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If someone loses their legs, you don't call them bipedal, though. So why are you calling someone who loses their gametes a "woman"?
Does it really make sense to say "well, but you USED to be able to walk, so I'm still going to call you able-bodied"?
For basically everything else, we care about what a person's current condition is: we don't draw a huge distinction between people who were born needing a wheelchair -vs- people who were in an accident. Why does reality "cleave at the joints" differently for gametes vs legs?
You call them 'handicapped', or something else if there's enough of them that a more specific new category would be useful -- you wouldn't call such a person a serpent, though. Are you sure this is the route you'd like to take?
My point was that we don't bother to differentiate between "born" handicapped versus "became" handicapped. They're both just handicapped/disabled/legless/need a wheelchair. The idea of "transitioning" between able-bodied and disabled is not terribly controversial. So why is it that when it comes to "female", you're suddenly against the very possibility that someone could change categories?
No, it's not -- but the analogous transition for cutting your dick off would be 'eunuch', not woman. I'm fine if you'd like some other category ('trans person' or something), but like I say this doesn't seem to me the road you'd like to go down.
But it's not cutting off your dick, it's turning it into a vagina. If the end state was a Ken doll, it'd be a very different conversation.
If Blofeld gets cosmetic surgery to look just like 007, that doesn't mean he is Bond.
If that surgery involved cutting off his arm, it does still put him in the category 'crippled'.
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Granted, cutting off your dick and undergoing bottom surgery are meaningfully different concepts, but referring to the latter as "turning your penis into a vagina" might be putting things a bit generously. A more accurate description might be "turning your penis into a decidedly crude approximation of what a vagina looks and feels like, and which is markedly different from real natal vaginas in numerous ways - most notably in that a) it never undergoes menstruation and b) the immune system will treat it as an open wound, so it must be continually dilated for several hours every day, for the rest of the recipient's life, to prevent it from closing up".
There's plenty of biological women in that category, so it doesn't really seem relevant
"dilation must continue regularly for at least one year postoperatively." I would hardly call that "the rest of their life." It's not even daily after the first six months.
There's also improved techniques being researched to improve recovery time even further. And in many cases already, dilation is just a precaution against a 10-20% chance of stenosis, not a situation where stenosis is guaranteed to occur.
Not to mention that vaginal stenosis is potentially congenital: https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/conditions/vaginal-stenosis
100% of neovaginas never undergo menstruation. Something like 3-5% of female people experience secondary amennorhea (i.e. they have gotten their period by the age of 16, but it's stopped for one reason or another). Somewhere in the region of 0.1% of female people never get their period. All menopausal women and prepubescent girls do not menstruate by definition, but once did or will in the future (a distinction I've made exhaustively clear). Moreover, amennorhea in pubescent or post-pubescent females is evidence of something going wrong with their bodies, and they are urged to seek out medical care; neovaginas not undergoing menstruation is them working as intended. It baffles me how you can pretend not to understand this.
Like, menstruation and child-bearing are pretty much defining features of vaginas - that's what they're for. I point out that literally zero people with neovaginas have ever borne a child or had a period, and all you can say in retort is "well a tiny minority of women can't have their periods either, so it's no big deal".
To return to an earlier analogy, surely you understand the difference between "a motorcycle which runs", "a motorcycle which was once running but which no longer runs because of damage to the cylinder" and "a bicycle which has been modded to superficially resemble a motorcycle, but does not actually have an engine attached (and anyway the wheels have been removed)".
"The frequency required to use [a dilator] decreases over time, however remains obligatory lifelong." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaginoplasty)
So, again, all trans women are required to use a dilator for a significant period (possibly indefinitely) after undergoing bottom surgery. A minority of female people (possibly as few as 1%, according to Wikipedia) are required to use a dilator in order to treat a specific medical condition (which can often be treated by methods other than dilation). Ergo, there's nothing strange about including males in the category of "women". Okay.
I mean, if your criteria is "menstruation", then you have to exclude the cis women who don't menstruate, even if they're rare. Otherwise, it's not really menstruation you care about. This is just how logical categories work. We create categories because they're useful for our purposes, and I can't fathom what purpose you're looking at here.
I mean, yes, if you're looking for someone to get pregnant, I'm a bad choice. But so is the infertile cis woman! And if you just want to get laid, surely the question is whether the experience is enjoyable?
I can see why this information is important to share with fellow trans women, and I'm not arguing that it's not true. I just don't see why you care or how it affects you, even if we're fucking?
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