Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by jandorn 1599 days ago
If trans women are women why are you calling them trans?
1 comments

Operations engineers are engineers, just as much as other engineers. But when you’re discussing the subgroup (opseng) in specific and whether it’s a member of the overall group (engineers), it’s logical and appropriate in conversational English to refer to the subgroup by specific label, as the comment you’re replying to does.

Women can be sexed at birth as female, male, intersex, neither; women can have genes for XX, XY, XXY, etc; women can have zero or more genitalia; women can have masculine, feminine, androgynous, mixed facial bone structures.

Each of these is a valid subgroup of women which can, if necessary, be described as a subgroup. Normally, just “women” should suffice, but the app linked by this post actively excludes at least one of those subgroups from the label “women”. So it becomes necessary to discuss those subgroups by name, such as “trans women” and “black women”, in order for discourse to occur.

Women aren’t “sexed” at birth. Woman means adult human female. Female is sex of a organism and is distinguished by egg cells (gametes).
Do you also consider "trans women" to be a subgroup of "men"?
Generally, no; if one represents as binary gender “woman” with subgroup “trans”, it is implied and understood that they are not a member of binary gender “man”. That they are a member of subgroup “trans” is not relevant to resolving their binary gender either-or, in your example.

They might be “male at birth” or “intersex at birth” on certain medical paperwork, and those physical sex characteristic will remain unchanged in subgroup “at birth” regardless of any shift in gender or medical alterations to their present-day sex characteristics.

(To avoid any possible confusion, I’m keeping in mind that “male” is sex and “man” is gender, as this is often confused in discussion of these topics. One’s sex is a physical characteristic like one’s eye color or skin tone; most people assume that everyone has just one and that it doesn’t change, neither of which are true. One’s gender is a behavioral characteristic like accent or musical tastes; it can’t be reliably guessed from any physical characteristic, and it can change at any time, either gradually over years or all at once at a coffee shop or anywhere in between.)