As a lurker-becoming-poster, I wanted to say how fascinating and, ironically, uplifting I've found this thread.
Like so many of us, in the face of suggestions that views like mine constitute some kind of bigotry or are shaped by an echo chamber, I keep reviewing and reflecting to check myself - and threads like this honestly just reaffirm my perspective.
I sometimes carry out this little thought experiment, by imagining someone I know and respect coming on to FWR to assess this hotbed of hatred I've been reading, and skimming whichever thread happens to be at the top of the page. The result's usually the same. Yes, sometimes it includes views I disagree with, or I wouldn't say myself, and occasionally, there's something that I find really distasteful - comments I think my imaginary reader may be a bit shocked by - but mostly, there's just reasoned argument, deep empathy for trans people and good-natured respect for other posters. And there's such a wealth of knowledge and ideas (which is part of what hooked me in the first instance, every other thread sending me scurrying excitedly off to google a multitude of different areas - biology, psychology, ethics, logic, statistics...)
And re: statistics. Other people have responded to suggestions more persuasively than I could, and I know statisticians walk among us (imagine tones of deep awe - I just googled principles of statistical data collection, and fled back here in terror at the weird symbols...) But - really? That argument that outcomes for women have improved most in countries where what a woman is isn't clearly defined, and therefore we don't need to define women?! I mean, really?! And then the assumption that the inclusion of males would be too negligible to corrupt data, so that's all OK then, and to hell with defining clear terms in the first instance?! I was struggling through a scary handout on "reliability, validity and credibility" when I realised claims like this are just too absurd in their own right to stand up, and stopped.
That's the trend that I see in these threads I present to an imaginary, suspicious reader. People thinking about big issues, formulating complex arguments, choosing the right words to express them... and, then, set against that, as often as not, posts like the OP's.
As per, I scoured them in the hope of some interesting arguments, and really could only find some confused reasoning and presumptions of "hate" and vitriol. I found it disturbing how sincerely they seemed to believe that everything other posters were saying was motivated purely by hateful prejudice and a desire to provoke. OK, the flood of questions must have been overwhelming, and responses were direct shading into strongly worded - but that was what they'd asked for: debate! Hateful it wasn't. It left me thinking - again, as keeps happening - that they were either hypocritical as heck, or genuinely so steeped in this ideology that even for women to ask them that essential question on which all this hangs was, to them, indisputable evidence of bigotry. If nothing else, the stark contrast between the kind of aggressive language used in their own posts and the words of those they were describing gave the lie to that.
Interactions like this encapsulate what scares me most about this movement: this conviction that individual subjectivity is paramount, distorting strong arguments on a complex issue into hateful prejudice and thereby simply shutting down any possibility of meaningful communication. Democratic society needs a genuine (not just professed) assumption of good faith, shared terms to describe our world, and, yes, rigorous data collection based on clearly defined criteria. These are basic principles that shouldn't need explaining or justifying! So, no, I think, whatever the statistical arguments, the suggestion that we simply don't define the term woman in data collection or otherwise is a manifestation of a wider trend that is actively dangerous, that we see play out in threads like this.
And, speaking of misinterpretation, and as a consummate lurker - it was just about cake. Just cake. That's all it was.