@thatonehasalittlecar
As for those conflating the use of cis in a very specific way in this argument with predators raping women in prisons - do fuck off. We can be more nuanced in our navigation of this issue. Do I think we should blithely open all women’s spaces to men? Of course not. But can we facilitate the needs of a small group of society who themselves are persecuted and abused in horrific ways? Yes I think we can - and should.
I am extremely uncomfortable with (for example) self-certification being open to abuse but we need to work on ways to prevent this whilst still acknowledging that there are people who need support with their identity as it relates to their position in the world.
But the genderist assertion that Woman is a mixed-sex group that splits down into cis (female) and trans (male) woman is fundamentally against the types of exceptions you have laid out here. Do you see that?
In practical terms, you don't need to say a trans woman IS a type of woman to support and proect her. You can achieve exactly the same thing by saying she's a type of man who needs special treatment. Or if calling her a man is too distressing, you could explore some of the third sex / two spirit concepts.
So why is it so important to genderism to say not just "she needs to be treated as if she were a woman" but "she actually IS a woman, the defintion of a woman includes her", and thereby redefine womanhood from a simple fact about the body to a type of mind or personality not just for trans women but for ALL women?
It is purely and simply to make it impossible to justify exactly the types of single sex rights and exemptions you support. If you can convince the world that the ineffable "womannyness" shared between trans women and cis women is more significant than the difference between their bodies, it becomes much harder to justify treating them differently.
The point of reframing the group of males who (believe they) identify as women from "men who we sometimes treat as if they are women socially" to "a subset of women who have male bodies" is to create a situation where treating trans women and cis women differently for any reason beyond the purely medical is by definition transphobic and bigotted, because to do so is to place the trans woman as a lesser type of woman.
It allows them to frame differentiating between trans women and "cis women" as equivalent to racism or homophobia, which logically speaking is a nasty little sleight of hand because it presupposes sameness without explicitly arguing for and proving it, and thereby frames any objection as introducing a difference between things that are fundamentally the same rather than challenging that supposition of sameness in the first place.
(As an aside, I've said "between trans women and cis women" because that is how is is always presented, but in practice by "cis women" they actually mean female people. Yes, I know that is not what they say, and probably not even what they consciously think they believe,yet it is evidenced by their actions. Because for all the rhetoric about "not all female people are women", anyone actually attempting to create female-only analysis, spaces, supports or provisions for female people who do not identify as "cis women" is immediately condemned as "transphobic" and faced with social, legal and sometimes even physical attack. Genderists talk a good game about personal identity and widening definitions but in practice need most of us to continue to play our part as "women" so trans women can identify into it.)
This isn't paranoia. It's on Stonewall's website. There is a hashtag #RapistHill under which people openly acknowledge their belief that yes, because trans women are a subset of women and not a subset of men then a trans woman does belong in a women's prison even if she is a rapist and they are ok with that and will defend her right to be there because she is as much a woman as a cis woman and they think they are the good guys fighting bigotry in doing this.
(Aside 2: I'm not entirely sure what the justification is for housing a trans woman with female prisoners without also separating the female estate into women and those who do not identify as cis women. I mean, the ideology may justify housing "women" together but what about the other females? That never gets considered, exactly because the people who focus on what TW need never acknowledge that redefining woman to avoid anything specific to females creates a massive gap between "women's" provisions and what female people may need.)