[–]AntifaStoleMyPenis
I made a post about this a few years ago [
A] but the long and short of it is:
Basically there's no way to explain a trans woman's womanhood that doesn't render the whole concept of "nontransitioning nonbinary person" null and void... other than turning woman into a meaningless nonsense word of circular definition, as you've noticed.
Like it's not actually hard to argue that trans women are or becoming female, it's just impossible without exposing the fact that Gender™ is a naked emperor that identifies as wearing clothes lol
[–]Meiguishui
Most of these stupid conversations would be avoided if we didn’t have self ID and changing sex was dependent on a diagnosis followed by hormones and surgery.
Most of these conversations would be avoided if we didn't feel the need to legally align society along the lines of sexuality and mating. But people are dumb and it pleases their amydalae so we do.
Yeah, why this obsession with mating? It’s almost as if it’s necessary for the survival of the species. Weird.
Nobody said it wasn't. Missing the point.
[–]SpphosFriend
The reason we don’t answer is because the people asking It aren’t asking in good faith.
This.
If you give any good answer they can't argue against, they just go "Noooo, it's an adult human female!"
They're not talking with you. They're talking at you. And as long as you're being talked at, no amount of engagement is going to produce good results.
[–]Mya__
“What is a woman?”… I don’t understand why more people don’t just answer that question?
I answer it every single time just by using the dictionary... It's really simple.
woman
noun
- an adult female human being:
- an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth:
~~
The Dictionary
And all I did was look it up in the dictionary. The Dictionary is the thing that people made to record and categorize what words mean and how they are used by people. When we have a question about a word the dictionary is a good place to start.
If you want a personal definition
I like the more recent one: A Woman is an adult human female - and I like this one because it's simple and after I completed transition I became an adult human female (using current binary definitions)
If you want a medical definition:
Woman
–
noun –
A term used to describe someone who self-identifies as a woman or as feminine based on what is important to them as an individual—including gender roles, behavior, expression, identity, and/or physiology. ~~
Stanford Medical Dictionary
[–]not-ok-69420
Consider this:
What is a female?
The delineation is arguably just as blurry as "woman".
[–]ImposssiblePrincesss
Better to understand the question you're asking.
No one is here to write a dictionary. This is a political talking point, part of a set of such points arguing first that trans women are not really female "because of her biology" and that she is not really a woman because "women are female".
It's very childish, really.
Non-abrahamic (not Jewish, not Christian, not Muslim) societies have allowed people "born male" to renounce their sex and become eunuchs for tens of thousands of years. Those eunuchs, posing no risk of making women pregnant, were always allowed to live as women - adopting female names, wearing female clothing, and living by female rules - if they wished to do so.
Only in the west do people see someone made miserable by the rules of masculinity and tell them "live as a man anyway, we don't care".
American and British society, with its bloody past of colonialism and slavery, should consider finally learning some empathy and some compassion, instead of the being the orgy of cruelty it has now become.
The basics are this:
* Trans women, while not biologically identical to cisgender women, are almost always more similar to cisgender women than to cisgender men in any way that matters to the society around them.
* Trans men, similarly are more similar to cisgender men than to cisgender women.
This may not always be true if we don't consider medical transition and surgery and look only at self identification, but the reality is that most trans people who are given the opportunity to get hormones and surgery will do so.
There is a need to recognise that, in the situation where a trans person hasn't transitioned medically, some restrictions may be needed, temporarily, while also giving that person the opportunity to cross that line.
That being said, those restrictions (e.g. a trans woman having female hormone levels in order to play sport) shouldn't be designed to make life humiliating or unliveable for trans people.
India's model, where anyone can get a "T" or "X" marker on their passport by self-ID, wear the clothes of their preferred gender, and have full rights (one day, when society catches up) but you need medical transition to go to "M" or "F" opposite from birth, might be a compromise in those countries that can't bear to have full self ID.
Of course, the coutnries that do have full self ID, like Australia, are doing just fine.
[–]madmushlove
Honestly, the answer you gave would just be laughed at and interrupted.
People answer that question all the time just like that and they're turned into INTERNATIONAL HUMILIATION MEMES for it. No thank you
[–]3amcaliburrito
>“What is a woman?”… I don’t understand why more people don’t just answer that question?
probably because it's never asked in good faith. it's always just a shit-stirring effort in an attempt to own the libs
[–]mxtrekkie
Because the only definition they'll take is "an adult human female." Anything else, they'll call it woke, DEI, gender extremism, or whatever else is the flavor of the week.
They will accept not a drop of nuance.
Something that bemuses me about the "adult human female" line is that it still does not categorically exclude trans women.
[–]hole-in-the-day
Woman is the social category associated with the female sex. To be part of a social category, you both need to recognise yourself as belonging to it, and other members of your community need to recognise you as belonging to it.
I understand the appeal of just wanting to use the first part and making it entirely a matter of self identity, because that includes every trans woman.
But that's not how social categories work on a societal level. The way you're viewed by other people determines how you're treated, what spaces you're allowed in and the gendered assumptions people make about you.
When you meet someone,
in a split second your brain genders them and this informs the way you interact with them. Most of this process is subconscious, and even people who are otherwise progressive won't quite treat a non-passing trans woman as a woman.
This is why until sex changes became a thing, barring the vanishingly few who could pass and go stealth, trans people were largely treated as being part of a third or fourth gender category, and they still are in many parts of the world where transition medicine is less available.
It wasn't until you could actually alter your phenotypic sex with hormones and surgeries that this changed, that trans men were able to live as men and trans women were able to live as women.
In an ideal world, all trans people would belong to their self identified gender category. But that's not the world we're living in, and most of the issues trans people face are rooted in this. It's why we're misunderstood by most medical providers and given shitty treatment. It's why we're mistreated by the legal system and socially marginalized. If we want social progress and medical advancement, we have to first acknowledge where there is a lack of progress.
We need a better slogan than "trans women are women."
[–]SnapDragon100
The social presentation of the female sex.
"
A person who prefers female sex traits, and/or cannot tolerate male sex traits, and otherwise prefers to be treated & viewed as female" is a good answer that isn't too vague but also not too exclusive. Bit of a mouthful though
[–]Kuutamokissa
Someone who is automatically categorized and treated by both individuals and society as a whole as an adult human female, who interacts with individuals and society like an adult human female, and
whose life experience accordingly is that of an adult human female.
[–]Zoeeeeeeh123
My definition of a woman would be this:
A person with physical (sex characteristics) and/or psychological (gender identity) and/or
social traits (societal gender norms) t
hat are most commonly associated with people of the female sex.
[–]bannakaffalatta2
Anyone with a female brain
Isn’t this usually said by TERFS/gen
Idk tbh, I just think it's true no matter who says it
[–]Progressive_Alien
I go off Jovan Bradley’s definition which is:
A woman is an adult human whose inner sense of gender aligns with traits associated with their schema on the female sex.
A good follow up question to ask the trans exclusionist is:
Can you tell me what is the necessary condition to being a woman that excludes Transgender women but that wouldn't exclude other Cisgender women from that category?
[–]RaccoonTasty1595
A woman is someone with a female fender identity. Which is different from claiming to be a woman. Anyone could claim to be one, but gender identity is involuntary.
Same with men, same with enbies.
But generally this question is just a distraction. It shifts the focus from getting trans people the help/autonomy/safety that we need to arguing about semantics
[–]Own-Primary5315
Adult human female fits just fine unless you don’t think sex can be changed.
Wouldn’t that be excluding trans women who haven’t yet transitioned/ have reasons (financial, safety etc) for not transitioning medically?
definitions by virtue are exclusive. How would you define the “typical experience” of a woman? Because if a woman said having a menstrual cycle, that would exclude elderly women and non fertile women, and women on contraceptives. I don’t think a definition has beat “adult human female” just yet.
this is a non nonsensical response that gets used.. elderly women were once prime adult women. same with no fertile women; they have an exception to the rule that would otherwise definitely apply to them.
Well, I think my initial point still stands. Adult human female seems to be the best definition if you know humans can change their sex. Female humans/girls/women can be assigned male at birth
BUt can we ereally change our sex? This is another misnmer I think.
Secondary sexual Characteristics are not sex. But then that is transphobic or something.
Maybe it would be better as “adult human female and people can change sex”
I say "An adult human female. Like me since age 29."