I figured I’d heard all the anti-trans arguments—but nope. (Admittedly, there are several issues about trans men and women that I have not considered, being a sissy cis faggot myself.) So I thought this discussion was worth pulling out of the comment threads on my story about transgender marriage and into the forum of Slog. Here’s an excerpt from doloresdaphne:

[W]e non-trans women share something in common, that we were born with vaginas and raised as girls, and often go on to get pregnant (or fear becoming pregnant) and this is no small trifle. We have a word for us, as a group, and it’s female/ girl/ woman. …

If trans-women who were raised as boys, and who transitioned in middle age (and most trans-women transition after the age of 30), then these are people that may have built their careers using male privilege (albeit that they were disadvantaged by not feeling male), and then they go and get a sex change, and the figures seem to indicate that the status of women is getting better, when really, it’s just that a portion of the women counted were raised as boys. It’s misleading, and has an impact on policies to change the status of women.

Commenter Just Blue smartly responds:

It’s absurd to imagine that being born with a vagina and raised as a woman creates a magical commonality that trumps any other. As a lesbian, pregnancy scares aren’t a part of my life. By your reasoning, I lack a crucial component of womanhood. I suppose I can’t call myself a lesbian anymore. …

You’re understandably frustrated and angry that men receive benefits you don’t. But by refusing trans-people their right to identify as who they are, your indignation is seeping into envy. You imagine (in some cases rightly, in others not) that some women are receiving male-benefits you were denied. And so you punish them by refusing to accept them as they are. In doing so, you’re adding to the deafening chorus of anti-trans bigots. It’s tragic that some branches of feminism managed to find common ground with religious zealots and woman-haters.

If you ask me—and you just did—the first argument, basically saying that trans women can’t simply call themselves “women,” seems segregationist, while the second argument resonates way more. Equality is in a name, it’s in words, whether it’s the right to “marriage” or being a “woman.” But again: I’m just le fag. Add your two bucks worth here.