Sex Assigned At Birth (SAAB)

Sex assigned at birth, sometimes shortened to SAAB, is the designation of male, female, or intersex that is recorded at birth based on external anatomy and other physical markers. The phrasing matters because it treats that label as something assigned by others rather than a fixed truth about who a person is. For many transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people, the sex they were assigned does not match their gender identity. Related terms are AMAB (assigned male at birth) and AFAB (assigned female at birth), used as descriptors of experience rather than identities. This language has largely replaced older phrases like biological sex or birth sex in affirming medical and everyday settings.