Please take a step back and consider what you are saying. Your comment implicitly categorises trans women into a distinct category from women as a whole.
With all respect, they ARE. That's not to say that trans people shouldn't be treated with love and respect, but there is a world of difference between being born female and receiving surgical and hormonal treatments to adopt an outwardly female body.
Oh
r e a l l yWhy? I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm not crticising either you or your view. I'm asking why you think that, given what we know of the biology of sex and gender.
If I may quote from a recent submission to the SCOTUS on the subject:
Petitioner maintains that the word “sex” in Title IX must refer only to an Individual’s so-called “physiological” sex, rather than the sex with which an individual identifies and lives every day. This is so, Petitioner argues, because “physiological” sex—purportedly unlike gender identity—is binary, objective, and self-evident. The intersex youth for whom amici advocate are a living refutation of this argument.
Petitioner’s simplistic view of “physiological” sex is demonstrably inaccurate as a matter of human biology. Moreover, it demeans many thousands of intersex youth by erasing their bodies and lives and placing them outside the recognition of the law. Physicians who treat individuals with intersex traits recognize that the key determinant of how individuals navigate sex designations in their lives is their gender identity—their internal sense of belonging to a particular gender.
...
Notably, the legal system has struggled for decades to answer the definitional question that Petitioner simply begs. By the time Title IX was enacted, courts well recognized that “(t)here are several criteria or standards which may be relevant in determining the sex of an individual.”
M.T. v. J.T., 355 A.2d 204, 206–08 (N.J. App. Div. 1976) (listing chromosomes, external genitalia, gonads, secondary sex characteristics, and hormones, as well as gender identity).
Commentators have noted the “variability of standards that courts employ” in making such determinations.
Even courts in the same jurisdiction have disagreed about how to determine sex when physiological features do not align.
Petitioner and its amici also assert that “physiological” sex has the virtue of being an “objective” classification. Pet. Br. at 32; McHugh Br. at 3–6, 12–13.
Gender identity, they suggest, is “fuzzy and mercurial,” id. at 8, while “physiological” sex simply is. But the foregoing discussion should make clear that this assertion is similarly flawed. An intersex student’s "physiological” sex may depend entirely on which Physiological trait one chooses to privilege. Indeed, because of the diversity of medical perspectives, trained experts can and do disagree on the “correct” sex to assign to an intersex child.
Interpreting “sex” to refer to a student’s gender identity would avoid (or at least mitigate) these problems. Unlike “physiological” sex, all parties appear to agree on what gender identity means: it is “[an] individual’s ‘innate sense of being male or female.’” Pet. Br. at 36; cf. Resp. Br. at 2 (similar). It is not subject to competing definitions depending on which expert or court is consulted. Moreover, unlike “physiological” sex, a student’s gender identity by definition cannot be subject to differences in medical opinion: each student is the ultimate arbiter of their own gender identity, as they (and they alone) experience it first-hand.
What do you mean "born female"? Consider a newborn with the 46,XX chromosomes most women have, a functional reproductive system that will, when they are old enough, be capable of successfully conceiving and carrying children, but who has to have "surgical and hormonal treatments to adopt an outwardly female body."
What about someone with 3BHSD or MGD who naturally changes - often incompletely - so they have an "outwardly female body" even without surgery or hormones? Does it matter if the change happens, as it usually does, in the womb before birth, or afterwards? Does it matter if the change is incomplete, so surgery and/or hormones are needed to complete it?
You wouldn't be the only one to privilege one Physiological trait over others - appearance at birth - in deciding whether someone is "born female" or not. Some competent medical authorities and experts still do that, even now. I'm not sayng you're wrong. I'm asking why.
Is there a "world of difference" between blonde humans who have a mutant gene for that and other humans, most of whom have dark hair? What about left-handed humans who are neurologically distinct from the vast majority of other humans, are they "not born human"? I really, really doubt that you think so in either case. But if not, why not?
If someone said "That's not to say that blonde/lefthanded people shouldn't be treated with love and respect but.." how would you view that? Would you say that viewing them as fundamentally different from normal humans is consistent with the respect you believe they deserve, or is it sorta contradictory, even if not intended to be?
A personal note, not that I like talking about it, but sometimes it's needed for informational, educational purposes. My own appearance was more M than F at birth. That changed, normalised, later. Mostly. About 80%. I opted for surgery and Hormones to complete the change, giving me an "outwardly female body". Inwardly, still a bit of a mix, with much scar tissue from the unconsented removal of dysfunctional, atrophied or never developed organs, but outwardly, female yes, completely rather than mostly.
Neither the surgery, nor the hormones, nor the natural change before them had any effect on the fact that I was "born female" as you put it. Or *not* born female if you ignore most of my anatomy, and concentrate on a few parts that, while not male in the usual sense, are more M than F.
I had the surgery to make me more comfortable. Many others who are Intersex are quite comfy being nonstandard genitally, as are many Trans people. I don't ask, unless in a medical context, any more than I ask Intrasex or Cis people about their genital configuration.
Feel free to ask questions, though there's a metric shipload of info on the subject in the trans/intersex thread. May I ask that you look through that first, then get back to me? Thanks
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