Are We Really 'Women' On The Inside?

[HazelLemur]

Dear friends,

As anyone paying attention to current trans affairs knows, the anti-trans brigade like to throw around what they think is the “killer question”.

"What is a woman, then?"

These people will often engage in triumphal sneering as they further insist "Your chromosomes are what you are; XX are women and XY are men. It's science, innit?"

And as a confident trans-woman I say to these people "Absolutely! What is a woman? Great question! Let's examine that".

To begin, let's consult three definitive sources:

First, the Cambridge Dictionary of the English Language.
Then, modern genetics and neurophysiology.
And finally, up to date research on brain structure in cisgender and transgender women.

First, the dictionary.
For this, let's go with the Cambridge Dictionary of the English Language:

Woman (noun)

1. an adult female human being
2. an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth

As we can see from #2, despite the recent social backlash and disproportionately loud screeching from certain murky corners of the internet, Western culture as a whole is moving toward accepting the validity of trans peoples' inner gender identity. No person with a working moral compass would consider this a bad thing.

Next, let’s summarize genetics and neurophysiology.

Modern society routinely treats all the following “XY” humans as WOMEN, however...
-You can be a woman because you have X & Y chromosomes but your body is insensitive to androgens and you have female anatomy & gender identity.
Ah, so much for the childishly simplistic “But women = XX and men = XY".
-You can be a woman with X & Y chromosomes but your Y is missing the SRY gene, so you have a female body and gender identity (yes, this is a real thing despite your denials).

People who have X & Y chromosomes, but their Y is missing the SRY gene, develop a female body.
Should we treat such people as men, in society, when they have the body of a woman, simply because simpletons insist that XY = Male?
Only an inveterate bigot with some weird religious and/or psychosexual axe to grind would say yes.

You can be a woman with XXY or XXXY chromosomes, giving you a male body but female brain/body map and gender identity.
-You can be a woman with XY chromosomes but a mutation called CBX2 that blocks the influence of the SRY gene.
-You can be a woman because you have 46,XY in some cells but 46,XX in other cells, or 47, XXY.

These are all valid, scientifically obervable genetic variations that highlight the "But XX = women and XY = men" mantra for the simplistic, unscientific nonsense that it is.

And lastly, there are studies of brain structure.
These show that in the section of the brain that determines one’s sense of gender identity.

The brains of transgender women are almost identical to those of cisgender women.
The brains of trans men also align more with cisgender men than they do with women.

And so, to summarize

Modern science, which is how rational people resolve differences of opinion.
It is not about referring to holy books, written in pre-scientific ages past.
It is not about regurgitating simplistic, binary statements that you learnt in the 4th grade.

This shows us that, genetically and biologically speaking, there are many types of women; including transgender women like me.

P.S. In this essay we have a summary of the cutting edge science which validates transgender womens' biologically determined, inner sense of gender identity.

As I’ve said, a rational society follows rational explanations, and doesn’t define its people via outdated religious or cultural ideas.
But beyond that, there is simply human courtesy and kindness.

It’s cruel, hateful and rude for the transphobic bigots to demand that people be forced to conform to their anti-scientific notions.

No one's life is affected negatively by honoring a transwoman as a woman, as the historical record of many trans accepting societies have shown.

Good people will see the very challenging dilemma that transwomen are in, and their natural empathy, coupled with scientific insight, will make them want to support their fellow human beings in being who they know they are.

And so, I ask all of you:

Should we as a society treat trans-women as the women their brain and neurobiology tells us they are? And, if not, why on earth wouldn’t we?

P.P.S. The image in this post is of women who have XY chromosomes, but an androgen insensitivity syndrome which causes their bodies to develop as female.
Would anyone in their right mind insist we treat them as males, simply because of their chromosomal makeup?
The bigots might, but you know you're better than that, right?

Curiously, a few weeks we had a young fellow with a Spanish name doing some work for us. He was from Venezuela. His family had left the Socialist Paradise because it was a bit shit, really, and he shed no tears for Maduro.

Years ago I knew someone who had fled Czechoslovakia, never expecting to see her parents and brother again. Once again, the Socialist Paradise hadn't quite worked out. (Fortunately, communism collapsed and she was reunited with her family.)

I regularly listen to a (mostly non-political) podcaster, originally from Bulgaria. He got the hell out, hoping to make it and not be disappeared. Several times it has become clear how highly he values freedom.

I briefly knew a Chinese academic, who refused to have her lectures recorded and available on the internet, in case she said anything that could be used against her family back in the Socialist Paradise.

Greens? Yeah, no.

In fairness, Mumsnet is a bit TEFF-y. And thank the gods for that! Without the marvellous women of FWR on Mumsnet, women in the U.K. wouldn't be nearly so well protected thanks to the campaigns, support, networking and the odd bit of gardening to help the legal cases.

The OP mostly 'fell on deaf ears', in that it was absolute bunkum that we've all heard before and can debunk in our sleep. So again, she's not wrong.

It's hard to politely hold a differing view while saying clearly that you don't want to rehash it.

Sometimes I feel exhausted going through the same arguments with TRAs and the Be Kind well meaning cohort who lack critical thinking about the consequences of their 'kindness.' So I can relate to Iggy's position.

Cult?

I am well aware. It wasnt my argument, it was my recollection of their argument.

I'm still waiting for OP to provide some evidence about how TW have ladybrains just like women do.

I'm about to go and walk the dogs. I'm sure there'll be a clinching answer by the time I get back.

Although, I'd suggest that mumsnet is a wee bit more than "a bit TERF-y".
Inherently TERF-y, perhaps.
Aggressively TERF-y would also be nearer the mark.

We aim to please.😁

If you have considered male violence against women and girls, and still conclude that males should enter female intimate spaces, then you have decided female privacy and consent matter less.

I can answer this from my experience. It's not going to be compatible with sex realist beliefs, but this will be unsurprising.

Trans women are not men. Yes, some trans women appear and act very 'manly' for values of 'man.' I've spent some time trying to understand what is different today vs when I transitioned—to try to understand what is behind the sex realist belief of 'gender ideology.' In simple terms, it's likely something around society's accommodation of visible and out trans people and public inclusion and acceptance of visually trans lives in culture rather than those of us who checked all the boxes for social integration and 'made sense.'

Deciding and/or believing trans women are women means they are women (no, not for all purposes and circumstances, but in general, socially. No woman is identical to all other women in all circumstances.) Including trans women as women does not diminish women. It does not displace women. Women do not require consent to be amongst women. Deciding to label all trans women men does not alter the reality that many trans women go through life as women. However, many more trans women remain identifiable as trans women (or, 'men' as you say).

Believing trans women are women does not mean female privacy and consent matter less. It means all women are women and deserve privacy and dignity.

Women cannot assess which males are safe by appearance, identity or assertion. That is exactly why single-sex spaces exist.

No we can't. I can't determine who is absolutely vile or dangerous while I move about my day. But we are all forced to be in proximity to strangers in many circumstances and environments. We have laws and cultural ideals that seem to do a mostly okay job at regulating behaviour, but are not perfect.

Single-sex spaces don't exist because of male appearance, identity or assertion. I think this is a convenient assessment, because it aligns with gender critical beliefs, but males are at most half of the story.

Secondly, I believe most people can determine whether a visible trans person is either in or completed transition. The PC of gender reassignment protects those in and around the process of reassignment of sex. It doesn't protect a belief in sex reassignment, it specifically addresses a person engaged within a process ("any part of a process undertaken under medical supervision for the purpose of reassigning a person’s sex by changing physiological or other characteristics of sex.")

Sex realist assignments of types and motivations upon trans people don't make a difference. Under sex realist beliefs, life is binary. Everything else is meaningless.

I have major feelings about the motivations of some people. I can't control who i interact with other than avoid them when they make themselves obvious.

The compromise is simple: female spaces for females, male spaces for males, and single-user provision for anyone who needs it.

This isn't a compromise. It's a social declaration based on an narrow definition of sex reliant upon a person's moment of conception rather than the physical and social reality of life.

What is not a compromise is making women absorb male risk, then calling it kindness.

Defining trans women as 'male risk' is a choice.

Here in the UK men always remain men, however they choose to present.

The problem is (or among the problems) the OP’s post contained reference to ‘what a woman is’. The definition of a woman was central. So when someone comes along and says both that ‘transwomen are women’ and that ‘transwomen shouldn’t be in many women-only spaces’ they are, within the same thread clearly using two definitions of ‘women’. It’s relevant to explore that, so when they then say ‘shan’t expand’ it can be frustrating. Why comment at all if you don’t want to discuss what you’ve posted?

ETA it had more than a whiff of “I’m not like those other mean girls” about it.

@onepostwonder Single-sex spaces don't exist because of male appearance, identity or assertion. I think this is a convenient assessment, because it aligns with gender critical beliefs, but males are at most half of the story.

This is clearly not true. When we know that males commit more than 95% of all sex offences, and we know that of the transwomen in prison more than half of them are there for sex-related offences, the need of women for safeguarding against male offences is very obviously far far more than half the story.

The solution is an annual land tax on the value your land would have if:

• it were "unimproved", so no buildings on it;
• everything around it, like roads, sewers, gas mains, schools, were there; and
• there's planning consent for buildings or other improvements if those exist in reality.

So the value of my land for land tax purposes would be for an empty plot on my existing estate with permission to build a house just like mine.

Why?

1. Land is an uncreated resource that cannot be exported or hidden in a shell company in a tax haven.
2. Everyone who "owns" land as freehold does so because someone stole it from the commons at swordpoint and has sold their stolen goods on ever since. We should pay rent to the commons for the land we occupy.

It's the fairest tax, the hardest tax to evade, and it forces efficient land use. The only practical barrier is the need to abolish or reform leaseholding.

"Defining trans women as 'male risk' is a choice."

If you mean correctly analysing that risk that all male people, including every male person who rejects that they are male, is a safeguarding choice, then yes, I guess it is. It is safeguarding necessity.

Considering that it is also the basis for single sex provisions under the EA2010, I guess it could be considered a 'legal necessity' too.

but sure... it is your choice to ignore all that.

I dunno, but my brother actually HAD a brain scan when he was being diagnosis. Nothing there to show anything wrong but also nothing to show he's female either.

I also believe that biological women have a right to preserve certain women-only spaces, especially in sports, prisons, rape shelters. Not bathrooms or changing rooms.

The Equality Act 2010, as clearly confirmed by the Supreme Court judgment of 16th April 2025, does not agree with you. Women also have a right to single-sex lavatories and changing rooms.

Has anyone played BINGO with this thread yet?

You’ve fallen at the first hurdle. Transwomen are men, so literally nothing else you say after that has any meaning at all.

TW are men. Their Wolffian ducts developed in utero and they have known that they can never get pregnant from as soon as they were old enough to understand reproductive biology.

Most keep their meat and two veg, putting them squarely into the "has the means to rape a woman into a forced pregnancy" camp. The few who submit to genital mutilation are indistinguishable whilst clothed from the ones who haven't, so women will still perceive them as a rape threat.

Nothing else about their clothing, behaviour, beliefs, attitudes, motives, or any other aspect of them matters.

Nah, Red - we haven't had "you're all old and will die out soon" or "wrong side of history" or "you're worried your blokes will fancy us" yet. He's just not trying hard enough with his stolen homework

Although the OP did claim we're all Brexit nutters at one point, so there's one cliché ticked off.

There's a few been crossed off. I'll have to update re: voting intentions

So many words to avoid the simple reality that whether you use the word "women" for us or not, female bodies exist, they are different to male, and this has physical and social consequences for those of us who have them.

So really, the only question is whether we are to be allowed to acknowledge this, to speak about how our bodies have consequences, to have a name that is exclusive to us and to campaign under it for the rights, protections and opportunities we need to make our way in the world the best ways we can.

Either way, our reality doesn't change.

Men can change what the word "woman" means to include them as well, sure. But all they do is change a word. It doesn't in reality move them any closer to being us than any other man is.

And all the word soup in the world can't change that.

TL literally DR

Men are men, dress or not.

The UK trans identifying prison population being three times more likely to be inside for sexual assault is enough for me to keep all men out of all female spaces forever and to campaign for it to be criminalised. I ascertain I'd have the support of the country.

So what makes you a woman?

Your ladybrain?

The artificial hormones you take?

The surgeries you've had?

The clothes you wear?

Because you say so?

None of those make someone a woman.

I have known a lot of men who have identified as women. One transitioned when he was 20-odd and is now in his 60s or 70s. He has "lived as a woman" whatever that means for nearly 50 years. He probably looks more like a woman than most men who have transitioned but I can still tell that he's a man. And it's not the physical characteristics. It's the entitlement and arrogance, the mansplaining and talking over women and assumption that he's always right. Because his lived experience is that he grew up to be a man.

I'm sure men treat him as if he's a woman, but the problem that men identifying as women might be as vulnerable and badly treated as women are, is not our problem to solve. But I don't see them on the streets campaigning for their own spaces, or against violent men. They become violent and aggressive and want what is ours.

Just because you say you are a woman doesn't make it true.

I love this! Can we add "No, YOU'RE the cult"?

This isn't a compromise. It's a social declaration based on an narrow definition of sex reliant upon a person's moment of conception rather than the physical and social reality of life.

It's not a declaration or a narrow definition, it's a reality based observation, you are physically whatever sex your biology makes you.

There is no such thing a 'social reality of life', if someone choses to pretend to be something they are not, it's not a reality it's a delusion .