Gina Rippon, a neuroscientist, among numerous other thinkers, scientists, doctors, and researchers, make the argument that the male and the female brain are indistinguishable.
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Yeah, believe it or not, this image is not accurate!
While some research suggests that women may be less suited to spatial reasoning tasks, and men less suited to hearing high pitched noises, and multitasking, there is a growing body of evidence that suggests that these are learned and enculturated traits, not innate ones. Those of you who know me, know that I wrote my MA thesis on the problem of public washroom access for nonbinary folks - and the problems with the gender binary as understood by feminists more generally - and a lot of that work drew on Judith Butler, and before her, Simone de Beauvoir, both of whom argue that women are not born women, but rather become women --- though notably Butler's work is much more nuanced.
At the same time, there are some new radical accounts by trans activists and writers who write about being born in the wrong body - the claim being that one is, in fact, born a woman... that one is born with a certain brain, a certain personality, that is inherently 'woman'. And I see this as entirely valid as well. A few years ago there was a conference that Judith Butler attended where a trans woman stoof in front of a room full of feminists and gave a performance of a spoken word poem, at the end of which she exclaimed "fuck you, Judith Butler" (see Transforming Community Conference). This sentiment often stems from the interpretation of Butler's performativity, which is often misread as performance. Gender performance makes gender expression look like drag. Gender performativity, on the other hand, is more complex, and has to do with the sociality of gender as it is developed, solidified, negotiated, and so forth in our social and political contexts. Problematically, though, Butler's work and words have been used by trans-exclusionary radical feminists over the last decade or so to make arguments that exclude trans women from feminist politics, and which refuse to acknowledge the experiences of trans women as legitimate. This has been the impetus for the increase in biological arguments for being born a woman on both sides of the spectrum, with the trans-exclusionary folks arguing that if you are born with a vagina you are a woman and therefore can legitimately make claims to women's spaces and experiences, and on the other side some trans activists have made the claim that trans women are born women as a result of being born in the wrong body - that there is some biological, neurological differences that make them inherently women.
I think both of these arguments are harmful, and are skirting the key issue, which is that the gender binary is problematic to its core and demands of us that we fit, neatly, securely, within its narrow boundaries. It demands that we choose sides. And, given gender's historical relationship to sex in the western world, it demands that we make claims to our identities that are grounded in science, traditional notions of rationality, and biologicality. In doing what the binary demands, in making the arguments "I'm born a woman because I have a vagina" or "I'm born a woman because I have a female brain" we are playing into the trap, inadvertently reaffirming the thing which have for centuries kept us servile. It is deeply problematic that we must revert to biology for legitimacy. As so many feminists, people of colour, LGB, trans, and queer folks have been crying out for ages when (primarily white male activists or scholars seek to prove the existence of injustices, wrong-doings, etc. using science and statistics) "why can't you just trust my experience?! Why must you prove these injustices?! Why is what I say not enough?!"
I was not born a woman. My vagina made the world treat me in a certain way, which likely had an impact on the behaviour I exhibit. And there are likely biological reasons that I cry more often than I yell, but the world decided that I was a woman, not me. It looks at me, my long hair, my breasts, my emotional demeanor, my clothing choices, my academic interests, and it says to me "that's what a a woman does". As Beauvoir argued half of a century ago, the title of woman has frequently been used to keep those born with certain traits (physical and otherwise) within a confined box of expected actions, attitudes, and behaviours. As Butler argued half a century later, the binary itself - male/female, girl/boy, man/woman, is prescriptive more than it is descriptive. It tells not only women, but all of us, that in order to be legitimate we must not only behave in a certain way, but have certain body parts that line up with those prescribed behaviours.
There is nothing wrong with someone making a claim to womanhood on the grounds of their born identity, nor is there are problem with making a claim to womanhood on the grounds of physical traits, nor is there a a problem with someone making a claim to womanhood on the grounds of discomfort/detachment/frustration with the gender prescribed upon them by birth. There seems to be, though, a problem with the use of biology as the determinant for legitimacy. You are a legitimate woman if you feel like a woman. Full stop. It doesn't matter what got you to that place - whether you were born that way, whether culture made you that way, whatever. You are legitimate. All women are legitimate. Trans women are legitimate women. All humans are legitimate. And someone having access to womanhood does not diminish your legitimacy as a woman. Inclusion or exclusion from feminist politics, or womanhood more generally, on the grounds of biological differences is counterproductive to the project I hope we all see as legitimate - calling into question, and tearing down, the patriarchal structures of the majority of the Western world which paint women, non-binary, LGBT, queer, and other non-conforming folks as other, as less-than, as not enough.
