> Right? She's a woman, which awesome... Women are cool. Some people who give birth aren't women.
I’m lost, could you explain this? Are you referring to birth by those who don’t identify as female and were themselves born biologically female?
I’m lost, could you explain this? Are you referring to birth by those who don’t identify as female and were themselves born biologically female?
Yes, I'm referring to several groups of people - trans men who were born women, intersex people who may have been assigned man or woman, non-binary/queer/agender people who were born with a functional uterus.
All three of those groups might not be women. They may identify as female, but not women. Or they may not identify as female.
Language is evolving and not settled at all, but there's a movement to separate the concepts of "man" and "male". For example, we can probably agree that Bruce Willis is manlier than PeeWee Herman. But they are both male. Manliness, how much a "man" someone is, is a huge spectrum and it's socially defined. Likewise, how "womanly" someone is is a spectrum, and also cultural.
By separating the concepts of man from male, and woman from female, we can discuss how womanly or manly someone is, and what our societies expect from the roles of women and men.
I find it useful. Others have strong aversions to even discussing the concept. I'm happy to answer further questions!
This doesn't seem to be anything new. Go back 100 years, or more, there were manly women and effeminate men.
In many ways the gender rigidity of late 20th century western society is an exception in human history.
So now we're policing people's gender based on their habits? "If you wear pants you're not a REAL woman"?
I think it's a bad practice. If I want to wear a skirt and call myself a man or a woman wants to wear pants, who the fuck cares.
(Traditionalists care, a lot, as it turns out.)
I say let people decide what they want to wear and not make any assumptions about how to label them.
[0]: The Machineries of Empire series
I thought the male/female dichotomy was the one meant to be separated from matters of identity, and simply be a biology based designation. I understand identifying as man or woman or neither is a self determined social designation; but how can someone claim that they are not female if they have two X chromosomes?
The easiest way to explain this is that being intersex also exists in biology:
These sets of people are small, but non zero. It's probably safe to say nearly all XX people identify as female.