A small lie that will be utilized later against other women. Powerful words, thank you. Um, yes, it is very possible I am avoiding confrontation, a behaviour which, now I think on it, significantly overlaps with being polite.

Gender actually has a range of definitions, including gender as sex, gender as a social role or class, gender as norms and expectations, and gender as a performance or expression. The most recent and rarified definitions of 'gender identity' refer to something even less concrete than gender norms and stereotypes. This includes an 'innate sense' an 'internal map' or 'norm relevancy' - the feeling that gendered norms apply to one. Ultimately, however, they are either based indirectly on sex or one of the more socially concrete definitions of gender, OR they are divorced from these and become self-referential and incoherent. I think of this newer collection of definitions as the 'essence' concept of gender/sex, because they posit a female or feminine 'essence' existing separately from actual biological sex or social femininity.

For anyone who is interested, I can recommend Katharine Jenkins's philosophical paper, "Amelioration and Inclusion: Gender Identity and the Concept of Woman*" in which she attempts to define womanhood according to gender identity, and makes utterly clear her political reasons for doing so; namely, the prioritisation of male voices in feminist spaces.