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?

@HazelLemur
You say The brains of transgender women are almost identical to those of cisgender women.
Out of interest I asked Grok if that was true. Here is the answer:

"Scientific studies on brain structure (neuroanatomy) do not support the claim that the brains of trans women are "almost identical" to those of cisgender women, nor are they identical to cisgender men. Rather, research suggests a complex, intermediate, or unique pattern, often showing characteristics in between cisgender males and females."

Whether or not the transwomen have yet taken feminising hormones when their brains are scanned is also an important point.

Are you going to tell Grok it’s an immoral, transphobic bigot?

Did you just fully endorse the need for accurate data collation, not simply based on a GRC?

Because virtually everyone here agrees with that wholeheartedly.

Be the flaw here is you're differentiating between the "real" transwomen and the other ones who are pretending to be women. How do you define the difference?

The trans population in the general population is tiny. The numbers within the prison system is disproportionately high.

Why are you so willfully trying to diminish womens right to voice their valid, data evidenced, fears of VAWG?

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.

And just because you want social reality to be significant and pertinent to a person's 'sex category', that doesn't make it any more material reality. And your 'physical' reality is that only ever as a male person.

If a group of people require that philosophical theory is required to support their subjective reality and that reality still doesn't reflect material reality, it is not going to change. No matter how many times you repeat your wish.

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.

Yes, there is one single cell with chromosomes that define a person's sex for all purposes and contexts for the entirety of their life. Sex realist 101.

Most keep their meat and two veg, putting them squarely into the "has the means to rape a woman into a forced pregnancy" camp.

I don't know. I'll take your word. I would believe a trans woman on HRT would be in the 'incapable of impregnating anyone' camp. I'm uninterested in having a discussion about violence with you or anyone else here.

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.

Not all trans women are indistinguishable from women. Some are early in transition and indistinguishable from men. Every trans person engaged in the process of the reassignment of sex are legally different from those who are not. It is not their responsibility for the feelings and prejudices of others.

Not all women will still perceive them as a rape threat. This is a sex realist belief.

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

Exactly.

Why would you have been culled @onepostwonder ?

Nice to know that Grok is being factual about the question.

Due to having frequented this board for years, I’m well educated on SRY gene expression. I’ve personally read about 12 original papers on brain differences between sexes, linked by people who actually provided citations for their arguments in previous threads. Blah blah blah, didn’t take into account sexual orientation, plasticity, blah blah blah. I’m happy to treat people with Swyer’s syndrome as women, all the brain stuff is inconclusive or bad science. Been here, done this before, can’t be arsed again. The end.

Ok.

There is no context where a group of male people is considered to be not 'male people' for the analysis of risk when it comes to risk assessment for female single sex provisions though.

So, how are you including it within a context that is not compromising female people's safeguarding?

And again, your wish to use your own special definition of female sex category is not going to be ever an acceptable definition for the safeguarding of female people.

Please explain how, as women, we distinguish those who found Gender Jesus upon conviction from the run of the mill male who finds GJ because it gives him a thrill to insert himself in women’s intimate spaces or makes it easier for him than for any actual woman to achieve sporting records, and why those people should be treated differently from any other male.

"I'm uninterested in having a discussion about violence with you or anyone else here." @onepostwonder

Thanks for being honest about one thing. Your disinterest in anything concerning women is clear as day.

Bugger, did I miss my chance to repost these Borg pics?

Noooo not the Borg!!!!

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 agree, none of that has ever made me a woman.

My treatment by society makes me a woman. Regardless of what I wear, how I style my hair, whether I wear or don't wear makeup, the tone of my voice, I will always be identified by others as 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.

Good for you?

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.

You've referenced men specifically. How about women? You've leaped from one person into a statement about all trans women being violent and aggressive. Are all the 'men who have identified as women' you know been violent and agressive?

I always amused at 'sex realist' being used as an insult.

Even for the particularly GI captured, surely they have a moment of 'hang on a minute....'

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

Until recently, no one knew anything about chromosomes. Facts were derived from obseriving everyone's bodies. Physicality is a fact. The experience of another person is a fact. The later two facts are more present and influential in day to day life than the sex chromosomes in the single cell at the beginning of life.

Could the rise in support be due to all the students and other young people anticipating the utopia that will be Britain when Zack has legalised all drugs, even the hardest and most damaging? Anyone who could even imagine doing this has shown himself to be completely unfitted to govern.

You've leaped from one person into a statement about all trans women being violent and aggressive. Are all the 'men who have identified as women' you know been violent and agressive?

Coming back to the OP’s statement that all ‘the community’ speaks as one….

And if you go with ‘Acceptance without exception’ and ‘I am who I say I am’ then the likes of Stewart, Bryson, Baker & AidaP
are just as much part of that community as @HazelLemur, @onepostwonder & old Butters.

Humans are more dimorphic than other species, but even if we were a more monomorphic species like cats and dogs and the differences in sex were less pronounced, it still wouldn't be possible to change sex and we would still be a species that reproduces sexually and there would still be unavoidable consequences to being male or female.

Until recently, no one knew anything about chromosomes.
Your point? Until recently, no one knew anything about graphene or dark energy or clustered interspaced short palindromic repeats either.

Like bollocks you would have.

This is all the kind of thing one might assume if one were a man who knew absolutely sod all about being a woman.

I know, it's bizarre isn't it? I'm not only a sex realist, I'm also a gravity realist, and a "need to breath regularly or I'll die" realist, I'm sure there are things I'm realistic about.

Yes, data can be useful when used responsibly. Data can also be used to harm people. I am supportive of accurate data collection, when done fairly and impartially.

I am not responsible for differentiating between real trans people and those who are not. The data are being presented in a context constructed to support a belief.

I do not diminish womens right to voice valid, data evidenced, fears of VAWG. There are definitely some women who viscerally link trans women to violence and danger. I believe some linkages are valid. I believe some linkages are prejudicial.

Chromosomes we're first identified in 1882, the X chromosome was identified in 1890 and the Y chromosome in 1905. Not sure if 140 years ago qualifies as recent.

Identication of the SRY gene is more recent having only occurred 36 years ago

I am not responsible for differentiating between real trans people and those who are not

Yeah, because there is no way to distinguish between a man with good intentions and a man with bad intentions - although no man with good intentions would invade women's spaces.