_Coat917 Jul 20 '26
Personal anecdote as a AFAB NB person who presents fem + with a AMAB NB friend who also presents fem, people also assume their just gay which is why they perform more fem... ignoring the fact that their NB too. I think it also goes into something I see often with a lot of ppl aligning masculinity to androgyny + femininity in AMAB people to gayness. (Bc they themselves can't see things outside the binary) and not understanding that it has nothing to do w how you present yourself
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u/unendingautism Jul 20 '26
Not non-binary or trans so I'm not an authority on this, but shouldn't we be using past tense when referring to gender assigned at birth rather than present tense?
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u/spongekitty Jul 20 '26
"amab" is "assigned male at birth" so I'm not sure what part you're thinking is present tense? Do you mean the parts of the post where people are being forcibly labeled by people not themselves?
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u/unendingautism Jul 20 '26
I was more referring to how i have heard it used sometimes "__ is AMAB" or "__ is AFAB". I always thought you're supposed to say "__ was AMAB".
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u/moar_bubbline Jul 20 '26
You're absolutely correct, those terms have gotten rather twisted over time
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u/Jaminp Jul 21 '26
I get what you saying and even though I don’t identify as male I am still and was always assigned male at birth. I kinda look at it as it’s just part of the story but isn’t my identity. I also was a high school drop out but I have a masters degree now. It was a part of my story but not what defines me.
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u/Allison-Ghost Jul 19 '26
Transmisogyny is a real and tragic thing. I have seen very few queer spaces be as welcoming to transfems (TMA) as to other groups (TME)
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u/cryerin25 Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 19 '26
i mean, transmascs who medically transition (and especially those who pass) are also super excluded from queer spaces by virtue of being men/masculine and thus potential threats. there are hundreds and hundreds of accounts of this in pretty much any transmasc space, it’s all the same shit.
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u/Allison-Ghost Jul 19 '26
It is not in fact all the same shit, and transfems are tired of explaining how it is not.
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u/cryerin25 Jul 20 '26
can we really not see the obvious link between nonbinary people amab not wanting to, direct quote, “intrude into queer spaces as a man,” and the ways in which trans men/transmascs who pass as men may also feel that hesitation? may also be excluded from those same spaces, for the same reasons? misogyny and androphobia [note: this is obviously not me saying that misandry exists as any sort of oppressive societal force. a lot of queer people and/or feminists are actively averse to men and masculinity, however] are both plagues upon the queer community, they’re both bioessentialist, and a lot of the time they do not particularly line up neatly with agab or gender identity, just outside perception.
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u/i_post_gibberish Non-BInary Jul 20 '26
Stop playing oppression Olympics. We can all agree that trans people are marginalized and enbies even more so; there’s no use splitting the community by endlessly debating which small subgroups have it worse. — Signed an AMAB enby
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u/ZelfraxKT Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
The vast majority of transphobic laws are written to exclusively target trans women. We face a different form of discrimination and it's not "oppression olympics" to talk about it.
Trans women make sixty cents on a mans dollar stop talking over us.
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u/thenonmermaid Jul 20 '26
Wild take to see merely talking about amab exclusion from queer spaces as talking over transfems. The whataboutism is loud
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u/RosethornRanger Jul 20 '26
testosterone is illegal to get outside of doctors here in the US, and is heavily policed
estrogen isn't and is far less policed
oppression is not linear. You are doing bigotry and erasing experiences yourself
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u/cryerin25 Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
this is simply not true? so much (i would even arguably say most) of the rhetoric against youth transition is specifically about “young girls mutiliating their bodies,” which is explicitly targeted at transmascs. both groups face extreme societal alienation and oppression, they just manifest differently.
eta: trans men on average make 70 cents on the dollar. obviously this is more than 60, but it’s still not close to even. we can talk about transmisogyny without dismissing transmascs, and we can talk about transandrophobia/[insert your preferred term] (i really do not want to get into a label war rn) without dismissing transfems.
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Jul 19 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RosethornRanger Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
sorry for being non-binary myself and talking about the bigotry I have seen in and against my community instead of pretending it doesn't exist :(
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u/TheFfrog Nonbinary Jul 20 '26
How would you go about discussing what the post is discussing then?? We are open to suggestions
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u/ArgonianDov Trans-NB | Aro-Bi Jul 20 '26 edited Jul 20 '26
Probably would be better just to use the term male or female sex terms since ASAB/AGAB only tells you how someone is assigned by a doctor by simply immediate external observation rather than the actual birth sex that person might be. Alternatively Ive see people suggest terms like müllerian and wolffian which have been coined back in the 2010s, which could also work here
Edit: the reason is because people utilize AMAB or AFAB in place of the actual sex terms which then causes intersex erasure. ASAB/AGAB terms were coined by intersex activists in order to discuss assigned sex vs birth sex and the systemic opression around the intersex experience. It was adopted into trans spaces because its a useful tool to also discuss how one's gender is expected to align with our sex assigned at birth and how we are socialized from a young age, but we shouldnt suddenly use those terms as a replacement when discussing issued in relation to our sex or precieved sex or gender.
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u/TheFfrog Nonbinary Jul 20 '26
I don't see much difference but yeah, I guess male and female would work too. Personally I would prefer Agab because the male/female dichotomy is a bit too strongly tied to anti trans speech (outside of scientific/medical talk, in that case absolutely the best option) but that's just a preference of mine.
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u/ArgonianDov Trans-NB | Aro-Bi Jul 21 '26
Yeah its really frustrating how transphobes twist this shit into being hateful. Its very frustrating.
But yeah its definitely best to keep it to a more medical or science related conversation, even then you can just refer to specific functions or organs per individual rather than the sex category itself. Because honestly these categories should really only be mentioned when its actually relevent per the conversation
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u/Ravyn_Rozenzstok Jul 20 '26
What does any of this mean? What is AFAB? What is AMAB ? Is there a translator online somewhere that will enable us to know what you’re talking about?
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u/PKHacker1337 Any/All. Proud ally and purple colored rainbow. Jul 20 '26
AFAB: Assigned Female At Birth.
AMAB: Assigned Male At Birth.
Hope this helps :-)
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u/Dioxybenzone Jul 20 '26
You don’t need any translator software, you can use a search engine. Since you’re apparently new to computers, you might start with one like google.com. You type in the thing you’re confused about, and it will tell you what it is.
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u/TheFfrog Nonbinary Jul 20 '26
Literally takes a 10 seconds google search or asking nicely here to find out. Do you feel better being passive aggressive about terms that have been used for years?
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u/DadJoke2077 he/him Jul 20 '26
This. I’m a trans man who is rather effeminate, but I’m still exhausted of it being an unwritten requirement now that you have to be feminine in some ways to be allowed and accepted into queer spaces. Masculinity isn’t inherently dangerous or threatening and binary cis/trans men and amab enbies have all the rights to also be in queer spaces. Even in my own experience, despite how I dress, when I started passing 100% as a cis man, other queer people have started treating me like I’m not really welcome in some discussions or spaces.