It’s frustrating to see how many people think they are posing complicated questions or “gotcha” questions when they make comparisons between adult human females and animal females. Animals don’t have culture. They don’t perform gender. That’s why we don’t draw parallels.

And a “woman” is more than biology. It’s an idea that is co-created within culture and so it’s always changing. Humans are more than biology; animals are not.

A “woman” is a construct the same way a “mother” is a construct. There’s a biological element but it’s not all we refer to when we use the terms and it’s not all that identifies the ideas. A mother can become a mother by biology or by role. Same with a woman. Why don’t we just say “trans woman” 100% of the time? Same reason we don’t say “adoptive mother” constantly. It’s insulting and information that is usually not relevant.

That some people find this so difficult is not evidence that it doesn’t make sense. It’s extremely easy for me to understand and for others. So I know that the failure to understand is not due to the ideas themselves. You’re just not listening long enough, or open to changing your mind, or expressing enough curiosity before shutting down… or something.

This also isn’t new stuff. I just read a book last week from 1978 that said everything I’ve been saying for months to TERFs. These ideas have been widely understood by academics for a long time, especially anthropologists. All we are discovering right now is that a lot of people find academic theories hard to understand, especially if they are unmotivated. And easy to understand if they learn from people who can translate from academia AND they are motivated to understand. It’s no different than climate change deniers being people who just don’t understand science.

Like, yes. Some people don’t understand things and think they are geniuses because of it, the only ones who can see the Emperor has no clothes on.