Do you consent to being a woman?
If someone applies a label to you without your knowledge or explicit consent do you have the right to change that label should you feel another label fits you better based on your own conception of self? This is the fundamental question of being a woman in any society, that from birth the assigned label applied to you defines how the rest of society treats you, frames your future options, and bounds the opportunities in life. When feminists resist patriarchy this is the fundamental aspect of all societies, that the construction of womanhood is not consensual, it is thrust onto women at birth. This impacts all women, especially women who do not fall into the narrow definition that gender critics and religious fundamentalists etch onto all women’s lives. To be a woman is not consensual, it is forced onto women from birth.
This relies on the social construction of womanhood beyond the bodies assigned women are born with. If you cannot consent to the label applied to you then you have every right to resist the dominant narrative pushed onto your body. Trans women are women because they understand themselves to be women, consenting to womanhood in a reflexive way that the vast majority of women never take the time to do. If you are woman simply because society tells you are a woman is not a conscious act, it is simply accepting someone else’s scoping of your identity to fit their own version…
