What is a woman?

[concretevase]

I just wanted to clarify what everyone thought this meant given recent events at the olympics.

A person born with a uterus and vagina, raised female, with boobs and has periods and the ability to carry and birth a child is not a woman?

Sex is defined as the potential to produce one of two gametes, and is determined by a person's genetics.

So someone who has eggs in their uterus...

Apparently it's whatever a man says it is.

No, not necessarily. You don't have to reach fertility for your body to have had the potential to organise itself around the production of large or small gametes.

But a woman (and only women) produce large gametes (eggs).

Well according to mumsnet it's none of the above.

Having a "F" on your passport, according to the IOC. That's literally it.

Eggs in their uterus???? Someone failed biology

Age 18+, xx chromosomes.

None of the above what?

Mumset isn't a monolith, there are all kinds of people here.

Have Mumsnet published their own biology textbook? How exciting!

Is there a link?

Biology not your strong point? The uterus isn't like a storage cupboard for your eggs......

Gametes are reproductive cells, also known as sex cells, found in animals and plants. In animals, female gametes are called ova or egg cells, and male gametes are called sperm.

An adult human female - regardless of whether they are fertile or not.

I bet this about a boxer (or two)?

Yes, but eggs are stored in the ovaries...not in the uterus.

Not someone who looks like a man and punches like a man

given recent events at the olympics.

There is absolutely no evidence that either one of these individuals has boobs and has periods and the ability to carry and birth a child

Even if those attributes were what defines a woman.

A woman is an adult human female. For 99.999% of women, this means she has no Y chromosome.

If you are talking about the boxers, how do you know they each have a vagina, uterus and periods?

The presence of breast tissue and how they were raised is irrelevant

I'm always surprised at how little some people, mainly men, understand about female biology. Even my husband, recently, seemed uncertain as to just what a cervix was........and we know about David Lammy.

And, assuming it is about a boxer, I’d love to see your source OP, you seem so very much better informed than the IBA/IOC rest of us

Eggs only reach your uterus when they're fertilised. Otherwise they're stored in our ovaries.

How are these men going to give birth, out their arseholes? Ridiculous.

How old are the other Algerian female boxers, anyone know? You'd have thought in Muslim countries there would be significant pressure on a woman to marry and have children by the time she got to her early 20s?

I'm asking the question because I have been completely appalled by the MN threads in response to what's happened at the olympics.

My biggest problem with the trans debate is trans women telling me that 'just because I have a vagina and uterus and I have given birth' I don't know what it means to be a woman, according to trans experience.

I find it absolutely fucked up that those exact things - having a uterus and eggs and periods and having the possibility to have children, having boobs, being a woman, having periods, being born female, having a female name, being raised female are now not even enough to be classified as a woman??

If I am pregnant with a boy I also have high levels of testosterone. If I have PCOS I also have high levels of testosterone. Doesn't mean I'm a man.

A woman is an adult human female