"'Female' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell."

cloven hooves The Personal Is Political Reproductive Rights Discussion "'Female' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell."

Discussion "'Female' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell."

Discussion "'Female' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell."

Possum
angry lesbian 🌈

32

Jan 21 2025, 11:06 AM

#1

Anyone else skeeved out by this wording in the EO?

I understand that technically, yes, sex is decided at conception depending on whether or not the sperm is carrying X or Y. But specifically phrasing it as "a person belonging, at conception" seems like a way to sneak fetal personhood language into the law. Normally I would agree that I'm nitpicking but considering the Project 2025 stuff surrounding Trump it gives me a bad feeling.

A zygote is what exists at the moment of conception, not a "female person". I think the language used here is very intentionally hinting at fetal personhood. There was no need for "at conception". He could have phrased it as "'Female' means a person belonging to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell." but chose to include the additional, unnecessary language about conception.

edit:
You can read the full EO here

Edited Jan 21 2025, 11:18 AM by Possum.

Possum

angry lesbian 🌈

Jan 21 2025, 11:06 AM #1

Anyone else skeeved out by this wording in the EO?

I understand that technically, yes, sex is decided at conception depending on whether or not the sperm is carrying X or Y. But specifically phrasing it as "a person belonging, at conception" seems like a way to sneak fetal personhood language into the law. Normally I would agree that I'm nitpicking but considering the Project 2025 stuff surrounding Trump it gives me a bad feeling.

A zygote is what exists at the moment of conception, not a "female person". I think the language used here is very intentionally hinting at fetal personhood. There was no need for "at conception". He could have phrased it as "'Female' means a person belonging to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell." but chose to include the additional, unnecessary language about conception.

edit:
You can read the full EO here

Clover
Kozlik's regular account 🍀🐐

511

Jan 21 2025, 11:19 AM

#2

Yeah that totally skeeves me out. I agree, it's trying to lay claim to the whole "fetal personhood" thing. There's no reason they had to add "at conception", it's a total forced-birther move to add that.

Lucky for me, arguments about whether a fetus is "a person" are irrelevant to me, since my whole point is no one has the right to use another human being to sustain their life. (Of course, me considering it irrelevant is not going to work out with a right-wing misogynistic party in power, they will claim "fetal personhood" in order to terrorize women into not getting abortions under threat of murder laws, and threaten doctors with the same murder laws, which I think is what is happening in Idaho, causing their OBGYN exodus.)

This is absolutely the laying the groundwork for future anti-abortion/forced-birther legislation. Welcome to The Republic of Gilead.

Edited Jan 21 2025, 11:20 AM by Clover.

Clover

Kozlik's regular account 🍀🐐

Jan 21 2025, 11:19 AM #2

Yeah that totally skeeves me out. I agree, it's trying to lay claim to the whole "fetal personhood" thing. There's no reason they had to add "at conception", it's a total forced-birther move to add that.

Lucky for me, arguments about whether a fetus is "a person" are irrelevant to me, since my whole point is no one has the right to use another human being to sustain their life. (Of course, me considering it irrelevant is not going to work out with a right-wing misogynistic party in power, they will claim "fetal personhood" in order to terrorize women into not getting abortions under threat of murder laws, and threaten doctors with the same murder laws, which I think is what is happening in Idaho, causing their OBGYN exodus.)

This is absolutely the laying the groundwork for future anti-abortion/forced-birther legislation. Welcome to The Republic of Gilead.

Iota Aurigae

22

Jan 21 2025, 3:07 PM

#3

Yeah, that is very much true. I've seen some dimwits claiming that this means everyone is female because apparently all fetuses start out female (which is a contested claim at best), but so far nobody else has pointed out the "at conception" part.
The part about producing large reproductive cells can easily be misconstrued by the usual shouty MRAs who'll yap about women with hysterectomies, too.

Iota Aurigae

Jan 21 2025, 3:07 PM #3

Yeah, that is very much true. I've seen some dimwits claiming that this means everyone is female because apparently all fetuses start out female (which is a contested claim at best), but so far nobody else has pointed out the "at conception" part.
The part about producing large reproductive cells can easily be misconstrued by the usual shouty MRAs who'll yap about women with hysterectomies, too.

Colibri

22

Jan 21 2025, 5:59 PM

#4

I just saw someone tweet about this. I was relieved when I first read it, though the wording seemed just a little bit odd; I hadn’t realized why. Fuck. This is setting up to criminalize abortion as murder. They know what a woman is 😵‍💫

Colibri

Jan 21 2025, 5:59 PM #4

I just saw someone tweet about this. I was relieved when I first read it, though the wording seemed just a little bit odd; I hadn’t realized why. Fuck. This is setting up to criminalize abortion as murder. They know what a woman is 😵‍💫

sealwomyn

15

Jan 22 2025, 3:55 PM

#5

IDK if anyone has posted this already but the EO text was apparently written by a forced-birther handmaiden from a rightwing women's organization called "independent women's forum" who are for some reason in addition to their class traitor antifeminism also staunchly against worker's rights and unions. I'm sure it was 100% deliberate to put that in there as a declaration against our rights to bodily autonomy.

Edited Jan 22 2025, 3:56 PM by sealwomyn.

sealwomyn

Jan 22 2025, 3:55 PM #5

IDK if anyone has posted this already but the EO text was apparently written by a forced-birther handmaiden from a rightwing women's organization called "independent women's forum" who are for some reason in addition to their class traitor antifeminism also staunchly against worker's rights and unions. I'm sure it was 100% deliberate to put that in there as a declaration against our rights to bodily autonomy.

YesYourNigel

83

Jan 22 2025, 7:51 PM

#6

I totally would've missed this, but you're absolutely right.

I find it hard to believe that they had to go out of their way to specify "at conception" for the sake of scientific pedantry yet didn't care to mention that not all females produce eggs (and sadly this needs to be clarified because the main retort is going to immediately be "wuh about disorders of sex development"). Females are those on the female developmental path, regardless of whether they end up with a malfunctioning reproductive system (and hence egg production) or not. There are intersex conditions where women don't have ovaries and certainly don't produce any sex cells, but we know they're female because of the presence of partially developed female organs. For a better overview of intersex conditions in layperson terms and why they don't disprove jackshit about the sex binary, look at an older thread of mine.

There is one interesting factoid, and I wonder if someone is gonna act dumb over the anti-abortion implications of the original sentence because of this: technically women and girls don't create eggs, only fetuses do while in the womb (still not conception, because there are no sex organs to produce anything at conception). We create all our eggs, or rather proto-eggs, while we're still fetuses and we just mature them throughout our life.

Edited Jan 23 2025, 7:15 AM by YesYourNigel.

YesYourNigel

Jan 22 2025, 7:51 PM #6

I totally would've missed this, but you're absolutely right.

I find it hard to believe that they had to go out of their way to specify "at conception" for the sake of scientific pedantry yet didn't care to mention that not all females produce eggs (and sadly this needs to be clarified because the main retort is going to immediately be "wuh about disorders of sex development"). Females are those on the female developmental path, regardless of whether they end up with a malfunctioning reproductive system (and hence egg production) or not. There are intersex conditions where women don't have ovaries and certainly don't produce any sex cells, but we know they're female because of the presence of partially developed female organs. For a better overview of intersex conditions in layperson terms and why they don't disprove jackshit about the sex binary, look at an older thread of mine.

There is one interesting factoid, and I wonder if someone is gonna act dumb over the anti-abortion implications of the original sentence because of this: technically women and girls don't create eggs, only fetuses do while in the womb (still not conception, because there are no sex organs to produce anything at conception). We create all our eggs, or rather proto-eggs, while we're still fetuses and we just mature them throughout our life.

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