Their definition of "woman" doesn't have the requirement of a vagina, though. In their minds, gender is a subjective mental state. Ask if they have a penis. When it comes down to concrete realities, I doubt that most of them would say "no".
If someone abducted me and forced a sex-change operation on me, then I'd have to say that I had a vagina, but I'd still say that I was a man. I'd consider the physical state of my body a result of an act of mutilation.
Them saying "I am a woman", or me saying "I am a man", is a statement of gender (a social construct) rather than sex (a biological fact).
Traditionally, we'd consider sex and gender to be in lockstep, and it wouldn't be useful to consider them as anything but perfect synonyms. "I'm male" is a simple enough concept. It means three things: that I have a penis, consider myself male, and I'm attracted to females.
Add in the 5%-ish of the population where the 3rd point is completely false, and the larger percent where it's true, but not completely exclusive.
Add in the smaller segment of the population where the second point doesn't match the first.
Add in the yet smaller segment where even the first point doesn't have a binary truth value.
This isn't to say that there aren't delusional people that would argue about the observable biological state, just that mostly I'd think they're talking about their perception of their own gender, rather than their perception of their sex.
If someone abducted me and forced a sex-change operation on me, then I'd have to say that I had a vagina, but I'd still say that I was a man. I'd consider the physical state of my body a result of an act of mutilation.
Them saying "I am a woman", or me saying "I am a man", is a statement of gender (a social construct) rather than sex (a biological fact).
Traditionally, we'd consider sex and gender to be in lockstep, and it wouldn't be useful to consider them as anything but perfect synonyms. "I'm male" is a simple enough concept. It means three things: that I have a penis, consider myself male, and I'm attracted to females.
Add in the 5%-ish of the population where the 3rd point is completely false, and the larger percent where it's true, but not completely exclusive.
Add in the smaller segment of the population where the second point doesn't match the first.
Add in the yet smaller segment where even the first point doesn't have a binary truth value.
This isn't to say that there aren't delusional people that would argue about the observable biological state, just that mostly I'd think they're talking about their perception of their own gender, rather than their perception of their sex.