Assigned Sex
My mom didn't know her kids' assigned sexes until we were born. She thought for sure that I was a boy and tells the story like this: the midwife delivered me, declared me a girl, and my mom replied, "No!" She felt bad that the first word I ever heard from her was "no," but she was just so shocked. I guess being pregnant with me felt very similar to being pregnant with my older brother, which is why she assumed I was a boy.
Until a couple of years ago, I planned to follow my mother's example and, if I had a child, I wanted to find out their assigned sex when they were born. It was partly thanks to a conversation with our friends, Eben and Laura, that I changed my mind. Laura said that if she had a kid, she would want as much information about them as possible, as soon as possible. Not because they wanted to buy a bunch of gendered baby stuff, but because every new data point would help them feel closer to this little human.
By planning to wait until my kid was born to know their assigned sex, I was trying to be equitable. I didn't want myself or others to unnecessarily gender the kid while they were still in the womb. I envisioned gender neutral baby clothes and nursery decorations and dissuading people from speculating. But, as I thought more about it, I decided that, instead of downplaying sex and gender, waiting to find out the baby's assigned sex when they're born actually set it up as a fun 'surprise' and gave it more weight. And that was the opposite of what I wanted!
The genitals we have and the sexes we're assigned at birth are not the most important or interesting things about us. But they do matter because they affect how we're likely to move through the world and be viewed by others. I like the way author Imogen Binnie talks about this sort of social construct in her novel, Nevada:
"Eventually you can't help but figure out that, while gender is a construct, so is a traffic light, and if you ignore either of them, you get hit by cars. Which, also, are constructs."
Assigned sex is a construct, but it's one with a lot of social and cultural significance, and so E and I decided that we wanted to know the little lizard's assigned sex as soon as we were able to. That way we could prepare for some of that social and cultural significance.
So, at yesterday's appointment, before we started the ultrasound, my doctor asked if I wanted to know the baby's sex and I said yes. We took a look between the fetus's legs and didn't see a penis. I have another appointment on Friday for a more in-depth ultrasound (it's called 'Feindiagnostik' in German) with the office where I did my first trimester screening, and my regular ob-gyn suggested that I confirm the sex then. She was kind of funny about it actually, saying something along the lines of, "okay, that looks like the labia so it's probably a girl, but please don't be upset with me if I was wrong."
When I left the appointment yesterday, I texted E.
Me: The little lizard looks good and very active according to Dr. Wihstutz. Its brain is developing, there's a visible spine and rib cage now, and we'll need to confirm it on Friday, but it appears to have labia. So unless Dr. Janke finds a penis that we couldn't see today, the baby is assigned female. [blushing smiley face emoji]
E: Very cool!
E: Wow, a spine and ribs and a developing brain!
E: And awesome, we can start thinking about what we want to do about that sex assignation! [blushing smiley face emoji, but not the same one I sent, it's weird that there are two of those]
E: I guess you couldn't see hair, huh [red-headed child emoji]?"
Me: [laugh-cry emoji x3]
Me: Nope
Me: The kid's most important feature remains a mystery!
I have been saying for years now, since long before we decided to actually have a child together, that I really want to have little red-headed babies. But the truth is that I'll be happy regardless of hair color, just like I'll be happy regardless of assigned sex. I like collecting data points about our active child with their tomato-sized head and developing brain. Some of these data points are going to matter more to society at large and I'm still figuring out how I want to talk about the little lizard's assigned sex with other people. So far, I like how E and I are talking and thinking about it. Thanks for reading. [blushing smiley face emoji]