Being a woman is my biological reality: my lung capacity, life expectancy, medical treatments or diseases I am likely to get, periods every month. Yes, not all women have them - but most have had them, or have the biology in place for reproductive processes.
It has also shaped how I am socialised, what I am paid, how people perceive me.
I do not 'perform' woman. I once had very short hair, don't wear make up particularly, have a masculine nickname and wear trousers. Did I suddenly become a man?
It is also why I am a victim of sexual and physical abuse. My body. My sex. My lived experience. No one gets to erase that or tell me that the sex I was born with hasn't shaped my life.
Historically, women have been silenced politically, socially, sexually, emotionally - and physically. Factors involving that include race, class, period of history and I'm sure other factors.
Look at the vitriol women MPS, women on social media, black women get. Never mind everyday sexism in the workplace.
I recognise gender is complex and everyone works on their own identity. For me its because I fundamentally don't believe in gender binaries - for god's sake, just 'let' men wear skirts and make up and heels. All men, any men. Let women not have children (me) without judgement, wear make up or not, be a boss, girl not a derogatory word. Let men cry and women shout.
I recognise the rights of anyone who has experienced oppression at the hands of privilege and misogyny. But they don't get to erase the importance of sex in determining that for others. Woman's rights AND trans rights.