Perhaps the trans woman gets what she needs (wants); to be called a woman.
But under Trans Orthodoxy she doesn't just want that though, does she? She wants to be accepted as a woman. For there to be no functional distinctions made, ever, for any reason, between her and people of the female sex unless it's directly concerned with the body.
It's certainly what Trans Orthodoxy thinks she needs, but is it really? Are there other ways she could have been supported and happy if this pernicious ideology had not told her that this is the only way she can feel valid, safe and happy? And that anyone who disagrees that she must have status as a woman hates her and wants her to suffer?
And even if it is exactly what she needs, does her need outweigh the need of female people to have a meaningful classification of themselves as a physical sex upon which they can pin their rights, support and analysis and make sense of their experiences? Do you think the needs of the male person outweigh the needs of the female?
Trans Orthodoxy says Yes. I say we need to find a way that accommodates both. Simply replacing the definition of Woman as a sex with Woman as a feeling is not good enough.
Is it not meaningful for someone to be referred to as a woman if they feel they are a woman? And does that encroach on my (for example) woman-ness in the sense that I am a biological woman?
That's the point I made in my original link. Yes it does, because it accepts that the biology of a woman is irrelevant to womaness (it has to be, because trans women don't have it) and therefore, womaness is a quality of the mind. Which (1) I utterly reject as deeply sexist, limiting and damaging to women (and men, incidentally); and (2) means by that definition I'm not a woman.
You seem to be positing that we square that circle by having two entirely separate classifications of woman with nothing in common But that renders the word Woman meaningless. It describes nothing, and it cannot be tested. Anyone can be a woman. And that renders any laws and protections attached to it meaningless as well. Perhaps you think that is a worthwhile cost for female people to bear in support of male. I don't. I want to find a better way.
In terms of the law at least, though, is there an argument that trans women could/should be included in legislation regarding women?
Sure. Absolutely. As long as we have evidence that trans women are statistically indistinguishable from female people: that they have the same opportunities, suffer the same limitations, suffer the same level of domestic and sexual violence, are abused and trafficked the same way, commit the same crimes at the same rate, have the same pay gap, take on the same amount of unpaid domestic and caring labour, are underrepresented in seats of economic, cultural and political power to the same degree, suffer the same workplace and social micro (and macro-) aggressions...show me the evidence for that and I'll campaign alongside you. But without that evidence, based simply the ideological assertion that they share an undefinable and undetectable womaness with me that I don't even recognise in myself? No.
In a face-to-face situation though, someone who looks like a woman (you'll appreciate I'm being general/perhaps reductive but you know what I mean) will be seen as as a woman first and a person second, no? As will a man. Gender-neutral pronouns would make sense for things like job applications and email signoffs, certainly, in terms of showing up and perhaps lessening discrimination.
You are missing the point a bit. It's more about which differences we highlight and which we don't. For example, we don't have different pronouns for blondes and brunettes. We do for sexes (or genders if you will). That is an assumption, running all the way through the culture of languages with male and female pronouns, that sex (or gender) is so core and significant to a person that you cannot talk about a person without disclosing their sex (or gender). So moving to neutral pronouns may not change anyone's knowledge of sex face to face but deprioritisting that knowledge by taking it out of everyday language chips away at the legacy patriarchy built.
What is your stance on trans men? Some aspects of the trans debate are clearly weighted towards being a problem for women but not for men in that, e.g., women/girls are more likely to have experienced sexual violence at the hands of men and so safe spaces like changing rooms are vital. I'm interested in whether there are aspects of the debate that disadvantage but not/more than women, and how one approaches that.
That's another essay. But briefly:
I think Trans Orthodoxy is harming trans men as well by claiming there is only one way they can be happy and I worry a lot about the huge increase in trans identifying teenage girls. I think Trans Orthodoxy is preventing analysis that might reveal a different problem or group of problems for a significant number of these these girls. I don't feel I can speak to the impact of trans men on men because I am not a man, but I think the power difference and especially the implicit nature of male power and privilege vs the explicit nature of female rights and protections* means that trans men do not pose the same existential risk to men as a class that trans women do to women.
(Another essay! The former comes from social and power structures that were formed under patriarchy to fit males, the latter from defined laws and rights, which means it's easy to make the latter apply to trans women simply by saying they do, while the former cannot simply be reassigned because there is no one place they are defined. After all, if we could just take male power for females by saying we shoudl have it Feminism could have shut up shop years ago!)