What Does It Mean to Live as a Woman?

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No mammalian species has a sex changing individuals. They literally cannot become o other. So all thas ti son, so it's, it's in your gens. You don't look at people's chromosomes. you don't see them. And very occasionally, somebody can make enough changes that it's hard to read them. There are those who think they're one sex and actually they're the other. But what any more does it mean to live as a woman? Like, do i live as aWoman? I'm kind of ambiguous on that,. maybe, but what does that mean?

Biological sex is no longer accepted as a basic fact of life. It is forbidden to admit that female people sometimes need protection and privacy from male ones. In an analysis that is at once expert, sympathetic and urgent, Helen Joyce offers an antidote to the chaos and cancelling.

Shermer and Joyce discuss: What is a woman? What is a man? • conflicting rights: trans vs. women • sex vs. gender; who you identify as vs. who you are attracted to • cross-sex identification • gender dysphoria • social contagions • gender affirming care • puberty blockers, testosterone, hormone treatment • detransitioning • top surgery, phalloplasty, vaginoplasty • preferred pronouns: compelled speech ≠ free speech • trans sports • exclusive spaces, and more…

Helen Joyce is a senior staff journalist at The Economist, where she has held several positions, including Britain editor, Finance editor and International editor. Before joining The Economist in 2005 she edited Plus, an online magazine about mathematics published by the University of Cambridge. She has a PhD in mathematics from University College London. On Twitter, she is @HJoyceGender.