Re: "Trans women aren't real women"

Trans women are real women. 

Sure, they may not be born as biologically female, but being a woman has much more to do with how you identify, how your "brain is wired," than with breasts, ovaries, uteruses, vaginas, labia, and clitoruses. If it were otherwise, pre-pubescent female children would be less of girls than their friends who had started breast development and menstruation, and female children who due to various medical conditions never have a true puberty might never become "real women," as some put it.

 Likewise, does a female adult cease being a "real woman" if she had a few bouts with cancer or other medical conditions resulting in a double mastectomy, a total hysterectomy, and surgical removal of the clitorus? I mean, all she has left to make her a "real woman" are a vagina and labia. If, for whatever reasons, she chooses not to take replacement female hormones, she may start to take on some traditionally masculine characteristics, like facial hair. Do you really want to say a couple of medical procedures and a 5 o'clock shadow can make an adult female no longer a woman?

Perhaps you object that it's not the breasts that make the woman, but the extra X chromosome. So are you saying that people born with Turner's Syndrome (anatomical females born with only 1 X chromosome) aren't real women? And what about the women who were born with a Y chromosome (genetically male) but developed female parts in utero (anatomically female since embryo) and have always identified as female? Many of these women would never know about their Y chromosome unless they are Olympic athletes, go to a fertility specialist because they can't get pregnant, or the genetic-anatomic mismatch causes other medical problems. Do you need to run a genetic test on every possible woman you meet to make sure she isn't secretly carrying a Y chromosome that even she doesn't know about?

It is absurd to define manhood and womanhood based on parts or genes. Biology doesn't define gender. Most of us so-called "real women" are just lucky that we are cis-gendered and that our bodies' appearances, our medical histories, and our genetics are all in line with stereotypical womanliness. If Y-chromosome-bearing anatomical women are real women, and if women lacking breasts and overies and uteruses are real women, then trans-women, even if they never undergo any gender-alignment procedures, surgeries, or hormones, are clearly as real of women as any other woman on the planet.