Finally crawled out of anonymity to be reported to my former place of work

How can someone with XY chromosomes be a woman?"

The correct answer being, of course;

A) if they have a medical condition such as androgen insensitive syndrome where cells in a developing foetus fail to respond to the masculinising effects of testosterone and develop as a phenotypical female

Or

B) because they say they are.

All that defensiveness makes me think she didn’t know the answer...

You only asked a simple and reasonable question from what i can see

This is a brilliant example of the authoritarian, totalitarian, repressive and anti - democratic cult that transgenderism sadly is.
These are not my words, they're by@ Redtoothbrush, an insightful and thoughtful poster on here.
It needs repeating. This nonsense is an example of a classic cult. It is Transcult.
When you talk about a cult, the automatic assumption is religious nutters who believe in the end of the world. Our image of a cult in this way, often prevents us from seeing one for what they are.
A cult doesn’t need to be a religion. Its merely a set of beliefs to which adherence to is crucial and central to a sense of belonging. Someone’s entire being and identity becomes intrinsically linked to that need to belong to the group. There is nothing else in their life beyond that. In the case of Transcult this is either being a transwoman/man or a liberal trans ally.
A belief in a cult can be political as easily as it can be religious, but the structure of such an organisation remains remarkably similar: a charismatic leader, a simplified singular goal or aim, restriction of critical thinking and discussion, a central bureaucracy, discouragement of interaction with others outside the group, a punishment or enforcement system, a hierarchy and a system of roles within the society and loyalty to the group at the expense of all else

There's much more, this is just an extract. It's probably good that they've reported you as it highlights the lack of any substance to the allegations. It's just bullying, intolerance and misogyny.

I agree. Groupthink. And not an ounce of critical thinking.

Can I make a quick suggestion.

Although her Facebook is public, I'm not comfortable with your link.

Could you screenshot the conversation, cover her name and post that instead?

She is easily identifiable. And although I think she's misguided, I don't like that she can be easily identified by anyone here or lurking.

Yeah, biology professor, you really need to educate yourself so that you know as much about biology as some angry random on Facebook.

Well - it seems to me there's a bit of failure of logic here, as she's changed the nature of the question. You've asked "How can someone with XY chromosomes be a woman?", which she has taken to be a statement that "trans people aren't valid". Now "woman" has usually been accepted to have quite a clear, objective meaning (someone with XX chromosomes and not XY chromosomes - and this is also implicit in your question). So, "is someone a woman?" is equivalent on your line of questioning to "does that someone have XX chromosomes?". This is perfectly logical.

"Is someone valid?", however, is much woolier. What is it to be valid? Fucked if I know. It is presumably the opposite of being invalid, but I don't know what that is either!! If she wants to have a logical argument with you, then she needs to make the case that "woman" does not in fact mean "one with XX chromosomes" and provide an alternative definition of "woman"....but that in itself must be open to debate.

Plus - what's she reporting you for exactly? You have asked a question. Politely, with no use of pejorative language. It is, I would argue, the question that stands at the very heart of this issue.....

Oh dear. That is literally the stupidest person in existence.

(With a public facebook?? At least I know now what transactivists mothers look like, fascinating stuff)

Bloody hell, you simply asked asked polite questions .

I hate that we can't even have any public discussion about this without the fear of being accused of being a TERF or whatever. It's mind boggling.

I love "educate yourself". Being called a bigot is what got me to peak trans. I googled to find out if I was bigoted for saying trans women and women aren't identical, and instead found a whole heap of batshit TRA rhetoric plus reddit Peak Trans threads.
I think "educate yourself" is backfiring.
Also lol at telling a biology lecturer they know better, so do better. Idiots.

Jeepers. That escalated quickly. I really don't get how these people equate a question with an attack.