Are trans women, women? What is a woman? It's a cluster of traits that's reappeared so often that we recognize it as a pattern. These traits are all over the board - physical, behavioral, mental. Nobody has the perfect set of all 'woman' traits, but we recognize 'womanness' 1/
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in traits; e.g., 'dresses' are something that occur in the 'woman' cluster. A certain look to facial features and body type is also associated as 'womanness' (and why trans people try to assume this appearance in order to become 'womanly'). Same with genitals and temperment 2/
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It's also based a lot on shared experience and treatment! Being raised female is a 'womanly trait'; having men pursue you is a 'womanly trait'. Wanting to have a safe space away from ambient sexual pressure is a womanly trait. 3/
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So - are trans women, women? I think the question should be, "How much do trans women overlap with the 'womanhood' cluster of traits?' and the answer is... it depends. It varies per trans person, and depends on how much society perceives them as women. 4/
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For some trans women, they overlap so closely to the 'womanhood' sphere that I consider it bigoted to not consider them to be women, because really the amount they deviate from the womanhood-traits-cluster is not really more than biological women. If you're going to call 5/
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a trans woman who overlaps harder with femininity than butch lesbian Jill 'not a woman' then you are probably transphobic. Because a lot of "actual women" aren't that womanly. I myself have a lot of traits that push me away from womanhood, yet you still think I qualify. 6/
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This being said, some trans people don't map very well onto womanhood at all. I think this is really unfortunate for all parties - it really is painful and dysphoric for them, and confusing and difficult for others too. I think *this* is where "trans women aren't women" could- 7/
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I think one place this discussion seems to go off the rails is in what you write: "wanting to have a safe space away from ambient sexual pressure" quite reasonable, but then prejudice about where pressure comes from is extended to a whole group of people. feels rather unfair...
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