I've said before during the many rounds of discourse on this subject on Twitter that the 280 character limit meant I would never give my full answer as it would be impractical to do so. Now I have this long-form blog, my time has come. Even though I don't think my answer is controversial, I admit now that it may well be to some people, even if they describe themselves as 'trans-positive' and 'progressive'. Indeed, many people in both the Progressive and Leftist sphere would argue not to even engage on the topic, given it is all about a gotcha, and talk past the subject in convincing the normies of trans validity and equality of rights for them. However, this 'question' is not looking like it is going away any time soon. And when 'influencers' and politicians, who have only a thin grasp of LGBTQ+ rights and situations in the best of times, are consistently tripped up by what reactionaries will promote to apathetic normies as "simple, obvious questions", we're losing the battle by their use as a societal proxy for us normies with no power and influence, who are then left to our devices to try and pick up the pieces.
If there's one line that even the most reclusive person has heard in the anti-trans 'debate' it is the question "What Is A Woman?". The title of the DailyWire's chief provocateur (and 'theocratic fascist') Matt Walsh's propaganda faux-documentary, which for some reason 'gender critical' 'feminists' swarmed to thank him for, its origin as a question in this sphere is, unsurprisingly, much longer than that.
This 'question' isn't meant to be answered, because it is unanswerable, as I will lay out later. But it is meant to trap the 'loony, radical, Marxist Leftist groomers', and has trapped many people who say they support trans people's existence, whether that is politicians, media, or online 'influencers', And indeed GCs are now weaponising any answer to the question, especially by cisgender men, by saying "you/men shouldn't be telling a woman what a woman is!"
I will expand on the 'problems' GCs have found themselves in in pursuing this question later on, but you didn't come here to read me talk about that, and delay the juicy answer to the title of this blog entry.
So here is my answer, there are essentially three broad groups who 'qualify' as a woman; and a fourth that requires inclusion in this article, due to our binary society formation.
Cisgender women - these are people assigned female at birth (AFAB), having been observed by doctors with 'female' reproductive organs, and presumably, although given very few people are chromosomal tested not certainly, XX chromosomes, and only a vagina at birth.
Transgender women - these are people assigned male at birth (AMAB) who identify as a woman. They were observed with 'male' reproductive organs, XY chromosomes, and only a penis at birth. They may or may not have had surgical interventions to match the hierarchical binary ('top' and 'bottom' surgery), or may (so far) only have had social or medicine-based treatments (puberty/hormone blockers, cross-sex hormone therapy). Many people who transition are locked into the latter for many years after beginning gender-affirming care, with the length of time before you reach the front of the queue for surgery, due to the lack of resources to gender-affirming care that have been allocated in the medical system. This is before additionally taking into account the cost of both the medicine and then the surgeries in countries that do not have a publicly funded healthcare system (like the hellscape of insurance-based medicine that is the United States).
Intersex/'DSD' ('differences in sex development') women - these are people assigned female at birth, due to being observed at birth with external 'female' reproductive organs, and have any or all of 'XXY' or similar chromosomes, differing (increased) hormone levels to the 'standard' expected for cisgender women, and/or have additional 'internal' reproductive organs of the opposite ('male') sex expected. They likely may have had gender confirmation surgery as a newborn to 'correct' their deviation from the norm of the binary, to both fit into our societal structures, and allow society itself to continue to uphold it.
Non-Binary/Genderfluid/Gender Non-Conforming people - anyone identifying as any one of these also needs to be included here in this discussion, as whether or not they at the time identify as a woman, by being assigned female at birth, they will be forced to use women's spaces (which is stated as the main issue modern feminists have with trans women 'entering their spaces') given all our facilities are mostly based on being for males/men or for females/women (there are of course unisex/gender neutral spaces).
I want to apologise here in case I've done an awful job describing these, reducing non-cisgender people's situation and the problems that our society has put in place for them and their existence, down to the simple anatomical structure. I accept I am also appropriating you and centering my cisgender voice, towards people who are so different to my whole 'lived-experience' understanding. But I hope you will at least understand that I have reduced your identity like this here because this is what the anti-trans 'activists' do in deciding 'what real women are'.
So there's my full answer. But I can already hear the GC/right-wing anti-trans reactionaries screeching "THAT'S CIRCULAR THINKING!!! It's just 'A Woman Is Someone Who Identifies As A Woman' all over again!" But let's consider for once the inverse question - "What Is A Man?" Never asked is it? But it still has the same 'issue' - it isn't definable by humans. It is an innate condition, socially constructed over the course of human history yes, but 'real' all the same, as humans have created this 'society' with this binary and the ensuing hierarchies enforced, irrespective of any 'biological' realism that may or not ever be 'confirmed'. And as someone who hates the police, I'm sure not going to then police someone else's identity, who I can't possibly know how they feel, deep down in their soul. But this is the great conceit of the question and the discourse - it's all about finding an enemy by attacking continuously a niche community, whilst feigning concern for the 'vulnerable' group at the same time.
And my answer to the question to what a woman is can be reversed by replacing "men" for "women" and "women" for "men" above and answer the question to what a man is also. It works, is coherent and logically consistent. If you're GC you no doubt will not 'like' the answer I have outlined - having perhaps started on your descent into this 'activism' because you think trans people are 'icky' or 'perverting norms' - but all of that is on you to work through.
So the fall back for them is to refer to 'biological sex', which is completely meaningless as a term given our understanding of being able to accurately divide people into two rigid sexes is false. Anatomical body parts, external reproductive organs, chromosomes or the current one GCs fall back to - gametes. Whether you can produce sperm or ova. That is what these 'feminist' women are now reducing 'women' to. Whether you can or have the opportunity to produce an egg for reproductive use only.
And yet I am the villain, the 'misogynist', the enemy and 'woman hater' for opening up the great world of 'being a woman'. I want to emancipate and liberate humans - they want to restrict it to the rigid factors they decide are what a 'real woman' is and has to be, that taken to its logical end stage of testing and inspecting will exclude 'obvious women' from being one. It is also an incredible shift for 'feminism', when it was only a few years ago when they were organising (rightly) campaigns and protests to end the remaining men's-only spaces, such as golf, working, or other private members clubs, and open them to women as full and equal members.
And this 'essentialism' of what a woman 'is' and 'must be' has wider real-world effects - most obviously in sports. That is seen in the treatment of intersex/'DSD' athletes, where many Black African women - most famously Caster Semenya and Christine Mboma, who produce naturally higher levels of testosterone, World Athletics arbitrarily decided to ban athletes from only certain distances - the ones they first competed in - unless they took forced medication to lower the testosterone, because 'they're too quick for ('real') women'. Then when they moved to other distances and were competitive, the 'science' behind the original distances being banned, mysteriously changes so it must include these new distances too (Mboma was barred from competing at her best event, 400m, then in her substituted event, 200m, went to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and won silver, starting the cry to extend the ban to the shorter distances too, as 'she was too fast, too soon, for a woman'). Semenya also has had her lesbian identity (she is happily married and the pair had their first child in 2020) 'erased' by GCs who have decided she is actually a man (this belief is much wider than the GC sphere). That's despite the pretense they originally stated (although many have now forgotten they ever did) that they were anti-trans rights and validity 'to save LGB people from being erased, or 'transed'. I can say that despite being a gay dude, I have never once been transed or felt like I needed to be transed.
And let's imagine GCs were to get the world their 'activism' wants to end up with. As famously Sky News found out when they mistakenly had a trans person on to talk about themselves, no-one has to prove going into toilets or changing rooms now. It doesn't stop creepy cis men from entering them to do whatever they want to women. So for this essentialism we're going to need certificates after those tests and inspections, and presumably bouncers on the doors (as Kellie-Jay Keen herself has agitated to get men 'who want to protect women from the trans' to go do so, even by getting armed). But most of the bouncers are men. And as 'male' strength (which we haven't mentioned testing here) is another reason to exclude trans women, and having a penis is threatening and frightening for women, it would suggest to me that having men checking genitals or certificates on the door isn't exactly going to be a comforting plan.
Of course, it's incontrovertible that (cis) men do indeed attack women (cis and trans) at a much greater rate than (cis) men get attacked. But we should instead, firstly, get these men to stop enforcing their will and inherent power afforded by our hierarchical systems on women, rather than doing the 'easy out' in just invalidating trans existence. And then following this, including those 'reformed', work together to overthrow the systems that the ruling class have enforced on us all, including the power and wealth imbalances between sexes those systems were created to have burned into them, and to improve the material conditions for us all, to give these men a sense of a place in an inclusive society built on common decency and humanity, rather than them believing they need to uphold some sick, toxic form of masculine stereotype that predating and abusing women is now their only outlet for their lost life.
And finally, the group GCs never talk about - trans men. That's of course deliberate too, because the discourse is based on you being convinced that 'trans people are all men playing dress-up to get into women's spaces to predate on them'. If we were to play their game to its conclusion, just based on what sex you were assigned at birth, these 'females' would have to be supported in women's-only spaces. But they're not wanted there - because not only are they 'traitors who've given in to the patriarchy', but because you are defined by either having, having had (and then 'mutilated') or 'desiring' a penis. And if you 'qualify' to one of these, you are portrayed as someone just waiting on the spark of a brain cell to be violent towards (cis) women.
How can you ever have true equality when both on the one side the real violence caused through the imbalance of men and women in our 'society' is allowed to continue by the status quo as it creates villains for diversion, and on the other side those who may well have been victims in that, deciding the only way forward available is to deeper entrench that imbalance to 'feel safe', whilst continuing the same hierarchy to undermine and demonise an even more marginal group of people? Attack the real perpetrators and the system itself - and create a equal, just world where humanity truly thrives together.
Thank you for reading another long-form blog of mine. I again apologise if I have used any cumbersome or clumsy language in my answer to the question. Please educate me on anything I have slipped up on.
Coming up in future, I would like to dive into one of the right-wing media's "good gays" and how what they promote on their TV show, and the fact they are the one saying it, is used by the Right to hook people into anti-trans 'talking points' and pushing them into social conservatism as a plan to eventually turn them against all of LGBTQ+ people and our place in society.
Love you all. Peace.
Paul.
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