This sort of hot take makes me think she deserves to drown in student loan debt, and its accumulated interest, for the rest of her stupid, brainwashed life.
Mel's a woman--a biologically female human, with two X chromosomes. Being a woman, she has a certain balance of hormones that shape her physiology, and the way she thinks and feels, in ways that are generally different from what people with XY chromosomes--men--experience. Yet at the same time, there is enough variability within the sexes that she could have a more male-like appearance, or way of relating to the world (including her outward self-presentation), and that would not make her less of a woman. The biggest, butchest lesbian who ever lived was still a woman.
She could potentially carry out a specific reproductive function, but even if she can't, or chooses not to, that doesn't make her less of a woman. She just is one.
She is, however, fortunate enough to live in a time and place where she doesn't have to carry around all the cultural baggage of "womanhood," or "femininity," based upon reproductive potential--and given a turbo-boost by consumerism--that is overlaid on the basic biological fact of "woman." She can pick and choose which items from that baggage work for her (wearing lipstick; endearingly cute and quirky incompetence), and which ones don't (having sex with men).
Men who claim to be trans women are not women, and never will be, no matter how eager and active they are in carrying the cultural baggage of "womanhood." At best, they are skilled and diligent performers of "femininity." At worst, they claim "womanhood" as a means of exerting dominance over actual women, without even bothering with the performative aspects, or else only doing so in a way that satisfies their fetish. But no matter how active they may be in pursuing an identity of "woman," they are not women.
