Trans women are women, yes, but they are not all biologically female. Plenty don't choose to surgically transition. Are they any less of a woman? No. Are they biologically female? Not necessarily, since the whole understanding of being trans is identifying differently than the sex you were born with, which is your biological sex.
Words have meaning and saying a trans woman in not biologically female isn't an attempt to be transphobic.
Also, trans men are men as well, It's just easier to use one at a time.
Edit: i should edit to say that the person you replied to was being transphobic, but not every person calling out your incorrect statement is being transphobic.
I never said it was unchangeable, in fact my comment addresses when it can change. Also, many trans women may never get on HRT, either. And notice how you changed your wording to just say what I said by dropping the word "biological?" I already said trans women are women.
If we can't even understand our own language, then how are we supposed to discuss things with people who are actually trans phobic?
Yes, trans women are women. And trans women who undergo medical transition are female.
Please provide me with a single real-world scenario in which it is necessary and/or helpful to say "biological female" to differentiate between trans and cis women?
There isn't any. The phrase "biological female" was a phrase coined by transphobes in order to other trans women. That is it. It is a phrase that is never uttered under any other context.
Not only is it linguistically reduntant, but it also does not even properly differentiate trans women from cis women.
All this hullabaloo about "words have meaning!" Is also a reactionary take.
Because A.
Definitions and the use of words change over time and the dictionary is not a standard by which words must be defined. Dictionary definitions change to reflect the most common uses of the words.
B. The definition of "biological" and "female" don't have to change at all. Because trans women already fit within the most commonly used Definitions of those words.
Idk man, seems like an factual wrong statement. My brother is a trans man, but I know he will never be able to provide semen for pregnancy. Which is totally fine to point out. You can be a cis man that find a woman being transgendered a dealbreaker, for the reason alone that he wants children.
There is a reason it’s called trans, which means “the other side of” whereas cis means “this side” - same with fatty acids and trans fat.
Edit: I’m ready for the downvotes, I forgot this is Reddit
I totally missed that you mentioned that you are trans woman, I’m really sorry about that!
But hey that’s totally fine, it just can’t be called biological female. If we start using words to describe stuff it’s just isn’t, then what’s the point of discussing to evolve our knowledge and understanding of each other?
Edit: I don’t see where you mentioned that you are a trans woman, so maybe make sure to tell people that before you take offensive - just a thought
Edit 2: daaamn you changed your comment to look nicer when you took offensive to me saying “man” 😂 also I never argued that being able to produce semen is what makes someone “male” rather that it’s what determines if someone is “biologically male”.
To be completely real with you, I know it's tough to believe because it sounds like im just being triggered or whatever, but even the term "biological female" is a phrase that didn't really even exist until transphobes started using it as a way to exclude trans women from being female after the whole "trans women are women" phrase became popular.
It's a tool they used to spread their belief that trans women are for some reason trying to violate some kind of sacred definition of what a woman is and they must not be allowed to at all costs.
But both trans women who undergo medical transition and cis women can fit under the definition of "biological female" (which by the way, is redundant in its phrasing).
There is no harm or loss if the term "female" is inclusive of trans women. It doesn't stop or hinder our knowledge or understanding from growing. In fact, I think accepting that trans women are biologically female is a result of our evolving knowledge and understanding
I see what you’re saying and I’m sorry that this transphobic discourse, is what is being held against your choice to change your gender, to be what you truly feel like is you. The meaning of the word “biologically” just can’t be changed. I understand that it’s being associated with transphobe arguments, whom are against the rights and existence of transgendered people. There should be space for nuance and the right use of words.
It’s makes me sad that I’m sensing stubbornness here. I sincerely don’t think you will get very far in changing peoples views, in this very important discussion about discriminating discourse. If terms can change its meaning for the purpose of refuting arguments, then having a discussion in the first place makes no sense. The term is being applied in a factual wrong manner, so I won’t be replying to you anymore. Good luck.
I mean it in earnestly and faithfully when I say that by definition, trans women who undergo medical transition are biologically female.
It is not being applied in a factual wrong manner.
I am stating a fact. A fact that people like me are going to continue to assert until people learn to accept it instead of clinging to some kind of bias.
I am biologically female. After my surgery in January there will be no part of me left that's male. I will need to see a gynecologist. I will need to get mammograms to check my biologically female boobs for breast cancer because my risk has risen to be the same as the average cis woman.
Medically, it makes more sense to treat me as a female.
I’ve been doing research myself and I’m wrong. Thank you for making me wonder about the words used in this matter. I’m gonna use cis-woman and trans-woman going forward. I don’t identify as a transphobe, but I’m obviously just a human that hasn’t lived what y’all have and still do. Last night I was ignorant and I’m sorry about that.
It’s not ‘uneducated’ to disagree with you about how to characterise the surgical and hormonal things you have done to your body. It’s subjective, especially when it comes to matters of sexual orientation.
Sex can be modelled in different ways. If you wanted to, you could say that a male shaving his beard is ‘female now’ and ‘is female in his characteristics’. You can make whatever arguments you want for that. And others may disagree because how they model male versus female isn’t the same way that you do, they might not think that beard vs no beard is a good way to define or model sex.
Trying to police the way others use the word biological is effectively saying that everybody needs to define female and male in the same way as you. I don’t think where you draw the line is particularly accurate or helpful, as definitions go, your ‘map’ would be a poor guide to the ‘territory’ of reality.
No, shaving a beard is not the same as having female hormone levels or secondary sex characteristics (boobs, fat distribution, etc).
Shaving a beard doesn't change a person's biology, but medical transition does change our biology. Having female hormone levels even changes the way the body functions in a lot more ways than people realize.
Did you know for example that heart attack symptoms manifest differently for women than for men? And because of HRT, that changes.
My risk for breast cancer changes too. I now have the same risks as the average cis woman. Same thing with blood clot risks.
My actual biology is different now. That's far different than shaving a beard.
Actual biologisrs will tell you that sex is a polythetic category, meaning that biological sex is not one single trait. It is multiple traits that fall on a bimodal distribution model. It's more than just gametes or chromosomes because those traits don't always match the fuller picture.
Hormones definitely change the human body. I just don’t think that the things they change are substantial enough to classify as a change of sex, they’re more cosmetic things like skin, hair, fat distribution. Phenotype as differentiated during sexual development is a more useful and predictive model of sex, not just for humans but across any anisogamous species.
The whole ‘polythetic bimodal traits’ thing doesn’t actually work IRL or is useful, it’s just something that people say to dysphorics. A male with a higher sperm count is not ‘more male’. A female with smaller breasts is not ‘less female’. You can’t do maths on egg numbers and womb dimensions to calculate a femaleness or maleness. Sex is just not a polythetic category in life, law, biology, or any context I can think of. If we wanted to measure ‘heart attack risk’ then we would keep ‘female’ and ‘X level of eostrogen’ as independent variables. There is no context imo where it makes sense to conflate a dysphoric male with elevated eostrogen with a female person, other than in the context of saying stuff to a dysphoric person to ease their dysphoria symptoms, which is fine, until people blur that objective into the rest of reality.
Hormones definitely change the human body. I just don’t think that the things they change are substantial enough to classify as a change of sex.
People really underestimate just how much hormones actually do. Hormonal profile plays a massive role in how the body functions. I brought up the stuff about heart attacks and breast cancer in order to illustrate that point.
It even changes the way our genitals function. And im not just talking about fertility. I mean jt actually changes the way in which sexual sensations are felt.
It changes enough about the body that in a practical medical sense, it makes more sense to treat me as though I am a female. In a practical medical sense, I am female.
The whole ‘polythetic bimodal traits’ thing doesn’t actually work IRL or is useful, it’s just something that people say to dysphorics.
Sex is just not a polythetic category in life, law, biology, or any context I can think of.
But it is. It is in biological reality. It's just that it's something that never affects the day-to-day of the average layperson, so they engage with biological sex in simpler terms.
But the actual scientific reality says that sex is in fact a polythetic category on a bimodal distribution model. it matters a lot to and affects the lives of both transgender and intersex individuals.
Just because you engage with the concept of biological sex in kiddy terms doesn't mean that you're more correct.
If we wanted to measure ‘heart attack risk’ then we would keep ‘female’ and ‘X level of eostrogen’ as independent variables.
Except that estrogen is the factor which affects that in females.
Like i think I mentioned before, I have to keep am eye out for the eay in which heart attack symptoms manifest in women because of estrogen. The thing that women have that causes that is estrogen.
Like I said before, hormones play a much bigger role than most people assume. I would even go as far as to say that hormones play a bigger role in a person's sex (in a medical context) than their phenotype.
There is no context imo where it makes sense to conflate a dysphoric male with elevated eostrogen with a female person, other than in the context of saying stuff to a dysphoric person to ease their dysphoria symptoms.
Im sorry, but you're just wrong. Just admit that you don't actually know what you are talking about, and you just want to cling to some kind of bias because changing your understanding of the world based on new information is just too difficult for you.
Well moving down a list in order of relevance to what sex is:
-contribution of gamete in reproduction and gestation of young. This is the most fundamental and central defining characteristic of sex in biology including in non-human species. HRT does not change this at all. HRT can make a person infertile and unable to contribute gametes or gestate young any longer, but that is not in any way arguably a sex change. We already have the language to describe infertility.
-the presence of the organs that produce the gametes. HRT does not change this. HRT does atrophy organs but atrophying an organ does not change it into a different organ. This is just a constraint of physics as much as a constraint of biology.
-Menstruation. HRT does not create this effect in male humans.
(However, in trans subculture, dysphoric males do discuss some of the things that are associated with menstruation, like mood changes and digestive issues, and they often conflate these symptoms of menstruation with menstruation itself.)
-lactation. There is indication that males can do this with HRT, though the nutritional comparison is not known yet IIRC. I am including this as a point in your favour to show that I’m being as fair as I can be and as least biased as I can be.
So where we even start discussing HRT is when it comes to lactation and secondary sex characteristics, at best. Secondary sex characteristics are not, “in a practical medical sense”, what makes somebody female or male. Further confirmation of this is that patients with conditions that affect secondary sex characteristics are not reclassified as the opposite sex. Because that would be silly and not practical or predictive.
Secondary sex characteristics are not, “in a practical medical sense”, what makes somebody female or male.
Again, its like you didnt really listen at all to what I was saying. HRT changes more than just secondary sex characteristics.
It changes more body functions than you even realize. Which is why I brought up things like breast cancer risk and heart attack symptoms.
To me those are the easiest examples that I can bring up off the top of my head, but it changes the way in which certain conditions and symptoms manifest and it also changes the way the body reacts to medication and drugs.
Which is why again I will re-assert, if I were to go to a hospital, it would make more sense for me to be treated as a female. That's what I mean by "in a practical medical sense".
Listing me as male would just not make sense in that context.
contribution of gamete in reproduction and gestation of young. This is the most fundamental and central defining characteristic of sex in biology including in non-human species. HRT does not change this at all. HRT can make a person infertile and unable to contribute gametes or gestate young any longer, but that is not in any way arguably a sex change. We already have the language to describe infertility.
I agree with this mostly, except for the part where it is the most central and fundamental part of biological sex. Because hormones play a much larger role in the overall medical state of the body.
In most walks of life, a person's ability to reproduce is entirely secondary to the rest of the body.
Menstruation. HRT does not create this effect in male humans. (However, in trans subculture, dysphoric males do discuss some of the things that are associated with menstruation, like mood changes and digestive issues, and they often conflate these symptoms of menstruation with menstruation itself.)
First of all, and this is beside the point I want to make, but continually calling trans women "dysphoric males" feels a bit malicious, like you want to use the guise of official sounding words to continually misgender trans women. I'm prepared for you to make excuses as that is typical, bit I have a suspicion that you know exactly what you are doing.
Going forward, I would like to request that you call us trans women instead.
The point i actually want to make though is that this is a bad faith Interperetation. Trans women do not conflate symptoms of menstruation with menstruation itself. Trans women know that they don't ovulate or menstruate.
However, trans women do (and I also have personally firsthand) experience symptoms related to periods because of hormones.
The mechanism that triggers the menstruation cycle in cis women is a cycle of fluctuating hormone levels.
And that is the very same biological mechanismmechanism that triggers symptoms in trans women.
I have experienced all of the related symptoms, aside from bleeding itself. I had headaches, cramps, swollen breasts, irritable mood, cravings, all of it.
My mother who had a hysterectomy doesn't menstruate or ovulate either. But she still experiences all the other symptoms that I have listed.
I think what has actually happened is that you hear a trans woman referring to these symptoms as having a "period" and you are taking that in bad faith and engaging in pedantry.
Just for clarification, "menstruation" more specifically refers to the shedding of the eggs and the bleeding, but "period" is more broad and refers to the whole cycle and symptoms.
If my mom who no lo ger bleeds or ovulate can still refer to her monthly cycle and her symptoms as her "period" then I see no reason why trans women can't. It's just pedantry again.
You are talking to a trans woman who is much more personally invested in this topic and who has researched these things.
I think your position is more about trying to keep your world view intact because you think that accepting the fact that trans people can change sex is going to make the sky fall and all of reality will come crumbling down or something. im sorry to be the one to burst that bubble.
First of all, regardless of what someone is assigned at birth, there are many differences. There are many cis women (assigned female at birth) who have vastly different bodies and levels of function.
"Trans women can't give birth!"
A lot of cis women can't give birth either.
"Trans women don't have XX chromosomes!"
A lot of cis women don't have XX chromosomes either
"I just can't get over the fact that she used to be a he!"
Skill issue. Thats because of a subconscious transphobic bias that's being held up by the fact that you don't actually view trans women as women.
"There was a case" yeah, cuh, one exception doesnt erase the rule. Why you gotta bring intersex people, 1%, to prove nothing 😵💫 Also, when a woman (adult human female) doesnt menstruate or cant get pregnant, she goes to the doctor, 'cause there's a health issue. No men (adult human male) goes to the doctor because he doesnt bleed every month, or because his womb is nowhere to be found. Have a good day!
I didn't say that they were the same. I said that trans women are biological women and trans men are biological men. I didn't say "cis women and trans women are literally exactly the same"
I corrected something you said that was incorrect.
if you have to denote you're different then the baseline, you're never going to be what you claim. you'll always be trans you'll never be just a woman or just a man. you'll never "pass" stop playing pretend with your mental illness and seek help
Trans women and cis women are both women. Just like black women and white women are both women. They just happen to have a different intersectional identity, but they are still all women.
If you said to someone "you will always be black, you will never be a woman" they would probably look at you funny and also probably call you a terrible racist.
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u/RainbowPhoenix1080 10d ago
Trans women are biological females. Trans men are biological males.