QT (but anyone who can answer): is there a consensus within the trans movement/liberal feminism on the definition of 'woman'? And what is the source of said definition?

submitted by SnowAssMan from self.GCdebatesQT

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[–]luckystar 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

Interesting point about the cross dresser. I've honestly never seen any that weren't pretty obviously their birth sex since usually they don't get hormones/surgeries which help with the secondary sex characteristics. But I suppose it could be possible, especially if they're androgynous to begin with. So if we use the social role definition, I suppose they temporarily fill that social role? Just very briefly or inconsistently, whereas transsexuals fill the social role as often as possible.

So I've heard this point about sex being determined at birth, and as I said I'm not super sympathetic to the "you can change your biological sex" argument to begin with, but I think the best rebuttal I've heard for that one is to wonder why a person's traits at birth should be used as a baseline for describing that person later in life. We change many ways throughout life and usually your current iteration is the most relevant one: we're born infants but don't continue to call ourselves infants in adulthood, we'd call a person with blonde dyed hair blonde rather than focusing on "well (s)he's actually a brunette", a person who loses a leg in an accident isn't still considered able bodied just because they were born able bodied. So if a male person doesn't have testicles anymore, is it still relevant to focus on the fact that they had them at one point?

As I said I don't fully agree with that argument, but mostly because that logic also implies that a woman is "less of a woman" if she involuntarily loses one or more of the characteristics used to determine that she was female at birth (or vice versa for a man), and that just feels wrong to me. If I was comfortable with the idea that someone could be "more male" or "more female" by checking off those checkmarks on the list of ways of determining sex, then I think it'd be fair to at least say that a person who has transitioned is a mix of both sexes, neither wholly male nor wholly female. But since that logic has weird implications for the 99.7% of us who are cis I really don't think it's a great idea.

[–]SnowAssMan[S] 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

So trans-women who don't pass are socially cross-dressers?

The person who has lost a leg is still a biped, the fact they are disabled is obvious, but it doesn't change what (noun: biped) they are, only what kind (adjective: disabled) they are. Hair colour is beyond trivial.

There is little else more female than having had a hysterectomy. The female-status of a woman who has had her uterus removed, is no more compromised than that of a woman who isn't currently pregnant.

[–]luckystar 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Good question. I should probably clarify that I think the cases in which trans women actually fill the social role of women are very rare, because many (most?) trans women do not "pass". Frankly I find it hard to believe that people actually view non passing trans women as women. They might say so to be polite, or because they are unaware of their subconscious bias. But the biological sex and gender role socialization pre-transition influence both the individual's behavior and the way they are treated by others. So it's hard for me to say your typical Gamestop Ma'am is a woman even socially because everyone is going to interact with them as they would a man, not a woman.

One example I find really interesting is the case of the trans "woman"/non binary/hot mess that was the leader of Black Trans Lives Matter, Cherno Biko. Biko sexually assaulted a trans man and made weird comments about wanting the trans man to bear his babies. Even though both of them are trying to assume the social role of the opposite sex, ultimately their interactions more closely mirror those of their biological sex. More info here: https://www.lipstickalley.com/threads/transwoman-activist-cherno-biko-confesses-to-raping-a-transman.1068515/ About 3/4 down the page there are screen caps of their text messages, and if you read them without any previous information, it's immediately obvious who is female and who is male (in terms of biological sex). This isn't an isolated case either. So no I don't think assuming the social role of the opposite sex is as easy as some trans people think it is.