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Cont: Trans Women are not Women 3

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d4m10n said:
Can we assume this is some sort of elaborate troll?
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Can't tell from that alone. Certainly a possibility. Godfrey Elfwick comes to mind, along with Jarvis Dupont. I think the former got banned, the latter is still active on Twitter. A number of "her" (and Titania McGrath's) posts are relevant to this thread.
 
Meadmaker said:
If that person is a woman, then the word "woman" has no meaning.
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Aye, there's the rub. If someone whom we call a woman has never had the appearance of a woman or the social experience of a woman or the distinct biological features of a woman, then we are forced to posit some (borderline metaphysical) subjective sense of self which all cis women and trans women have in common—but which all men lack—in order to have some distinct quality which makes one a woman.

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Meadmaker said:
It's cases like this one that make me wonder about "for the sake of courtesy".


When a person looks like that, and has no intention to transition, but insists on being called a woman, is it courteous to indulge that? Is it courteous of him....or...her...or......something......to expect it.

If that person is a woman, then the word "woman" has no meaning.
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As bizarre as it is, I end up feeling like part of my identity, as a woman, is being redefined so that I'm no longer part of it. At least I'm straight and have been married for a long time. I honestly don't know how young lesbians deal with this right now.
 
Meadmaker said:
It's cases like this one that make me wonder about "for the sake of courtesy".


When a person looks like that, and has no intention to transition, but insists on being called a woman, is it courteous to indulge that? Is it courteous of him....or...her...or......something......to expect it.

If that person is a woman, then the word "woman" has no meaning.
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Welcome to the world of attack helicopter identification.
 
Meadmaker said:
No.

But you knew that.
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Why not? The argument seems to be "if someone looks like a man treat them like a man". How would you carve out an exception for mannish-looking people? To do so you'd have to allow factors outside appearance to count, wouldn't you?
 
And isn't "treat them like a man" all kinds of problematic anyway? Every time a transsexual asks to be treated like a man or woman, they're asking us to buy into and perpetuate oppressive gender stereotypes.

If we get rid of gender stereotypes, what will we do to treat gender dysphoria? Or will it just go away? Pretty soon there's going to be a science fiction story where little Jony takes off his educational VR goggles and says, "mommy, I think I'm really a girl." And mommy replies, "hush, dear, there's no such thing as boys and girls anymore."
 
TragicMonkey said:
Why not? The argument seems to be "if someone looks like a man treat them like a man". How would you carve out an exception for mannish-looking people?
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Surely you must mean mannish-looking women?

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I think I've said this before, but it's probably worth saying again.

1) Sex is what your body is.
2) Gender is what other people perceive your sex to be
3) Gender identity is what you want other people to perceive your sex to be

None of these is chiseled in stone and immutable, and none of them are based on a single element.

Let's take a moment and talk about item 2 above: the perception of another person's sex.

Humans are very good pattern finders. Often we're too good and find patterns where none exist. But even with those false positives, we're surprisingly good at it. When it comes to sex (what a person's body is) we rarely get to see their genitalia, and outside of a few laboratories, none of us are looking at a person's chromosomes.

But sex has a lot (and I do mean a LOT) of non-genital indicators that almost everyone is very, very good at picking up on. The perception of sex includes some social constructs, such as:
- Style of dress
- Hair styles
- Make-up
- Jewelry

But those aren't the only elements that influence the perception of sex. Many of them are prompted by puberty such as:
- Ratio of shoulder breadth to hip width
- Facial hair
- Breasts
- Height
- Distribution of fat over the body

And some of them exist regardless of puberty:
- Shape and prominence of the brow ridge
- Size of feet and hands (with respect to age)
- Shape of chin and jaw line
- Tilt and shape of pelvic bone
- Attachment points for muscles and ligaments, particularly around the hip and shoulder regions

That's a lot of indicators. Each of them has a range of potential values, and most of them have different means and deviations for male versus female, even when there is overlap. Any given person is highly unlikely to fall at the mean of every one of those elements. But almost everyone is highly likely to fall within a standard deviation of the mean on all of them. It's very common for any given person to have one of those characteristics that visually falls within a couple of standard deviations of the mean for the opposite gender. It's very, very uncommon for any person to have all of those characteristics visually fall within a couple of standard deviations of the opposite gender's mean.

So any given male person might have a very soft jaw line and a chin that isn't very prominent. But that same male is highly unlikely to also be shorter, with hands that are close in size to a female, and small feet, and no notable adam's apple, and a female gait, and carry more of their fat deposits on their hips and thighs than on their stomach and chest, and have narrow shoulders with wide hips, and have breasts, and have no facial hair.

Most people are going to have somewhere around 90% or more of their non-social visual features fall into the same category as their sex. Some people might have more like 80% of them fall into the same category as their sex. And incredibly few people, almost negligibly few people, fall anywhere close to a 50%/50% split or are truly visually androgynous.

This is a long way of getting around to saying:
An ugly woman still looks mostly like a woman - beauty has only a small amount to do with the perception of sex.
Kaur is still visually a woman, even with a beard - her face shape, brow ridge, body shape - everything about her looks like a female.

If you take an average looking male, even a relatively small statured male, give them a clean shave, toss on some lipstick and eye shadow, and put them in a dress and heels... most people will have no problem at all identifying that person as highly likely to be a male.
 
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Emily's Cat said:
Not sure what you're angling for here?
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That we need to be more like Samoa and have a third gender.

Good piece here from a fa'afafine soccer player: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/aug/29/jaiyah-saelua-transgender-footballer-interview

Emily's Cat said:
Kaur has a beard, but all of her other features are pretty easily identifiable as female.
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Feminine/masculine features aren't necessarily a guide, as Andre Pejic showed long before his transition.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Why not? The argument seems to be "if someone looks like a man treat them like a man". How would you carve out an exception for mannish-looking people? To do so you'd have to allow factors outside appearance to count, wouldn't you?
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You know the answer to that.


Other people have already expressed what the argument actually is. d4m10n said it pretty well. Emily's cat addressed a different facet when she said, "As bizarre as it is, I end up feeling like part of my identity, as a woman, is being redefined so that I'm no longer part of it." So, there's no need to talk about what "seems" to be the argument. You can just go with what the argument is.

That person has no traits other than self identification that would identify him as a woman. There is no definition of "woman" that you could possibly give that puts him inside of it. Or her. Or whatever. it doesn't mean anything anyway.
 
Meadmaker said:
You know the answer to that.
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Unless you're applying for the MDC in mind-reading you need to stop claiming you know what I'm thinking.

Other people have already expressed what the argument actually is. d4m10n said it pretty well. Emily's cat addressed a different facet when she said, "As bizarre as it is, I end up feeling like part of my identity, as a woman, is being redefined so that I'm no longer part of it." So, there's no need to talk about what "seems" to be the argument. You can just go with what the argument is.

That person has no traits other than self identification that would identify him as a woman. There is no definition of "woman" that you could possibly give that puts him inside of it. Or her. Or whatever. it doesn't mean anything anyway.
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The argument presented by the post I was referring to was "look at this obvious guy claiming to be a woman LOL, I can totally see that he's not!" Which is very much summed up entirely as "if a person looks like a man, they should be treated as a man regardless of anything else outside their appearance".

How then could that make an exception for women who look mannish?

Two people are present, X and Y. X looks like a man. Y looks like a man. We can only determine how to treat them based on their appearance. And somehow you're telling me everyone "knows" that X is a man and should be treated as such and Y is a woman and should be treated as such?

Perhaps you don't know as much as you think you do, if you rely on outside unspecified divine inspiration to determine someone's sex.
 
TragicMonkey said:
How would you distinguish between a man who looks like a man and a woman who looks like a man, without any other information apart from appearance?
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I'm going to need you to define the key terms here.

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d4m10n said:
I'm going to need you to define the key terms here.
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You are the one claiming to be able to accurately judge between two categories, by appearance alone. I think the burden of defining those categories falls upon you. It's your claim that they exist, and you can distinguish between them.
 
Emily's Cat said:
Public pantsing! :shocked:
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Impractical. But does that mean you assign sex based upon sex organs? So a successful operation to create female-appearing genitals is all it takes to make someone a woman, or vice versa male-appearing genitals is all it takes to make someone a man? This seems to be a reverse from previous stated positions.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Impractical. But does that mean you assign sex based upon sex organs? So a successful operation to create female-appearing genitals is all it takes to make someone a woman, or vice versa male-appearing genitals is all it takes to make someone a man? This seems to be a reverse from previous stated positions.
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I kind of though the super flashy smiley was a good indication of humor. Perhaps I was wrong.
 
Emily's Cat said:
I kind of though the super flashy smiley was a good indication of humor. Perhaps I was wrong.
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An excellent example of how people interpreting the same visual phenomena might end up with different conclusions. What we can know for certain is that the image appears. What it means depends on individual interpretation. If all of the audience interprets it the same way, then successful communication has occurred. If not, then this (and most other) threads.
 
TragicMonkey said:
You are the one claiming to be able to accurately judge between two categories, by appearance alone.
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In one specific case, yes. Care to wager on that one?

ETA: Happy to define my terms if you agree to do the same.

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TragicMonkey said:
The argument presented by the post I was referring to was "look at this obvious guy claiming to be a woman LOL, I can totally see that he's not!" Which is very much summed up entirely as "if a person looks like a man, they should be treated as a man regardless of anything else outside their appearance".
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Well, no. The person in question explicitly states that they are a trans woman. In other words, they are stating that they are biologically male. There is no uncertainty involved here.

Perhaps you don't know as much as you think you do, if you rely on outside unspecified divine inspiration to determine someone's sex.
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We don't need to judge this person's biology based on their appearance, let alone divine inspiration. It TOLD us its biology. We can use that as a guide.
 
d4m10n said:
In one specific case, yes.
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Are you referring to the image above? Why do you believe that case can be judged by appearances but others cannot?

Care to wager on that one?
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No, because I'm saying you're guessing, not that you're not good at guessing.

ETA: Happy to define my terms if you agree to do the same.
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I'm not sold on the notion of objective reality itself, much less the categories you claim to be able to visually distinguish. If you cannot explain what those categories are I suggest you skip assigning people into them until you can.

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Thanks for telling us, everyone was super curious about that.
 
Ziggurat said:
Well, no. The person in question explicitly states that they are a trans woman. In other words, they are stating that they are biologically male.
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Surprising that I have to point this out in the third continuation of the topic of the thread, but your definition of "trans woman = male" is not universally agreed upon.

Perhaps you need to prove your assertion of that before you attempt to use it as a logical proof.

I'll wait.

There is no uncertainty involved here.
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Not on your part, no, because you have decided you know the correct answer to the question of the thread. Perhaps you have also decided you are God Almighty, but others disagree with your authority to declare what is true in these matters.

We don't need to judge this person's biology based on their appearance, let alone divine inspiration. It TOLD us its biology. We can use that as a guide.
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Why are you so hostile to that person? "It"? And deciding that whatever "it" says the opposite is what is being declared? That seems rather rude.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Unless you're applying for the MDC in mind-reading you need to stop claiming you know what I'm thinking.



The argument presented by the post I was referring to was "look at this obvious guy claiming to be a woman LOL, I can totally see that he's not!"Which is very much summed up entirely as "if a person looks like a man, they should be treated as a man regardless of anything else outside their appearance".

How then could that make an exception for women who look mannish?

Two people are present, X and Y. X looks like a man. Y looks like a man. We can only determine how to treat them based on their appearance. And somehow you're telling me everyone "knows" that X is a man and should be treated as such and Y is a woman and should be treated as such?

Perhaps you don't know as much as you think you do, if you rely on outside unspecified divine inspiration to determine someone's sex.
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Which post are you referring to? I traced this exchange back as far as this post:

TragicMonkey said:
What about women so ugly they look like men? Should we address them as male?
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Which doesn't quote anything and doesn't seem to be related to the post immediately prior.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Surprising that I have to point this out in the third continuation of the topic of the thread, but your definition of "trans woman = male" is not universally agreed upon.
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Oh? Are there trans women who were born female? How does that work?

Not on your part, no, because you have decided you know the correct answer to the question of the thread.
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Again, no. You're being either deliberately obtuse or you really don't understand anything. "Female" and "Woman" are not synonymous, and likewise "male" and "man" are not synonymous. Whatever argument you want to have over how the definition of "woman" should vary from simply "adult human female", if anyone seriously think there's a legitimate argument to be had over what "male" and "female" mean in regards to human biology, well, they're just a joke.

Why are you so hostile to that person? "It"?
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Why are you taking my use of a gender-neutral pronoun as a sign of hostility? I have no idea what this person's preferred pronouns are. Neither do you.

And deciding that whatever "it" says the opposite is what is being declared? That seems rather rude.
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I see you still insist on being confused about the distinction between male/female and man/woman. That's on you, not me.
 
Ziggurat said:
Oh? Are there trans women who were born female? How does that work?
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No idea, it's not a claim I'm making. I'm questioning the validity of your assertions, not claiming that a set of opposite assertions are necessarily true.

Again, no. You're being either deliberately obtuse or you really don't understand anything. "Female" and "Woman" are not synonymous, and likewise "male" and "man" are not synonymous. Whatever argument you want to have over how the definition of "woman" should vary from simply "adult human female", if anyone seriously think there's a legitimate argument to be had over what "male" and "female" mean in regards to human biology, well, they're just a joke.
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Dear me, so we went from being unable to define just "man" and "woman" to adding two more terms, also not being defined! I guess that's progress...towards obfuscation.

Why are you taking my use of a gender-neutral pronoun as a sign of hostility? I have no idea what this person's preferred pronouns are. Neither do you.
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Now who's being "obtuse"? Using a pronoun the language reserves for inanimate objects seems fairly hostile to me.

I see you still insist on being confused about the distinction between male/female and man/woman. That's on you, not me.
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I see you still insist on insisting you get to decide who is a woman or not. I glean from your spluttered assertions that your theory is based upon birth circumstances somehow, so at least you get credit for inventing a principle instead of basing everything entirely upon appearance. But it's still an invented principle that you have yet to demonstrate is valid or should be accepted by others.
 
TragicMonkey said:
No idea, it's not a claim I'm making. I'm questioning the validity of your assertions, not claiming that a set of opposite assertions are necessarily true.
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Oh please. We're in "that depends on what the definition of 'is' is" territory.

Dear me, so we went from being unable to define just "man" and "woman" to adding two more terms, also not being defined!
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You tried to go there, not me. I think the definitions of "male" and "female" are perfectly clear. And given those clear definitions, you've got no argument against what I said. That's why you tried to pull a bait and switch when I referred to "male" and you tried to bring up confusion about "woman".

Now who's being "obtuse"? Using a pronoun the language reserves for inanimate objects seems fairly hostile to me.
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Proof you are wrong by counter-example: tag, you're it.

I see you still insist on insisting you get to decide who is a woman or not.
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Nothing in my post indicates anything about who is or is not a woman. I pointed out that the person being discussed is unambiguously male. As in the normal biological definition that people who don't need therapy aren't confused about.

Seriously go back and read my recent posts again. I said nothing about who is or isn't a woman. You have either assumed a position I never expressed or you have confused which posts belong to me and which belong to others. Pull your head out of your ass and start reading for comprehension.

I glean from your spluttered assertions that your theory is based upon birth circumstances somehow, so at least you get credit for inventing a principle instead of basing everything entirely upon appearance. But it's still an invented principle that you have yet to demonstrate is valid or should be accepted by others.
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If the principle that your biological sex exists at birth is "invented", then it was not invented by me. And the biological sciences have demonstrated the validity of that principle in a fairly robust manner.
 
Ziggurat said:
Oh please. We're in "that depends on what the definition of 'is' is" territory.
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Are you suggesting the problem of who is a woman and who isn't is unsolvably complex? Okay, I can agree with that.

You tried to go there, not me. I think the definitions of "male" and "female" are perfectly clear.
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So clear they cannot be stated, apparently.

And given those clear definitions, you've got no argument against what I said. That's why you tried to pull a bait and switch when I referred to "male" and you tried to bring up confusion about "woman".
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You've lost track: I'm not the one stating anybody in particular is or isn't a man or a woman, or male or female. I'm asking the people who claim they can make such distinctions visually are basing that on, specifically how they distinguish between a mannish-looking woman and a mannish-looking man. I don't see how it can be done.

Proof you are wrong by counter-example: tag, you're it.
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I don't think that particular "example" holds much water in the question of whether it's rude to refer to people as "it".

Nothing in my post indicates anything about who is or is not a woman. I pointed out that the person being discussed is unambiguously male. As in the normal biological definition that people who don't need therapy aren't confused about.
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If you don't want to be perceived as hostile to trans people you shouldn't imply they "need therapy".

Seriously go back and read my recent posts again. I said nothing about who is or isn't a woman. You have either assumed a position I never expressed or you have confused which posts belong to me and which belong to others. Pull your head out of your ass and start reading for comprehension.
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Increasing rudeness, vulgarity, and personal attack. I suspect those therapists you allude to might have some theories about why this topic excites you so.

If the principle that your biological sex exists at birth is "invented", then it was not invented by me.
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Which adds nothing to the question of whether it's correct or not. For the record I wasn't crediting you with the invention of biological sexes.

And the biological sciences have demonstrated the validity of that principle in a fairly robust manner.
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I'm sure these biological sciences (citation needed) back you up to the hilt on the question nobody's asked. How about the question that has been asked: how do you determine if a given individual is a man or a woman based upon their appearance alone? Can it be done? If so, how?
 
theprestige said:
LOL. It's image and text. I actually replied to it.

I quoted it though, so it would be clear what I was replying to. Do you have quotes turned off? : p
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The text was less interesting than the image and I thought it would save time to paraphrase the argument presented by the image and move on from there. The other people who've been talking to me had no difficulty in following that. I don't see that this exchange questioning how I got to what I said is more interesting than what I said. If you are interested you can pick up from here:

How can a mannish-looking woman be distinguished from a man by appearance alone?

If you aren't interested in that exchange then you needn't pursue it further. Unless you're really bored and want to, I guess, lecture me on how I post?
 
TragicMonkey said:
The argument presented by the post I was referring to was "look at this obvious guy claiming to be a woman LOL, I can totally see that he's not!" Which is very much summed up entirely as "if a person looks like a man, they should be treated as a man regardless of anything else outside their appearance".
.
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This is not the case.

It is not "I can see that he totally is not." It is that I can read, in his/her/splunge own words that he is not. That's what the caption is all about. (S)he says, quite explicitly, that he/she/splunge is a transwoman with no intention to transition his appearance. He knows he looks like a man. He admits, by acknowledging that he's a transwoman, that he is male bodied and intends to stay that way, and her picture confirms that his appearance is totally male. He looks male, and his words confirm that he is male.


And yes, you know full well that if I saw an "ugly" woman, which you clarified that you meant a woman who has a mannish appearance, that I would declare that she is a woman. Is she of the sex that can make babies? She's a woman.

I'll repeat something I said about a year ago in this thread.

If person A can have sexual intercourse with person B, such that person B becomes pregnant, that is a sufficient condition to declare that person A is a man, and person B is a woman.

(This is the cue for someone to jump in and demonstrate that they don't understand what "sufficient condition" means.)

For people who cannot, at this point in time impregnate or become pregnant, we can expand from there until almost every single person on the planet fits neatly into one of those two categories. We might have to add temporal references, and note that juveniles go by different terms, and that illness or injury affects fertility and all the other things people try to use as gotchas, but the word "ugly" need not be used in that categorization.

And.....you know that's what I think. You don't have to ask, and you don't have to pretend that you don't know.


That particular person, who would prefer to be called a woman, is just a particularly powerful demonstration of why the trans activist position is so meaningless. Most trans people actively go out of their way so that people who encounter them will believe that the trans person is someone of the preferred gender, and so one can look and say that they are associating something with "woman" and trying to emulate it. This person is not doing that. Ze is deliberately maintaining a masculine appearance, but assuring us that ze is a woman. Well what the heck does that even mean? If that person is a woman, then what does woman mean?
 
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TragicMonkey said:
Are you suggesting the problem of who is a woman and who isn't is unsolvably complex?
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No. I'm saying that in this case, the problem of this person's biological sex is already solved, and contrary to your replies to other posters, we don't need to rely on this person's appearance, we can use their testimony.

You've lost track: I'm not the one stating anybody in particular is or isn't a man or a woman, or male or female.
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I haven't lost track of anything. Yes, you didn't state anyone in particular is anything in particular. But you did take issue with posters who have stated that someone in particular is male, and contended that they cannot do so on the basis of appearance. The problem with this objection, though, is that we don't need to rely on appearance to make that conclusion in this particular case.

I don't think that particular "example" holds much water in the question of whether it's rude to refer to people as "it".
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I admit to ambiguity in my reply, but the proof was that "it" was not reserved for inanimate objects.

If you don't want to be perceived as hostile to trans people you shouldn't imply they "need therapy".
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What did I say about reading for comprehension? You aren't doing that.

The people I stated (not implied) need therapy are the people who are confused about the biological definitions of male and female. There is nothing about being trans which requires anyone to be confused about that, and I expect plenty of trans people would be offended by your insinuation that being trans leads to confusion on the topic.

Increasing rudeness, vulgarity, and personal attack.
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Oh please. Don't pretend that you've been a model of decorum here. EDIT: removed unnecessary insult.

Which adds nothing to the question of whether it's correct or not.
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If you are still uncertain about the biological basis of sex, I cannot help you. But the good news is there are plenty of educational resources available.

How about the question that has been asked: how do you determine if a given individual is a man or a woman based upon their appearance alone? Can it be done? If so, how?
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That's not even a meaningful question if the definition of "man" and "woman" are up in the air. And it's obviously impossible if the definitions are purely self-referential, as some would prefer. If we use traditional definitions of "adult human male" and "adult human female", then appearance alone is sometimes insufficient to make a determination. But again, in this case we don't need to rely on appearance to make that determination.
 
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Meadmaker said:
This is not the case.

It is not "I can see that he totally is not." It is that I can read, in his/her/splunge own words that he is not. That's what the caption is all about. (S)he says, quite explicitly, that he/she/splunge is a transwoman with no intention to transition his appearance. He knows he looks like a man. He admits, by acknowledging that he's a transwoman, that he is male bodied and intends to stay that way, and her picture confirms that his appearance is totally male. He looks male, and his words confirm that he is male.
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....you're not saying he's a man because he looks like a man, you're saying he's a man because he says he's not trying to look like a woman? How is that different?

And yes, you know full well that if I saw an "ugly" woman, which you clarified that you meant a woman who has a mannish appearance, that I would declare that she is a woman. Is she of the sex that can make babies? She's a woman.
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How would you know if she's a woman if she looks like a man? Are you saying you wouldn't know until/unless she made babies? Otherwise it still sounds like you're going entirely off appearances. A sufficiently mannish-looking woman (and a sufficently womanish-looking man) would fool you entirely until/unless you made further investigations.

I'll repeat something I said about a year ago in this thread.

If person A can have sexual intercourse with person B, such that person B becomes pregnant, that is a sufficient condition to declare that person A is a man, and person B is a woman.

(This is the cue for someone to jump in and demonstrated that they don't understand what "sufficient condition" means.)

For people who cannot, at this point in time impregnate or become pregnant, we can expand from there until almost every single person on the planet fits neatly into one of those two categories. We might have to add temporal references, and note that juveniles go by different terms, and that illness or injury affects fertility and all the other things people try to use as gotchas, but the word "ugly" need not be used in that categorization.
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All that sex is very interesting, but it suggests you think that you cannot determine if a given individual is a woman or not by appearance alone. Which was my question.

And.....you know that's what I think. You don't have to ask, and you don't have to pretend that you don't know.
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Yeah, to be honest...I don't actually think about you that much, so I don't actually memorize what you've said before.

That particular person, who would prefer to be called a woman, is just a particularly powerful demonstration of why the trans activist position is so meaningless. Most trans people actively go out of their way so that people who encounter them will believe that the trans person is someone of the preferred gender, and so one can look and say that they are associating something with "woman" and trying to emulate it. This person is not doing that. Ze is deliberately maintaining a masculine appearance, but assuring us that ze is a woman. Well what the heck does that even mean? If that person is a woman, then what does woman mean?
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Finally, the point I wanted to get to. It means nothing. These categories are made up. It doesn't matter who gets sorted into which category, and on what grounds. Not for social interaction, anyway. Who cares whether that bearded person in that photo is a woman or a man or Snork? What difference does it make to other people? Even if those categories were totally meaningless or the most important things in the cosmos it still doesn't make a significant difference in other people's lives, does it? Let's see, for me the sum total of possible issues that might arise from mistaking that person for a woman/man when they're the other is....I might be embarrassed by social awkwardness if I guess the wrong pronouns. Full stop. That's it. I thought about whether it would even matter if I guessed wrong when flirting with them but on second thought it wouldn't--if they're so mannish I'm attracted then finding out otherwise won't make a difference.

All I see for three threads now is people insisting that the distinction is super important, and trying to justify the conclusion they already reached. Some people don't want X to be a woman. Then they backfill in the reasoning behind it, and getting more and more elaborate excuses for all the ambiguous and edge cases.

The reason it all descends into absurdity it because the whole thing is fundamentally absurd. You can't escape it. You can't make sense of assigning people into subsets that themselves are more habit than reason, and bear little actual impact on reality.
 
TragicMonkey said:
How can a mannish-looking woman be distinguished from a man by appearance alone?
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Naked or clothed? A prominent adams apple is a fairly good indicator, though significant fat layers around the neck can obscure that.

Genitals are a significant indicator, if they appear naked. I am not intimately familiar with the appearance of genitals of those who have undergone sex reassignment surgery, so I cannot say for certain that they are distinguishable, but given how obvious facial plastic surgery often is, I would be quite surprised if something so significantly more radical did not leave telltale marks and scars. Breast enlargement surgery does. I'm not sufficiently interested to do my own research on the matter, so if anyone wants to claim expertise, I will defer to them.
 
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