Forbidden Word (phrase): assigned at birth

assign v. 1 A locker was assigned to each student: allot, allocate, consign, set apart, distribute, apportion, mete out; dispense, grant, give. 2 The reporter was assigned to cover international news: designate, name, appoint, commission, delegate, choose; charge, entrust, invest. 3  Let’s assign a day for the next meeting:  name, fix, set, appoint, specify, designate, stipulate, prescribe, determine.
Ant. 2 dismiss, discharge, divest, relieve 3  keep open, hold in abeyance.

from – Family Word Finder: Reader’s Digest. The Reader’s Digest Association, 1975.

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at prep. 1 used as a function word to indicate presence or occurrence in, on, or near <staying ~ a hotel> <~ a party> sick ~ heart> 2 used as a function word to indicate the goal of an indicated applied action or motion <aim ~ the target> laugh ~ him> <the creditors are ~ him again> 3 used as a function word to indicate which one is occupied or employed <~ work> <~ the controls> <an expert ~ chess> 4 used as a function word to indicate an active or passive state or condition <a criminal ~ liberty> <~ rest> 5 used as a function word to indicate the means, cause, or manner <sold ~ auction> <laughed ~ his joke> <act ~ your own discretion> 6 a used as a function word to indicate the rate, degree, or position in a scale or series <the temperature ~ 90> <~ first> b used as a function word to indicate age or position in time <will retire ~ 65> <awoke ~ midnight>

from – Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, Mass., G. & C. Merriam Co, 1967.

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birth n 1 The child’s birth occurred at 2 a.m. The mother had a difficult birth:  being born; children, bearing, delivery, parturition. 2 The imposter claimed to be of royal birth:  descent, ancestry, family, parentage, extraction, lineage, derivation, breeding, genealogy, blood, stock, strain, origin, beginnings, background. 3 The birth of jazz was in New Orleans:  start, beginning, commencement, origin, source, genesis, emergence.
Ant. 1 death, miscarriage, abortion. 3 conclusion, finale, end, finish, death.

from – Family Word Finder: Reader’s Digest. The Reader’s Digest Association, 1975.

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assigned at birth n  The sex (male, female, intersex) assigned to a child at birth, most often based on the child’s external anatomy. Also referred to as birth sex, natal sex, biological sex, or sex.

Note: It is not valid to use “biology” or “science” to claim assigned sex at birth and/or gender are a fixed, concrete concept and/or binary. Science favors the fact that sex and gender are more complicated and involve much more than one’s sexual organs.

from – Office of Equity, Vitality, and Inclusion, Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston Medical Center, and Boston University Medical Group. Glossary for Culture Transformation. 2021.

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Example Sentences: assigned at birth

It’s important to remember that one’s gender identity can be the same or different from the sex assigned at birth.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity* | Denver. (n.d.-b).

Moreover, by pointing out that sex is assigned at birth, advocates draw attention to the fact that institutions that exclude transgender people are doing so based on what is essentially a medical record of a doctor’s examination of a person’s genitalia in infancy. Yet genitalia and medical records are quintessentially private.
— Review, C. L. (2022, November 21). SEX ASSIGNED AT BIRTH. Columbia Law Review.

Transgender is an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity, gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth.
— American Psychology Association

But for some people, no variable matters as much as gender assigned at birth.
— Washington Post

Starting in early 2016, computer systems at the clinic prompted healthcare providers to ask patients for their current gender identity and their sex assigned at birth.
— Huffington Post

The law signed by Governor Pat McCrory banned anti-discrimination protections based on sexual orientation and required that, in public buildings and schools, transgender people use bathrooms corresponding to their gender as assigned at birth.
— The Guardian

March 24, 2025
Hudson Valley, New York

image: not so black & white © Holly Troy 2023

This is one phrase you can’t say in the new Trump Administration. See a comprehensive list at the Forbidden Words Project.