We all know a woman is an adult human female, but who should we consider "female?"
disclaimer: this not a debate about womanhood. this post takes for granted that we can all agree a woman is an adult human female, and this is NOT the place to advocate for any nonsensical, post-modern, or gender theistic definitions of womanhood or femaleness.
instead, this post is intended as an invitation to discuss immutable sex, and to ask, in the rare, rare cases where phenotypic sex and chromosomal sex diverge, which type should be emphasized in the binary classification of sex (because contrary to what some folks want us to believe, intersex people are still either male or female).
I will be making my own arguments, but I want this to be a group discussion and I am very open to hashing out ideas together and taking in opposing viewpoints from other GC feminists. if this ends up being too long to read, feel free to comment anyway— I am willing to clarify any and all of my viewpoints in a personal reply <3
now, with all that out of the way, what is a human female? I know, I know, it seems like a nonsensical question to ask here. obviously, a female human is either a woman or a person who will grow into one.
but with an increasing number of TRAs exploiting DSDs as props to try and muddy the clarity of our position, how do we determine who is female in a way that can't be thrown off-balance by the existence of DSDs?
so, generally, the two camps I tend to see are those who say that chromosomal sex should be the determiner (all XX people are female, regardless of anatomy, socialization, or how they show up in the world), and those who think that phenotypic sex should be the determiner (all people with vulvas whose bodies developed to produce large gametes are female, regardless of chromosomes, developmental disorders, or strength). so I guess I just wanted to take a pulse on where most of us fall so we could talk out our ideas together?
personally, I would argue for unification around immutable, phenotypic sex, since misogyny and patriarchy have been in existence long before we discovered chromosomes. I mean, we've only known about chromosomes for a little over a century, right? if we're unilaterally going to define the class of people who experience sex-based oppression (women) around chromosomes, how did men know to oppress us before chromosomes were discovered? that's right, our phenotype.
I get that it's not easy or convenient to move from a simple, snappy definition of sex to a slightly more complex one. I agree that, in general, women are adults with XX chromosomes that produce eggs and men are adults with XY chromosomes who produce sperm and win the most Darwin awards, but I think this definition only works because the unspoken expectation is that people will connect the dots between chromosomes and the phenotype that those chromosomes result in.
but what about when the dots don't connect? it's very rare, so I don't think shifting to promoting phenotypic sex will really put us out much, but think: is it more appropriate to define sex based on the thing that nobody can see before discriminating against you, doesn't directly affect your socialization, was not known about when sexism began, and is potentially wholly incongruent with your anatomy and the way you navigate the world? or, does it make more sense to define it based on your natal anatomy, the body the world sees, and the consequences that living in such a body poses for its inhabitant?
many GC people don't view XY DSD women as women, but that take just doesn't fully compute for me yet. even if she had internal testes, an intersex woman living in the 1600s would've been just as liable to be forcibly married off, raped, or abused as any other woman (hell, many intersex women were probably beaten for their infertility— something that doesn't happen to men), because our sex-based oppression isn't based on our chromosomal sex; it's based on phenotypic sex.
likewise, a modern XY intersex woman living in a conservative country is just as liable to be a victim of FGM, honor killings, or dowry deaths as any other woman. these are not men's hazards to navigate or men's traumas to endure. these are our pains. our wounds.
an XY intersex woman with a vulva isn't living life as a man. she may be mocked for being masculine (something that only happens to women), she may be bullied for having a flat chest (something that only happens to women); hell, she'll probably be criticized as less than a woman for not being able to give birth (again, something that would only happen to a woman), but none of these things are male experiences. to boot, intersex conditions are also commonly known as disorders of sexual development. why would a person having testes and high testosterone be considered a disorder if they were a man?
even if you were to try to flip it and say that they're a man because the female body is the disorder, rather than the testes, I still don't think that's the most accurate way to look at things, because a.) why would the breasts and vulva, something that does happen in healthy members of one sex, be considered the disorder, rather than internal testes, something that doesn't happen in healthy members of either sex? and b.) how do we talk about concrete and indisputable examples of sex-based oppression if we insist that some of the people who experience it are men? people already dismiss conversations about gendered violence because "men experience violence and rape too," but what will happen when we give people the chance to tack on "and men too!" to conversations about leblouh, or mandatory veiling, or child brides?
to me, phenotypic sex is an airtight way to exclude men while also acknowledging how and why women have been targeted for oppression since before the discovery of chromosomal sex (it was based on our female anatomy, regardless of DSDs), and, an added bonus is that nobody can say "men too" when talking about sex-based oppression.
because if we're arguing for strict chromosomal sex, any TIM could claim that the existence of some impoverished Cameroonian girl having her breasts ironed and vulva mutilated despite having XY chromosomes, proves that unless we're willing to call her a man, he can be an XY woman too.
in order to disprove him, chromosomal sex advocates would have to effectively argue that the FGM and breast ironing survivor was actually a man, which TRAs can use to paint us to normies as irrational at best, and cruelly dismissive of survivors at worst. phenotypic sex advocates, on the other hand, could just emphasize that sex is an immutable phenotype, and that having the same chromosomes as a man doesn't change the fact that the girl was born into a female body, and therefore is a woman who will experience misogyny, and that the TIM is a male with male privilege who is choosing to opt into an oppression that he can choose to escape at any time.
and speaking of male privilege, there are XX men out there— who're socialized male, have phallic genitalia, make sandwich jokes to their girlfriends, and get to be one of the "good old boys" at work. seatbelts were specially tested to keep them safe. their heart attack symptoms are well-studied and will be taken seriously. if he works at the same job as an XY woman, he will make a dollar, and she will make 95 cents. he will be promoted more readily and more often. she is passed over with the assumption that women are predisposed to be mothers and therefore she will not be there for the long hall, even though she is infertile. which one these people is experiencing women's issues? if DSD women aren't women, why don't they just opt out of misogyny? plenty of TIMs do**.**
in short, my position is that, although we can (and likely should) distinguish intersex women from the rest when it comes to sports, a woman is not inherently desexed by having a disorder that gives her XY chromosomes or internal testes, in the same way that a shirt doesn't become pants just because you put your legs in it rather than your torso.
to be clear, me arguing for phenotypic sex is not me saying that anyone with boobs or an approximation of a vulva is a woman. I also do not think anyone can "become" a woman. I, like chromosomal sex advocates, believe that sex is immutable; I just believe that sex should be defined by the body you were born with, and the systems that body developed to house, whether or not they are functional or present.
defining womanhood by the systems alone is why TRAs think they're clever when they say "but what if a woman doesn't have ovaries?" or "what about hysterectomies?" it traps you into arguing about all possible exceptions to the rule.
meanwhile, if the meaning behind "adult human female" is "adult human whose body developed to accommodate and produce large gametes," you sidestep that entirely. no ovaries? okay, her body was still designed to integrate some into her endocrine system. no uterus? okay, well her body still developed with the assumption that it would be housing one. internal testes? okay, but her body and anatomy are still formed to accommodate a uterus and female biological processes. man with big boobs and neovagina? sorry, dude, your body was built around producing sperm and being a general nightmare. that's not a woman.
and I get the fear that straying from strict chromosomal sex will lead to giving men the go-ahead to play woman— I just feel as though a phenotypic definition is able to exclude those men just as easily without shutting out women who, despite their health issues, can only ever live as women.
changing "adult with XX chromosomes who produce large gametes" to "adult who typically has XX chromosomes and was born with the anatomy to produce large gametes" doesn't let men in, it reunites us with women who, 150 years ago, we would've had no doubts about calling our sisters. hell, you could even simplify it further and say "adult with either XX chromosomes or the anatomy typically caused by XX chromosomes."
what do we gain for ourselves by turning to other women who have faced sex-based oppression alongside us for all of history and suddenly pushing them into a separate category, when their interests are as much our interests and their wounds are every bit as much our wounds (perhaps with the exception of menstruation huts and pregnancy, but those aren't all of our experiences either)? do the people who call them men think they can just get a mastectomy and a phalloplasty (which would be as unnatural and dangerous for them as it is for us) and just waltz into a board meeting as one of the guys? do they think they'll ever give her those five cents? that's the especially distasteful part about equating them with TIMs for me, because they chose to opt into a marginalized identity, to misogyny, and they have the ability to bow out, or even to switch back and forth between "girl mode" in casual settings and "boy mode" when they want to be taken seriously. XY DSD women didn't opt in, and they can't opt out.
and what alternative name is there for the class of human beings that has no choice but to endure misogyny in a sex-based social hierarchy, with no option to choose differently? what else would you call them, other than women?
to repeat my previous analogy, a shirt remains a shirt even if it's wrapped around body parts it wasn't meant to house, because the thing that makes it a shirt isn't that your torso is in it; it's a shirt because it was \*designed\* for you to put your torso in it. on your legs, on your head, or on the floor, its design has not changed, therefore, the essence of shirt-ness (jesus christ what a silly phrase) remains undisturbed no matter what is inside it. I feel that the history and nature of sex-based oppression makes it most reasonable for us to define womanhood the same way.
either way, gals, ty for reading all this junk. <3 I'm here as much to have my mind changed as I am to change minds, so I hope this didn't come across as rude or aggressive, I just have had this on my mind a little and wanted to discuss what is the best approach for defining womanhood in a way that is precise, includes everyone whose anatomy and immutable physiology subject them to sex-based oppression and nonelective misogyny, and doesn't attract the "except except except but what if except" babble from TRAs.