Maya Forstater

If there is one trans person on the panel who considers themselves a woman, then it does them a huge disservice to say "that person isn't a woman, we need an actual woman." But it is perfectly legit to say "we need more women on this panel, I'm going make space for another"

Sorry, due respect but I think this thread gets the question wrong. The point of the #manel pledge is that cisgendered men experience an immense amount of privilege and we should take our panel invitations as an opportunity to put that privilege in check and elevate other voices.

I'm not sure how the pledge was formulated, but if it says "the panel needs one woman" (leading to the above dissection) then it was mis-formulated. The pledge should be "the panel can't be all cisgendered men".

The original wording was "At a public conference I won’t serve on a panel of two people or more unless there is at least one woman on the panel, not including the Chair.”

Given that pledge wording, I don't understand what your objection is. A trans woman is a woman - seems quite simple & straightforward. It seems frankly odd that you are talking about diversity while seemingly being openly hostile towards trans people.

How do you define woman?

Thanks I've read that. How would you define women?