Defining a woman by her sex is not reducing her to her biology

As yet, I have heard no reasonable explanation of how a person with male biology is in any meaningful way a woman.

I don't care about your appearance - it is irrelevant.

Exactly, Lefkoskia. The brain is part of the body, and is shaped by experience. Who we are now is in very large part the result of the experiences we've had from birth until the present moment. Being biologically female has a huge impact on what those experiences were from when we were babies and are now. There's no way to separate these things out, because we are not brains in jars.

Totally agree with you OP . And great username too!

I don't understand the idea of the mind being separate from the body.

My mind is part of me - it is produced by neurons or whatever in the brain. My neurons, my brain, part of my body. I don't see how you can separate the two.

I am a woman. It is a biological label. I am also a mother, a daughter, a sister, a professional, a crocheter and many other things. None of these reduce me; they simply describe something about me. It is not necessary in all circumstances to give full details about every facet of my life, and not doing so is not reductive. It is normal and practical.

If 'woman' is not a biological label, then what is the point in it as a word?

Biology is the only way to define women that can accommodate all women regardless of personality or particular experience.

That is brilliantly put.

It's how we all, generally, understand it, but I've yet to see it described so succinctly.

OutyMcOutface

Your post interested me too.

Because I've given it a fair amount of thought myself.

When I first read the feminist theory that there is little difference between men and women apart from their biology, a part of me felt a little indignant.

Like you, I feel as though I 'get' women. Not on a massively profound, telepathic level, just generally.

And that, often recognised, common bond led me to the conclusion that there are differences other than physical.

But, after seeing many feminists' conviction, I began to challenge my own thinking. Partly to prove to myself that I was right.

And that's where I became unstuck.

Because, try as I might to analyse and articulate the differences, I struggled.

Every time I thought, yes but women are more...or women tend to... I realised that I could find any number of men who were 'more' or 'tended to', and any number of women who weren't.

So it wasn't an innate difference that all women shared, and all men didn't.

And simply can't be described as such.

I do agree, wholeheartedly, that men and women behave differently, often.

And on an anonymous online forum like this, it's incredibly interesting to see the difference in how men and women relate to the same topic. On the same thread.

It has become fairly obvious, to me, that it's lack of experience navigating life as a female, that will inform men's opinion. Not an innate difference in their thinking.

And that experience, will be something that an incredible number of women share, irrespective of their personalities or the way they think.

Human interaction only has two sections, men and women.

My shared experience with women has got nothing to do with my personality. Because there are very many women who simply don't have the same characteristics as me.
The only thing we have in common is biology, and yet that does inform our experience.

Not just the obviously biological one, but the way we interact with both other women and men. The way we are treated. The things that are expected of us. The things we expect of ourself.

I would be really interested, since I have tried to do it myself, whether you can describe the essence that you feel makes you a woman, that does not link directly to the fact that you are different, or are treated differently, because of your biology.

I'm not ashamed of my biology and thus don't find it offensive when people acknowledge that it exists.

I feel like with some of the more over to top "omg don't mention genitals that's intrusive and upsetting) people there may be a history of CSA that's contributing to their panicked response. There's a whole lot of trauma as a motivation for transition among girls that's being swept under the rug, I suspect. Problem is though, expecting the rest of the world not to acknowledge your or by extension their sex ever is not reasonable and isn't going to work. Individual coping mechanisms can't be imposed on the general population, it's just not a workable solution.

One the mystical unexplained feminine essence stuff though, sorry, not buying it. I think that we develop a sense of ourselves as female or male based on both our bodies and our life experiences. Children are aware of the distinction between girls and boys from a very young age. That has an impact on how we see ourselves and others, who we relate to, etc. The rest is veering in a religious or spiritual sort of direction and being an atheist is actually legal in the UK (and a lot of other countries).

I was brought up a Catholic and so very much with the idea of having a soul. But every experience I have ever had has used my body: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. I am aware of being in my body all the time, especially when it's not functioning very well. I've never been able to do that yoga thing when you disassociate from your body (in fact trying to meditate makes me hyper sensitive to my bodily sensations) and I find the idea of dualism very difficult to truly understand. My mind is my body and vice versa. There is no waking up in another body because out of my body there is no mind. My personality is a product of my brain, formed from raw genetics plus every experience of my body from conception to the second I write this and beyond. If I had been conceived male instead of female then I'd be someone else. You can't be 'born this way' in mind and not body, they are the same.

Outy, I think I understand where you're coming from. I don't think this is an issue that is confined to sex/gender, but encompasses the whole of human experience and our desire not to be 'reduced' to a body. This comes back to the fact that we are self-conscious animals, who are in denial of the fact that we are ultimately animals.

Experiencing one's mind as separate from the body is a universal experience, I think. Hence why mind-body dualism is such a widespread and long-standing philosophical concept. Trans ideology is rooted in mind-body dualism (a self that doesn't 'match' the body) and that's why it makes so much instinctive sense to people, even though, looked at logically, it doesn't make any sense at all. How can someone be 'born in the wrong body'? You are born as a body; you are not a separate being from your body.

It reminds me of Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, where a taxidermist is in love with a woman who refuses to marry him because she is repulsed by the nature of his work, which she finds offensive to her deepest sense of herself as more than just an animal, physical being:

Does she know the profits of it? "She knows the profits of it, but she don't appreciate the art of it, and she objects to it. 'I do not wish,' she writes in her own handwriting, 'to regard myself, nor yet to be regarded, in that bony light.' " Mr. Venus pours himself out more tea, with a look and in an attitude of the deepest desolation.

I guess I am confused about the idea that a brain/mind can be separate from the body, which seems a modern conceit. We are one being and our experiences are as an embodied beings, we are hairy mammals not an "idea". There seems this obsession with wanting to escape and deny our bodies. It makes sense when to be a female person means to be sexualized and objectified but we are real physical beings taking up space. Denying the reality of our biology does not erase it. It seems a lack of joined-up thinking about political and philosophical ideas have got us to a place where a person with a penis can claim to be a woman and are trying to criminalize objective observations to the contrary.

Outy -thanks for your explanations. I think it is very likely that some people do have a sense of disconnect between what you describe as a physical and metaphysical self, and that when someone feels feminine but is male bodied then gender dysphoria arises. I also think that most people do not feel a sense of having a separate physical and metaphysical self.

Can I ask you to ponder this? What are the traits that make your metaphysical self feel feminine? If you lived in a society where traits such as being nurturing, taking care of your appearance, kindness and softness (or whatever traits you associate with your metaphysical femininity) were seen as masculine, and femininity was associated with strength, hardness, emotional repression etc, do you still think you would describe your metaphysical self as feminine?

Completely agree. The patronising tone of why are you reducing women to vagina really gets me.

It’s mostly done by males who desperately want to be women. Why they do it is a mystery.

Ah, I've though of it. So I am both physically and metaphysically feminine. My physical state is female and (fairly) feminine. My intellectual state is womanly and feminine. Fortunately for ne the two coincide but one doesn't necessarily stem from the other. Obviously there is, to a degree, a positive feedback cycle between the two but you can't really say that they are the same because they aren't. I tend to think of the metaphysical as being the more real than the physical so I when I think of a 'real' woman I think of it in a metaphysical sense, not a physical sense. So to say that my body is what made me a woman makes me feel somewhat objectified and reduced to my physical which is not me. I'm just an I think therefore I am kind of gal.

*This doesn't mean that I'm pro GRA. I actually think there are a whole lot of issues with the treatment of trans people, in particular children/young adults. I'm just trying (and failing) to explain what it's like for me. I guess you can only understand it if it's the same for you.

It's difficult to explain but I guess you could say it's metaphysical. My body just isn't a reflection of myself. I just sort of inhabit it. I kniw it spubds mad but I'm not particularly attatched (in terms of how I understand myself/emotional attatchment) to my body. I have a female body, obviously. And that does have an effect on the the way other people perceive and treat me but it's just not really a part of who I am. It's more where I am. If you read pp a lot of them describe only really feeling womanly or feminine when their bodies through puberty became so. It was never like that for me. As long as I can remember I was definitely 100% feminine. I've always felt a disconnect with the masculine. If I read a book with a male protagonist for example and, while I enjoy it, I don't really get it completely, I just fail to understand men the way that I can understand women. To an extent it's because I've lived life as a woman but my life has only been a very narrow segment of the spectrum of what life like a woman can be like. I still find it easier to understand women despite different experiences. And then take things that are masculine. I often wear men's clothing for example but it doesn't make me feel at all masculine and I don't really get a sense of masculinity from 'masculine' things in the st way that I get an overwhelming impression of femininity from lacy floral underwear (Chloe and Lola type stuff) and the smell of lavender. Like pp have said I just know that I am a woman regardless of my body. Indeed I don't really know anything else. I can identify societal norms of masculinity but I don't really identify with or understand any of it. I haven't explained this very well but I find it difficult to really conceptualise something that has always been with me and is such a fundamental part of my life experience. I'm a woman even without my body I guess. I was womanly before by body grew into that of a woman and, if the after life exists, being separated from my female body won't make me feel any less womanly. My body really doesn't define my femininity. It's just me. Hopefully someone else will come along who can explain it better.

Biology is the only way to define women that can accommodate all women regardless of personality or particular experience

Very well put.

Its just such a stupid argument. As is the argument that defining women by biology is reducing them to walking vaginas. Just so so silly

Really enjoying this thread. I have nothing of value to add, but I am learning a lot. I find this whole discussion can be so adversarial, so it is really useful to be able to draw on calm, clear arguments like yours OP (and others). So thank you!

Great post OP and thanks for speaking up and debating

I could walker up tomorrow morning with a massive penis but I am and forever will be a woman

That's not too likely though, is it?

You're a woman because of your biology - you may subscribe to femininity - and be feminine - so do I - but your biological sex was determined at conception. It's not something that's going to change.

Agree, OP. I posted this a couple of days ago:

It doesn't reduce a woman to her vagina or chromosomes anymore than calling Donald Trump a president means he is restricted to being merely 'head of state'. He's also old, fat, an arsehole, a misogynist, racist, orange, rich, a father, a husband and stupid.
A woman can be many other things as well, and the joy of language is that we have the words to describe those other things.
Woman is a biological term. It doesn't need to incorporate a load of other meanings for the sake of a few dishonest little men who want to lay claim to it.

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It really winds me up. This disingenuous attempt to make out that anything biological is either taboo or an irrelevance. All of us are here because we grew in a woman's womb for 9 months. It's not a bloody irrelevance.

“Biology is the only way to define women that can accommodate all women regardless of personality or particular experience”

It is the only thing that women have in common. Apart from being confined by attitudes in society because of it.

Great post Op.

Yes I was about to say that I think it's quite important to stay in the realms of reality as so much of the counter arguement is beliefs and feelings. There is no chance that you will wake up with a penis. Not a sentence I was expecting to use on MN this evening.

Can you separate 'woman' from 'femininity' OutyMcOutface?
They are two completely different concepts.
female and feminine are not the same thing.

A butch woman, men's clothes, short hair, 'masculine' interests is not feminine. But is a woman.

Shane Thingummy from Celebrity Big Brother is certainly feminine. But is entirely male.

Female refers to your reproductive system (whether it is currently functioning or not) and chromosomes. Woman is a mature human female, girl is a juvenile female.

There is nothing inherently insulting or reductive about knowing that the word for people with ovaries is female.

There are numerous words that you can use to describe your personality traits without ascribing them to everyone else in your reproductive class.

It's ascribing 'femininity' to an entire reproductive class that is reductive, not acknowledging that the class exists in the first place.