A backlash against gender ideology is starting in universities

There is plenty of brackets so all can play at their respectives levels, separation in different leagues for collective sports, different levels in individual sports, etc. You can have fun in your local amateur , but there would not be any point in a game against professionals. And at the top level, olympics or international competitions, there would be no match in mixed genders for most sports.

> So the fact that we cannot seem to come up with a perfect criterion for defining "biological woman" does not mean that we can dispense with that category.

Right. But nobody is asking you to dispense of the category of women, what we're doing is we're agreeing with you that the category is fuzzy and we're saying that genitalia and sex assignment at birth do not clearly designate identity.

Nor are we getting rid of the category of cisgender and/or AFAB women. Trans women are not (and have never claimed to be) biologically identical to AFAB women. If trans women were claiming that they were biologically identical to women, then many of them wouldn't be taking estrogen. They are very aware about their biology :)

But acknowledging the fuzziness of women as a category overall means regularly reassessing our social norms about how women are expected to act and what their bodies are expected to look like. This is especially true in instances where we see people who are sharing a lot of experiences with other women.

Many trans women know what it's like to be catcalled. They know what it's like to be discriminated against at their jobs. Their experiences are not identical to everyone else's, in the same way that women's experiences in these areas are not all identical depending on their backgrounds/bodies/environments. But there is enough overlap that it is useful to group them together under the banner of womanhood. Because there isn't a perfect criterion for "woman", and part of feminism is critically examining biases about what hoops people need to jump through to be considered an "acceptable" woman -- regardless of whether those hoops are set up by men, or by other women.

> To me, because it allows us to provide a fairly good answer to the question "where do babies come from?"

Well, except for infertile women, who are fully woman and fully valid regardless of their ability to have children.

> and to gender critical feminists because they view the concept as cental to their political/philosophical project.

I disagree that trans women mean that these political/philosophical goals can't be achieved. To me, this is just gatekeeping, I don't see a real motivating need for this kind of exclusion. Trans women do not have an agenda to take away women's rights, many of these people are feminists themselves.

> And while this may seem "absurd" to you, terms like "AFAB" seems "absurd" to me.

The absurdity is not that you have different opinions about the definition of a woman, the absurdity is your implication that acknowledging the womanhood of trans women is tantamount to saying that their experiences are completely identical to cisgender, AFAB women, or that it's destroying some kind of sacred bond. That position is absurd because cisgender, AFAB women do not have identical experiences with each other.

You wrote:

> If it means "there is no distinction between biological women and trans women," that seems wrong to me and to the vast majority of people.

That would be an absurd thing for anyone to claim about any attribute of womanhood, and nobody is doing so.

Isn't that like pointing out an empty set being still a set?

>That’s not how rapists operate! They seek positions of power.

This frames rape as some thing people plot out and rationalize over a long time.

Rape is like any other crime. Some people think about it critically and finds ways to commit it for their own amusement. Oftentimes it's just people taking an opportunity. Sometimes it's people finding ways to make opportunities and not thinking about freshman psychology power dynamics. A lot of rape involves hormones and alcohol flowing freely without consideration of the consequences or harm.

There are also people who actively enjoy feeling weak or inferior as part of a sexual fetish.

Trying to rationalize it into one group or mindset doesn't work.

> Right. But nobody is asking you to dispense of the category of women, what we're doing is we're agreeing with you that the category is fuzzy and we're saying that genitalia and sex assignment at birth are not perfect criterion.

In fact we are being asked this. Which is why trans women are competing with biological women in sports. How is that not dispensing with the category of "biological women"?

You don't seem to realize it but your entire argument is based on undermining the category of "biological women" by showing that it isn't "real". You've typed a lot of words attempting to do that.

> I disagree that trans women mean that these political/philosophical goals can't be achieved. To me, this is just gatekeeping, I don't see a real motivating need for this kind of exclusion. Trans women do not have an agenda to take away women's rights, many of these people are feminists themselves.

All categories are "gatekeeping". To say X is X and not Y is "gatekeeping". This is why "gatekeeping" is such a dumb term.

> The absurdity is not that you have different opinions about the definition of a woman, the absurdity is your implication that acknowledging the womanhood of trans women is tantamount to saying that their experiences are completely identical to cisgender, AFAB women, or that it's destroying some kind of sacred bond. That position is absurd because cisgender, AFAB women do not have identical experiences with each other.

I don't define everything by "experiences" so this is all gibberish to me. But, again, we are being asked to deny the distinction between biological women and trans women. This is very explicit. You're choosing to ignore it because it's inconvenient to your argument.