The left eats JK Rowling over transgender comments

[Jokodo]

Yes it is. Most are, and some are not. On the other hand, every person assigned male at birth is, well, assigned male at birth. It's a tautological truth that, in the context of transitioning, "biologically male/female" draws the correct delimination line only, say, 99% of the time, while "assigned male/female at birth" does so 100% of the time, almost per definition.

That's not especially plausible. The doctors and midwives who get the first look at a newborn's genitals are not 100% reliable; and in the modern era some of them probably barely even take a look because they already know what somebody told them the ultrasound showed; and ultrasounds aren't 100% reliable either, to say nothing of the possibility two fetuses' ultrasounds got mixed up. It's inevitable that some parents get told the wrong thing, take their babies home, figure it out within the first day, and hopefully but not necessarily contact some administrator before he or she files the paperwork for the birth certificate. Such a child who was assigned wrongly at birth is not going to need to transition; it's just going to be an amusing story the parents tell. (Or perhaps a horrifyingly Kafka-esque story of struggle against indifferent bureaucracy.)

Ok, not 100%. But orders if magnitude fewer errors than with the alternative.

 

[ruby sparks]

That’s not to say I haven’t felt feminine at times. I have. But that’s different.

This seems like a good starting point. What do you mean when you say you felt feminine? What were the circumstances, and what does it mean to you to feel feminine?

I am going to have trouble articulating this, because I actually don’t know for sure what I mean.

My best shot might be to say that I might be talking about feeling things which are not ‘typically male’ (ie are typically associated with that). Things such as tenderness, a sense of nurturing or compassion, or crying at something poignant in a movie.

I had two sisters and no brothers so spent a lot of time on our somewhat isolated home farm playing with my sisters. I guess I’m talking about feeling ‘like them’ (or what I intuited they were feeling).

Then there’d be times as an adult I’d be in male company, and feel ‘not like them’, depending on the male company. I’d feel different, or an outsider. Only in some male company. Typically, what might in the USA be called jocks, possibly.

Possibly not very good answers, I know.

I will have another think.

Out of curiosity, would you have said anything similar to what I initially said, on your own behalf?

 

[ruby sparks]

I am going to add something here. I think one of the interesting claims by people is one about linguistics. [By the way, I said earlier that the idea of binary sex is one promoted by anti-trans activists and we can see this by those activists in this thread, but at the same time they claim it has no bearing on trans...yet they have to keep promoting the idea of the binary. I believe it has to do with the imposition and force of a structure. Anyway...] So I am hearing claims about linguistics that for a gazillion (some unspecificed vague range of years), there have only been binary sexual words across languages. This is quite a bizarre claim since we currently have words like intersex and hermaphrodite and trans. If you look at the root of the word hermaphrodite it comes from Hermes and Aphrodite in Greek legend....which one could look up and confirm the etymology and usage going back to the 15th century in Middle English, never mind whatever it could have been understand as in Ancient Greek. It's not a word that some kind of left-wing conspiracy invented yesterday at least.

Here's a simple counter-example to this bizarre claim and by the way there are many. Note this is a very conservative newspaper in a conservative region of the US and in very conservative times, i.e. the 50's: The Knoxville Journal. 07 Dec 1952. "GI Who Became Girl Only One of Many, Medical Authorities Explain":

...and such 1952 article goes on about medical experts' statistics on what they call pseudo-hermaphrodites (those who are somewhere in between purely male and female and a hermaphrodite with both genitalia)…

It's not like this article is a fluke either or the usage of the word hermaphrodite is not a fluke. In my digitized newspaper access I have I see between 1784 and 1952, more than 11,000 articles that use the word hermaphrodite. My digitized database is highly incomplete, too. Let's take a look at an example from 1784, though.

The Hartford Courant. 20 Apr 1784. "LONDON Jan 10." Page 2:

A few days since was found dead by the side of a fence, a small distance from the town, the noted hermaprodite, whose occupation was a bellows mender. The uncommon shrillness of his voice so much attracted the attention of the late Dr. Hunter, that he was induced to doubt his sex; and having interrogated this person on the occasion, he declared to the Doctor his deficiency of claim to either sex. ...

It's not like 1784 was some kind of fluke either, like I wrote, the word hermaprodite has roots in Ancient Greece. Aristotle even wrote some weird stuff about hermaprodites in his work Of Hermaprodites. Aristotle was of course alive 384–322 BC.

It should be noted that much of Western culture and linguistics is going to have been influenced by the Ancient Greeks and so many words in modern Western languages will have been derived in some way from the Greek word. hermafrodita in Spanish; ermafrodito in Italian; hermafrodyta in Polish.

Going back to the Ancient Greeks for a moment, some of the myths they came up with were borrowed and whether borrowed or invented, the original source was often based on natural observation and attempt to explain the observations by mythology. So, the source of these things was from well before Aristotle and based on the natural observations that we still see today.

The multiple categories intuitively exist because there are multiple kinds of observations.

Good points. I agree with you.

 

[ruby sparks]

I read that using a very broad definition of transgender, cross-dressers might arguably qualify for the term.

Which got me thinking, that one way for me (or any cis person) to gain clues about what it might feel a bit like to be a different gender (or be in the ‘wrong body’ or at least the ‘wrong outer cladding’) would be to dress up (and groom and make up) as the other gender, and possibly go about cross-dressed up in that way for an extended period of time.

 

[ruby sparks]

I would say that because my gender identity and my physiology have matched my whole life, I’m not even sure I’m aware of feeling my gender identity, if that makes sense.

this is totally out of left field and unrelated to the conversation surrounding it, but it caught my attention and got me curious.
is this true of most cis people? other men in this thread, have you ever contemplated the existential concept of being 'male' in your life?

i've been deeply introspective about the nature of being male since my teens, and it never occurred to me that other people don't also do this. kind of threw me off, the idea that people don't muse on philosophical concepts of their gender.

Cool. I’d also be interested to hear from others. Maybe I’m the one that’s unusual.

Let me ask you a question. Assuming you have elbows (I hope) what would you say it feels like, to have them?

 

[Angra Mainyu]

I am not familiar with what claims are actually made. I was only proposing a set of labels that might work, and I was (perhaps mistakenly) thinking that trans women (for example) would typically refer to themselves as trans women, and not just women, and that if they said they were women it was only to say that being trans women they are in the larger category of all (types of) women (eg cis and trans).

Assume this is so. Then there is a claim that people called "trans women" are in a sub-category of the larger category "women". In other words, that is a claim that the people usually called "trans women" are women. My point stands. In other words, in order for such claims to be true, it seems two conditions would have to be met:

1. That trans women have female mind or whatever one calls it.

2. That the meaning of the word "woman" is such that whether and male sexual organs + female mind -> woman.

(and in my previous post, by copy-pasting I forgot to remove the conditions on the term "men" in point 2., which I should have because you were only focusing on the case of women).

I gather that you have the claim as "I am a woman' (by a trans woman). In other words you are talking about a strong claim. I'm not sure why, necessarily.

Well, let us assume first that the 1. is false, so that it is not the case that trans women have female minds. Then it is not the case that - as your analogy said - they are " red on the inside". By your own analogy, they do not mean the conditions.

Let us assume that 1. is true, but 2. is false. Then it seems they do not meet the conditions for being women. If it's not the mind, there is no other candidate - surely, it's not because of their looks or sexual organs, etc.

So, both are needed, it seems.

What's interesting is that you seem to be suggesting that the mind (and below, related behaviour) trumps other considerations (such as having a womb for example).

I was not suggesting that. I was saying that a necessary condition for trans claims to be true is that the meaning of the words be such that the mind trumps other considerations. It is not a sufficient condition.

On the one hand, that feels right, but on the other hand I have a feeling in the back of my mind that it's controversial. Nor do I personally see why one 'way of being a woman' has to trump another way.

Avoiding controversy on this matter is a way of avoding reason.
But regardless, the trumping condition is 2. above. And it has to be like that for trans claims to be true. It is a necessary condition, for the aforementioned reasons.

I'm not clear that the strong claim 'I'm a woman' is necessarily made, and that even where it is, it means "I'm as much a woman as a cis woman' (rather than 'I'm in the general category alongside cis women').

The latter claim is strong enough. It is a claim that people called "trans women" are in a sub-category of the larger category "women". That takes us back to the meaning of the word "woman", and points 1. and 2.

Ok. What about organisms that don't have minds, in your opinion? Traditionally, those are still, where appropriate, labelled male and female, and still, in at least some cases I believe, exhibit typically male or female behaviours, even plants I think (apparently only female cannabis plants make buds, which is where most of the THC is, for example).

Clearly, so what makes them female or male is not their minds.

 

[ruby sparks]

Assume this is so. Then there is a claim that people called "trans women" are in a sub-category of the larger category "women". In other words, that is a claim that the people usually called "trans women" are women. My point stands. In other words, in order for such claims to be true, it seems two conditions would have to be met:

1. That trans women have female mind or whatever one calls it.

2. That the meaning of the word "woman" is such that whether and male sexual organs + female mind -> woman.

(and in my previous post, by copy-pasting I forgot to remove the conditions on the term "men" in point 2., which I should have because you were only focusing on the case of women).



Well, let us assume first that the 1. is false, so that it is not the case that trans women have female minds. Then it is not the case that - as your analogy said - they are " red on the inside". By your own analogy, they do not mean the conditions.

Let us assume that 1. is true, but 2. is false. Then it seems they do not meet the conditions for being women. If it's not the mind, there is no other candidate - surely, it's not because of their looks or sexual organs, etc.

So, both are needed, it seems.

What's interesting is that you seem to be suggesting that the mind (and below, related behaviour) trumps other considerations (such as having a womb for example).

I was not suggesting that. I was saying that a necessary condition for trans claims to be true is that the meaning of the words be such that the mind trumps other considerations. It is not a sufficient condition.

On the one hand, that feels right, but on the other hand I have a feeling in the back of my mind that it's controversial. Nor do I personally see why one 'way of being a woman' has to trump another way.

Avoiding controversy on this matter is a way of avoding reason.
But regardless, the trumping condition is 2. above. And it has to be like that for trans claims to be true. It is a necessary condition, for the aforementioned reasons.

I'm not clear that the strong claim 'I'm a woman' is necessarily made, and that even where it is, it means "I'm as much a woman as a cis woman' (rather than 'I'm in the general category alongside cis women').

The latter claim is strong enough. It is a claim that people called "trans women" are in a sub-category of the larger category "women". That takes us back to the meaning of the word "woman", and points 1. and 2.

Ok. What about organisms that don't have minds, in your opinion? Traditionally, those are still, where appropriate, labelled male and female, and still, in at least some cases I believe, exhibit typically male or female behaviours, even plants I think (apparently only female cannabis plants make buds, which is where most of the THC is, for example).

Clearly, so what makes them female or male is not their minds.

Ok. So can you cut to the chase, if there is one. What I mean is, given your last line there, are you saying that the trans claims we are talking about are false, because the mind does NOT trump the non-mind, ie is the wrong criteria?

Sorry, I don’t think I disagree with anything you’ve said, but I’m not sure what your point is.

If it involves saying that there is only one way to be female (or male) then I would intuitively disagree and say that there is more than one way. To use Don’s analogy, the car can be red on the outside and green on the inside.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

The prevalence of venereal diseases suggests otherwise.

It suggests so, doesn't it?

Upon further condideration, though, people who have sex and get those illnesses usually seem to be assigning an irrationally low probability to the hypothesis that they will get them, or to the seriousness of the consequences if they do. I think in many - most - cases, they would choose not to have sex if they were convinced that the illness in question (including its actual consequences, not just the name of the illness) is a certain outcome - though I might be mistaken (and the rates probably vary for females and males).

So, I'm not sure, but on balance, I lower my credence that they care more about health and illness - and at any rate, for the purposes of the analogies here, I gladly concede your point.

There's a semi-natural experiment underway about this: the ongoing progress of the meme competition between the terms "dinosaur" and "non-avian dinosaur". A major obstacle is that people mostly don't want to mean "dinosaur" (the clade) but "cisnon-avian dinosaur", because that's a concept that aligns reasonably well with human intuitive animal categorization. I take it you'd predict that the cladists trying to change our speech patterns will lose the competition in the marketplace of ideas. Probably so. Of course, cladists lack the advantage of coercive power.

That is very interesting. But I would be cautious about making a prediction one way or another, as people generally care far less about dinosaurs than sex or color or illness or other terms for things we see every day and care about, and might not even be so strongly interested in having the classification dinosaur/non-dinosaur.

That aside, you make an excellent point about coercive power, of course. But even then:

Imagine a very powerful group of people use their coercive power to enforce a claim that homosexuality or left-handedness is an illness - as they did in the past, and even today in some places. Or suppose that - as is now the case - they use it to enforce a claim that homosexuality is not an illness. They are not attempting to change the meaning of the word "illness", but making claims about what is and what is not an illness and enforcing those claims by punishing those who deny them or even doubt them. That looks more similar to me to what is happening here than an attempt to change the meaning of "man" and "woman" - at least, on the part of most enforcers.

Granted, I might be mistaken about what most are attempting. So, let's say that they do not try to enforce a claim, but actually try to change the meaning of "illness" in a similar manner. I think that almost certainly either they would fail, or else people would coin another word to actually talk about illness, rather than the odd thing that the enforcers want. I do not believe they can get a human community to stop talking about illness and talk about illnesss* instead, where illness* is some counterintuitive construct that considerably overlaps with illness but has some odd additions and detractions - except perhaps with an entirely new level of enforcement, like crazy Skynet turns on humans and superhumanly enforces illness* talk with Spike-like brain chips and the like.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Sorry, I don’t think I disagree with anything you’ve said, but I’m not sure what your point is.

My point in my reply to you is to address the points you raised in your reply to me.
The points I am mostly interested in discussing are those you can find in my conversation with Bomb#20.

 

[ruby sparks]

The points I am mostly interested in discussing are those you can find in my conversation with Bomb#20.

Ok well you might need to be more direct and specific, if you want to discuss with me, and possibly (temporarily) not use an analogy, because I’m not sure I understand your point, about gender or transgender.

But I’ll say this. If it’s suggesting that intuitions, in the form of intuitive language, should be the basis for labels, definitions or correct understandings, I’m not sure I’m going to buy it any more than I bought it about free will.

 

[Emily Lake]

That’s not to say I haven’t felt feminine at times. I have. But that’s different.

This seems like a good starting point. What do you mean when you say you felt feminine? What were the circumstances, and what does it mean to you to feel feminine?

I am going to have trouble articulating this, because I actually don’t know for sure what I mean.

My best shot might be to say that I might be talking about feeling things which are not ‘typically male’ (ie are typically associated with that). Things such as tenderness, a sense of nurturing or compassion, or crying at something poignant in a movie.

I had two sisters and no brothers so spent a lot of time on our somewhat isolated home farm playing with my sisters. I guess I’m talking about feeling ‘like them’ (or what I intuited they were feeling).

Then there’d be times as an adult I’d be in male company, and feel ‘not like them’, depending on the male company. I’d feel different, or an outsider. Only in some male company. Typically, what might in the USA be called jocks, possibly.

Possibly not very good answers, I know.

I will have another think.

Out of curiosity, would you have said anything similar to what I initially said, on your own behalf?

I can relate, and yes, I can share similar experiences. For example, I'm the breadwinner in my household, and my husband stays home, even though we don't have kids. When we go to social gatherings in our neighborhood, I almost always feel awkward and out of place talking to the women. I have almost nothing in common with them. I don't have kids, I don't stay home, I don't watch the shows they do, I don't go to church, I don't do much cooking, I don't go get my nails done, etc. The behaviors and interests that are often associated with women have very little interest for me, and I often feel like an outsider. I'm less emotional than my husband, and much more logical and patient. He's the romantic in the relationship, who remembers birthdays and anniversaries, and buys presents and bakes cakes. I've forgotten my own anniversary for about 20 out of the 25 years I've been married.

This has never made me feel "like a man" or "masculine" though. I've been aware of gender roles since I was a child and didn't really care for dolls or playing house. I've never fit the socially defined role of "girl" very well. My parents were of the mind that I should be allowed to do what interests me, and if I wanted lincoln logs then I should have lincoln logs. I was never forced into a female role in my home life. I was never forced to wear a dress. Sometimes I wanted a dress... it was what other girls wore, and I was aware that I was a girl. But most of the time I preferred jeans or pants - it was much easier to climb trees in trousers.

To me, this was always a failing of society. It was always some dumb idea that other people had that girls were "sugar and spice and everything nice". I've never viewed myself as being less of a woman because I don' conform to those artificial standards.

 

[Emily Lake]

I read that using a very broad definition of transgender, cross-dressers might arguably qualify for the term.

Which got me thinking, that one way for me (or any cis person) to gain clues about what it might feel a bit like to be a different gender (or be in the ‘wrong body’ or at least the ‘wrong outer cladding’) would be to dress up (and groom and make up) as the other gender, and possibly go about cross-dressed up in that way for an extended period of time.

It's worth a shot, but I am skeptical if that would give you any real idea of what it feels like to be a different gender, unless you can be quite convincing about it. If you can successfully pass, so that people treat you and interact with you as that gender, then you will have an idea of... how society treats that gender.

I suspect you'd have a lot of sympathy for women who hate high heels though. And bras. And pantyhose.

 

[ruby sparks]

I am going to have trouble articulating this, because I actually don’t know for sure what I mean.

My best shot might be to say that I might be talking about feeling things which are not ‘typically male’ (ie are typically associated with that). Things such as tenderness, a sense of nurturing or compassion, or crying at something poignant in a movie.

I had two sisters and no brothers so spent a lot of time on our somewhat isolated home farm playing with my sisters. I guess I’m talking about feeling ‘like them’ (or what I intuited they were feeling).

Then there’d be times as an adult I’d be in male company, and feel ‘not like them’, depending on the male company. I’d feel different, or an outsider. Only in some male company. Typically, what might in the USA be called jocks, possibly.

Possibly not very good answers, I know.

I will have another think.

Out of curiosity, would you have said anything similar to what I initially said, on your own behalf?

I can relate, and yes, I can share similar experiences. For example, I'm the breadwinner in my household, and my husband stays home, even though we don't have kids. When we go to social gatherings in our neighborhood, I almost always feel awkward and out of place talking to the women. I have almost nothing in common with them. I don't have kids, I don't stay home, I don't watch the shows they do, I don't go to church, I don't do much cooking, I don't go get my nails done, etc. The behaviors and interests that are often associated with women have very little interest for me, and I often feel like an outsider. I'm less emotional than my husband, and much more logical and patient. He's the romantic in the relationship, who remembers birthdays and anniversaries, and buys presents and bakes cakes. I've forgotten my own anniversary for about 20 out of the 25 years I've been married.

This has never made me feel "like a man" or "masculine" though. I've been aware of gender roles since I was a child and didn't really care for dolls or playing house. I've never fit the socially defined role of "girl" very well. My parents were of the mind that I should be allowed to do what interests me, and if I wanted lincoln logs then I should have lincoln logs. I was never forced into a female role in my home life. I was never forced to wear a dress. Sometimes I wanted a dress... it was what other girls wore, and I was aware that I was a girl. But most of the time I preferred jeans or pants - it was much easier to climb trees in trousers.

To me, this was always a failing of society. It was always some dumb idea that other people had that girls were "sugar and spice and everything nice". I've never viewed myself as being less of a woman because I don' conform to those artificial standards.

In a way, that seems slightly similar to several of the things I said. And the reason I said I didn’t think my answers were very good is that they were, as you say, about gender roles rather than gender identities. Which is why is said I thought my feeling feminine at times a was different sort of thing to feeling I was a different gender.

Now, after that, I posted something about cross-dressing, and for some reason I can’t explain, that feels like it would get me at least a bit closer to an idea of what it might feel like to be transgender. Or maybe it would still be about gender roles. I’m not sure.

On the topic of roles, I think I agree with everything you say.

 

[Emily Lake]

In a way, that seems slightly similar to several of the things I said. And the reason I said I didn’t think my answers were very good is that they were, as you say, about gender roles rather than gender identities. Which is why is said I thought my feeling feminine at times a was different sort of thing to feeling I was a different gender.

Now, after that, I posted something about cross-dressing, and for some reason I can’t explain, that feels like it would get me at least a bit closer to an idea of what it might feel like to be transgender. Or maybe it would still be about gender roles. I’m not sure.

On the topic of roles, I think I agree with everything you say.

This is one of the points that ends up being tricky for me: Gender roles versus gender identities. All of the ways that I think about myself as a woman are either 1) a reflection of biology or 2) a result of social gender roles.

That's part of where I end up in conflict with my own principles when it comes to transgender activism. On the one hand, I'm a very firm believer that people should be treated with dignity and respect, and judged as individuals in all things. On the other hand, women face a lot of barriers in our society as a result of social gender roles.

I cannot conceive of a gender identity that is an ephemeral part of mind, separate from body, that is not a reinforcement of a gender role that I, as a woman, am trying to tear down.

 

[Metaphor]

Or women were defined as a man's property? Those kinds of things.

Women were never defined as men's property: this is a nebulous feminist myth that just won't die. Women as a class were never owned like chattel slavery.

You're right in that they weren't treated exactly the same as chattel. You're wrong in that they were viewed as the property of their husband. They had no independence, no right to own property, own money or incomes of their own, etc. If their husband beat them, that was his right. If their husband raped them, that was also his right.

Property can be bought and sold. Women as women were not bought and sold. It's true that in many Western jurisdictions up until the mid 19th century, married women's property converted to a husband's property upon marriage, but it is false to say women could not own property, because they clearly did. But the property conversion came with obligations. Women acted as agents of their husbands, and husbands were also responsible for the financial wellbeing of their wives, and any debts incurred by their wives.

 

[Metaphor]

I read that using a very broad definition of transgender, cross-dressers might arguably qualify for the term.

Which got me thinking, that one way for me (or any cis person) to gain clues about what it might feel a bit like to be a different gender (or be in the ‘wrong body’ or at least the ‘wrong outer cladding’) would be to dress up (and groom and make up) as the other gender, and possibly go about cross-dressed up in that way for an extended period of time.

It's worth a shot, but I am skeptical if that would give you any real idea of what it feels like to be a different gender, unless you can be quite convincing about it. If you can successfully pass, so that people treat you and interact with you as that gender, then you will have an idea of... how society treats that gender.

I suspect you'd have a lot of sympathy for women who hate high heels though. And bras. And pantyhose.

When female friends visit me, they do so braless. But the only way the expectation that women should wear bras will change is if women resist it en masse. This is a space where men cannot help the revolution.

 

[Metaphor]

Emily Lake[/URL]]This has never made me feel "like a man" or "masculine" though. I've been aware of gender roles since I was a child and didn't really care for dolls or playing house. I've never fit the socially defined role of "girl" very well. My parents were of the mind that I should be allowed to do what interests me, and if I wanted lincoln logs then I should have lincoln logs. I was never forced into a female role in my home life. I was never forced to wear a dress. Sometimes I wanted a dress... it was what other girls wore, and I was aware that I was a girl. But most of the time I preferred jeans or pants - it was much easier to climb trees in trousers.

To me, this was always a failing of society. It was always some dumb idea that other people had that girls were "sugar and spice and everything nice". I've never viewed myself as being less of a woman because I don' conform to those artificial standards.

I have to say, I'm having trouble understanding what the problem is. You did what you wanted as a child, your parents let you do what you wanted and supported what you wanted, and your lack of conformity to typical interests didn't and doesn't bother you.

 

[laughing dog]

It is not nit-picking.

From Merriam-Webster. female
of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs . (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/female)_.

Clearly, that definition would encompass trans women as females.

Clarity in the thought helps reduce needless disagreement in discussion. Which is why it is useful to find out what someone means by _____ when _____ has multiple legitimate meanings.

Are you claiming that transwomen typically have the capacity to bear young and produce eggs? That is quite wrong. Are you perhaps mixing up the terms, and actually meant transmen (people who are female-bodied and who identify as men)?

No, I am applying that the definition 'of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs ." Trans women clear relate to the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs.

 

[Emily Lake]

When female friends visit me, they do so braless. But the only way the expectation that women should wear bras will change is if women resist it en masse. This is a space where men cannot help the revolution.

Agreed, but it's a sticky wicket. On the one hand, bras are horribly uncomfortable. On the other hand, sometimes I get cold and I don't really want other people staring at my tits if I get nipply. Or if they wobble too much; I'm not as young and perky as I used to be.

 

[Emily Lake]

It is not nit-picking.

From Merriam-Webster. female
of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs . (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/female)_.

Clearly, that definition would encompass trans women as females.

Clarity in the thought helps reduce needless disagreement in discussion. Which is why it is useful to find out what someone means by _____ when _____ has multiple legitimate meanings.

Are you claiming that transwomen typically have the capacity to bear young and produce eggs? That is quite wrong. Are you perhaps mixing up the terms, and actually meant transmen (people who are female-bodied and who identify as men)?

No, I am applying that the definition 'of, relating to, or being the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs ." Trans women clear relate to the sex that typically has the capacity to bear young or produce eggs.

*giggle* I am pretty sure that the meaning of "relate" that you're using here is not the same meaning that Merriam-Webster is using. Which means we're back to square one.