How do I answer this? *name removed*

[MrMrsJones]

How do I answer this person's response

'So, stereotypes, then? You think fashion choices make you female? You doofus.'

Actually I'd ignore the 'white straight cis male' chump, who knows nothing and isn't interested in finding out.

🤣🤣

So true

Woman isn't a gender, that's where he's gone wrong. Its a sex. Which isn't a social construct.

He's saying a man can adopt the stereotypical, societally imposed sex roles for a woman, but then saying that means they are a woman. No. A woman in an adult human female.

Its more accurate to say they are living as a man adopting the superficial presentation of some women.

I wouldn’t bother arguing with this person!

Gender might be a social construct. But sex isn't. And a woman is a biological female. They're born that way. It's physical. it's coded throughout their bodies. It's not a social construct. It's not a feeling. It's a scientific fact. It's only possible to live as a woman if one is actually a woman. Anything else is simply mimicking what they perceive a woman should look like and how they should behave . But as we know, there is no set behaviour or dress required in order to be a woman . They don't dress the same, they have wide and varied interests, they can and do dress however they please. But the one thing that unites them is their sex. Females. Women. It's all rooted in biology. Their sex. That's it.

And I would also argue that sex, race and disability are biologically real. The way we perceive them, police them, impose expectations and limitations on them or not it's culturally and historically variable.

But yes, as PP have said. The guy's a dick.

@Beckert and @PurplePeaks

I have used both your quotes

I would automatically dismiss anyone who tried to pull rank by announcing all their privilege categories like that.

It's such a DARVO humblebrag.

Hmm. I feel that by saying that ‘living as a woman’ for a trans woman means adopting a set of made-up gendered feminine stereotypes, this guy is probably not very au fait with current TRA thought. I get the impression that if someone who was openly taking the GC position said this was their interpretation of what living as a woman is, they’d be lambasted for transphobia.

Disability is a social construct? Really?

I'll just tell the lipoma crushing my spinal cord that it's a social construct and it'll all be OK then? Aye, right. 🙄

Race and disability are social constructs? So you could identify into or out of either if you chose to?

I suppose social construct is just another label that doesn't mean what you think it means. 🙄

The idea of ‘living as a woman’ always makes me laugh. If anyone took me as their model they would have to wear trousers with a shirt or T-shirt and practical boots pretty much every day, short nails, no make-up or high heels. They’d have to work in a male-majority occupation, cook simple food and drop fashion supplements straight into the recycling bin. There you go: instant woman.

That opinion is telling a large number of women that their gender isn’t woman. Yet society and everyone in it acknowledges them as women. So either he’s wrong about gender, or sex is the critical differentiator and he’s wrong about trans people. Either way he’s a tosser. I vote for B by the way. Gender is irrelevant and women are women.

I'm always tempted to respond to this by asking if being a woman is all of those things, if there's a wrong way to be a woman then?

What are those habits, the clothing, the lifestyle? And what am I if I don't accept them for myself?

And who decided which are woman habits and so on and when was it decided and what happens when these things change? Must we then look back and say they might have been women then, but they wouldn't be today. Or if they contradict each other?

Like in my home country, a proper woman worked full-time and dutifully put her kids in fulltime childcare. In the neighbouring country, a proper woman stayed at home and dutifully raised her kids.

If the stay-at-home mother switched places with the fulltime-employed mother, would the social construct implode?

I know, I know, it's a waste of time and all that, but I have asked these questions so many times, I would love to explore this with someone who truly believes this.
(Questions like What does it mean to live as a woman if it's not about being female? What does it mean to identify as a woman? How many different ways are there to do either? Can you do it wrong? Is there a threshold below which one lives as a man? Does this threshold apply even if one does not identify as a man? Who decides where that threshold is and what factors matter? Which takes precedence, the identity or the lifestyle? How can you tell if someone lives as a woman or identifies as one?)

But someone who seriously lumps together money, religion, race and disability as social constructs in this particular manner probably wouldn't be able to enlighten me.

Because while I may happily identify as mortgage free, the bank will beg to differ. And while my friend would happily identify as able-bodied, she won't be walking far without her stick. And so on.

Talking about social constructs in this particular manner, in this particular debate, is lazy and pretentious.

If only I’d known I could identify out of my disability…. I wouldn’t have needed those 40+ surgeries I’ve had so far. I’ll let my team of specialists know that I have identified my disability away. Yay!

Gender is a social construct, full marks to that man.

Sex tho, sex is NOT (you know babies and stuff) sex is real, imutable and has conquences, espicially for women who have been oppressed for thousands of years because of their physical sexed bodies.

You may also need to explain that no one can change their sex.

Ergh now it's been deleted