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Women need single-sex spaces to make sense of their shared biological and social experiences and to stay safe from the harms that they face.

To those who say that this view can make feminism a natural ally of the religious right, I say that fighting for sex-based rights must lead us into necessary contestations with the religious or far right.

Today, these forces represent one of the greatest threats to women and girls as well as to people who are same-sex attracted, other sexual minorities and those deemed to be non-conforming.

19

80 reads

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The Iranian fundamentalist regime, for example, is willing to pay for sexual reassignment surgery because it sees the existence of gay men and lesbians as the greater threat to the patriarchal contract.

Everyone has the right to live as they wish in security and dignity and without fear o...

20

77 reads

But the answer to the question “what is a woman?” is—like the answer to “what is a ewe?”—an almost mundane description of age, sex and species, albeit one with human significance in life and law, sport and data, and single-sex spaces and services.

Just as a “ewe” is an adult female sheep, ...

21

46 reads

Maybe asking “what is a woman” is an impossible question because there are any number of ways of being a woman.

Perhaps all I can say is what makes someone a woman is simply a piece of unique, amorphous self-identity floating around in one’s brain, saying: “you are a woman.” Or, to put it m...

19

43 reads

These all strike me as different ways of responding to the coerciveness of our current gender order. While the ones that involve changing one’s gender or transforming one’s body throw up sometimes taxing problems regarding access to women-only services or how much prior counselling is appropriate...

19

53 reads

Nor are they to be confused with men who are not genuinely trans but who pretend to live as women in order to gain access to women’s spaces for ulterior reasons.

I do not know how common this is and I understand how deeply concerned some women, especially those who have suffered abuse at t...

19

166 reads

Like other animals that give birth to live young, female humans also provide their developing baby a safe space in which to grow during gestation.

To describe as “female” a ewe that (just like a woman) has ovaries, a uterus and a vagina, who (just like a woman) produces eggs and gives birth...

19

43 reads

Brenda Hale, former president of the Supreme Court

Brenda Hale, former president of the Supreme Court

I am a lawyer, and in law there are two sorts of woman: a person who was born a woman and has not transitioned to become a man under the Gender Recognition Act 2004; and a person who was born a man and has transitioned to become a woman under the same Act.

But in practice there are people ...

19

388 reads

Pragna Patel, former director of Southall Black Sisters

Pragna Patel, former director of Southall Black Sisters

I believe that what defines a woman is her biological sex.

The binary biological categories of male and female are a material reality even if there are variations of sexual development in-between.

Throughout the world and throughout history, women have been and are subject to system...

20

99 reads

We know it means something different for Caitlyn Jenner, Kimberlé Crenshaw, JK Rowling, Cara Delevingne, James Charles, Beyoncé, Pope Francis, Lia Thomas, the Queen, Malala Yousafzai, an incel, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Miriam Margolyes, or a man who buys a “non-bio woman” (an AI-enhanced sex doll wh...

19

63 reads

New spellings of woman have also emerged, some of them naturally occurring (Old English wifmann, Middle English wuman); others, especially in the 1970s, constructed to reflect a political stance (wimmin, womyn, womxn).

Our definition of woman is not fixed. Language reflects culture, and cul...

19

61 reads

 There are other people who are driven to live in the other gender, even if they do not intend to complete a legal transition. For practical purposes, people who live as women in this way are women.

Genuinely trans people are among the most vulnerable and marginalised of groups in our socie...

19

241 reads

Much of society has deemed that a human becomes an “adult” during late adolescence.

So it is “female” that is the source of controversy. Yet in biology and medicine, in the hundreds of thousands of textbook references and papers, it is no more controversial than “human” or “adult.”

A...

19

58 reads

Sarah Ogilvie, linguist, University of Oxford

Sarah Ogilvie, linguist, University of Oxford

A woman is someone who identifies as an adult female human being. The word is in flux so no wonder politicians, who want to be all things to all people, find it so tricky to define.

Usually language evolves gradually. But “woman” is changing fast, helped by social media, meaning we can wat...

19

77 reads

Deirdre McCloskey, professor of economics, history, English and communication at the University of Illinois

Deirdre McCloskey, professor of economics, history, English and communication at the University of Illinois

First, get the science right. Most born women have XX chromosomes, men XY. Intersex individuals can have other combinations.

In the US, it is estimated that 1.4m people—or around 0.6 per cent of the population—want to change in social role from male to female or from female to male, though...

19

173 reads

To those who argue that sex is not a biological but a cultural and social construct, I would say that this cannot wholly explain why women and girls are the targets of many forms of harm throughout their lives: female foeticide (sex-selective abortion), female infanticide, FGM and reproductive co...

19

93 reads

What is a woman?

What is a woman?

Is being a woman a matter of biology, a product of an inner identity—or something in-between?

A range of women, including a former Supreme Court judge, a biologist, an anthropologist, a linguist and a feminist campaigner give us their verdicts.

22

568 reads

Dawn Starin, anthropologist

Dawn Starin, anthropologist

 What is a woman? What makes someone a woman? I should know. Shouldn’t I? I’m a cisgender, straight woman.

My birth certificate says “female.” Is that what makes me a woman? No, it’s not that simple. A six-letter word—female—on a birth certificate or any other official document does not alw...

19

47 reads

For the most part, social and political institutions divide their populations into females and males. I easily fall into the female category in this gender binary system. Yet this system is not universal. There are many other ways we humans have organised genders; both in the past and present, th...

19

41 reads

Some terms for woman have been positive and heroic (virago, Zamazim, Amazon); ­others decidedly pejorative (strumpet, wench, malkin); some have died out (unchaghe, mot, kittock); others die hard (hussy, minx, skirt).

Slang terms for a woman outnumber slang terms for anything else, more even...

19

58 reads

People raise objections. The bathroom issue. Come, come, I go to the loo to pee. What do you do? The sports debate. ­

Alright, let’s be reasonable and ­polite, and not have XY people with massive male muscles compete against XX people. I don’t know: maybe a test of muscle mass? Yet some of ...

20

115 reads

Since pre-Hispanic times in southern Mexico, there have been three ­recognised genders: muxes, females and males. Today, muxes are accepted and celebrated within their indigenous Zapotec community.

Official documents, officialdom, sexual and reproductive organs, biology, external rules, law...

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40 reads

Babies are identified as male or female on the basis of their genitals—though in a small number of cases the observations are inconclusive—and are then set off on the long process of acculturation into their assigned categories, learning the appropriate ways of holding their bodies, engaging in t...

19

43 reads

Emma Hilton, developmental biologist, University of Manchester

Emma Hilton, developmental biologist, University of Manchester

It is uncontroversial to name an adult female sheep a “ewe” or to know that our scrambled eggs come from “hens.”

Humans have long used nouns that denote individual animals by their species and sex (and often stage of maturity), including in relation to our own species: a “woman” is an adul...

19

62 reads

 In The Vagina Monologues, Eve Ensler repeats the word cunt over and over until it (nearly) loses its shock value. The designer Suzi Warren makes t-shirts reclaiming negative words for woman: Sandi Toksvig chose crone, Mary Beard chose witch, I chose blue-stocking. If only it were that easy.

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68 reads

Anne Phillips, professor of political theory, London School of Economics

Anne Phillips, professor of political theory, London School of Economics

In most cases, the question that troubles people is not what is a woman, but what is a “real” woman. "Real” women are defined very differently in different periods and places.

It is one of the paradoxes of gender that we are so often told it is in our nature to be women, as if biology is i...

19

42 reads

Practically no one I know has regretted the decision. “Ecstatic” would be a better description of their state of mind. On the other hand, prevent it and you get deeply unhappy people.

Second, get the politics right. Take the high road. In a free society, people get to make harmless choices....

20

135 reads

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