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Notes -
By what definition of woman?
I think the whole trans discourse of whether someone "is" a woman is fairly hopeless. The true request is for admission to the social institution of womanhood. And I think a lot of people who are willing to treat the person as a woman -- use her preferred pronouns, not object if she uses the women's bathroom, not give her shit for wearing a dress and makeup no matter how incongruous it seems in proportion to her profile or vocal intonation, etc. -- nevertheless balk at agreeing that she is a woman.
Accommodation is a natural and understandable request. We're used to it in a variety of contexts. It has been a common form of social compromise for longer than civilization has existed. We're used to acting as though there is nothing different about people in wheelchairs, people with congenital deformities, people with dwarfism, people who are extremely old, people who obviously have a terrible disease, etc.
But if someone in a wheelchair wanted me to say they could walk... if someone with dwarfism wanted me to say they were six feet tall, if someone in her late eighties wanted me to refer to her as a 25-year-old... that would be hard for me.
Unfortunately, agreeing that someone is a woman is an unavoidable part of granting them access to the institution of womanhood.
So, it's a pickle.
More options
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