What does it mean to be a woman?

Liz, author of Eternal Lizdom, posted an entry called "What Does It Mean To Be a Woman" and invited some friends to write their own versions. She also threw open the floor to others to add their own takes on the subject, so being the fierce woman I am, I couldn't resist.

I'm audacious. You can't transition without some amount of audacity. But after 54 years of (usually) being perceived as a man and not quite two years of being perceived as a woman, I think it's prudent to tread carefully when it comes to the question of what it means to be a woman. I'm just beginning to find out.

I can't relate it to having children, even as a father. I've never had children (that I know of), and I've never reared children. In fact, I've had very little extended contact with children until this past summer, when I had a wonderful opportunity to work with a group of girls on a musical adventure.

I certainly can't relate it to having grown up as a girl. That option wasn't afforded to me. No first period, no first being kissed (as opposed to planting one), and a rather different concept of losing virginity.

So how can I, a mere trans egg, have anything to say about being a woman?

Well, one thing trans women (and trans men) find out very quickly is the difference in how others treat us. We are in the unique position of having lived on both sides of what is still substantially a binary. I've experienced the deference of being allowed on the bus or off the elevator first. I'm fortunate in not being in a situation where that different treatment is negative. I am respected at work for my knowledge and skills, and that hasn't changed as I have changed. But there are so many little ways during the day that I keep seeing that it's a different world for women than it is for men.

As a trans woman, I can also express what a huge difference there is being an estrogen-based life form rather than a testosterone-based life form. See, XX isn't really so scientific. Occasionally the H-Y antigen is expressed on the X-chromosome, so XX can be male, and occasionally it is not expressed on the Y-chromosome, so XY can be female. So it's not so much XX as the normal result of XX, which is naturally high levels of female sex hormones and lower levels of male sex hormones. I've caused that to happen through the wonders of prescription pharmaceuticals. And I can't overestimate how different that makes me feel, in my brain and in my body. Sex hormones are fundamental to our physical and mental state, and mine are now female normal. Hormonally, I am all woman.

I have the social, hormonal, and some (very little) physical womanhood, but it's still three months before I have the remaining physical womanhood. I can't yet speak about how that is going to be, only that I get more excited about it the closer it gets. Because some women have penises, but most women have vaginas, and in three months so will I.

After that, what it means to be a woman is all in the vague realm of how I feel, and thus difficult to express. One thing that strikes me is how much more important women's issues are to me, not because I think they ought to be, but because I feel them in my gut. I was always a compassionate, caring person (when I wasn't being a selfish bastard), and if anything I am now more compassionate and caring toward all people, but there is something about women that activates me emotionally. Women being raped, women being brutalized, women being treated like chattel. Women making great strides, women being empowered, women winning battles. Those things all hit me at a visceral level now. Maybe it's the hormones. Maybe it's the life I live. Most likely it is both.

A woman is someone who feels a fundamental connection to other women.

There really is a sisterhood, and I've been allowed into it. Not by all women, of course, but by those who know me. I imagine there's a brotherhood as well, but if there is, I was never a part of it. But I am part of this wonderful sisterhood. Apparently, it's not based on chromosomes or having children or even on having female normal hormone levels. It seems to be based on the shared experience of living our lives as women, especially in a society in which that makes our lives different than the lives of men. I didn't grow up a girl, but I've been growing up as a woman for nearly two years, and I've learned a huge amount during that time. That lets me into the club, and believe me, that's not a privilege I take for granted. It's precious to me, and I cherish each woman who welcomes me as a woman.

Those are the best answers I can come up with. I can't give as complete an answer as a woman-born-female-bodied can. But I can give the answer of someone who has lived in both worlds.