Cis Women are Women and the transes should start shouting that.

Trans women are women.

Has become the battle cry of the “woke mob”.

But you know what you don’t hear? “Cis women are women” and It’s about time the “woke mob” started chanting “Cis Women are Women” in my opinion.

The Transgendereds reading are confused. Don’t worry guys, gals and NB pals, it will make sense soon enough.

If however you are a GC and you find yourself here, I am truly sorry but if you read any further, you may hyperventilate……or puke……..or both, who knows. Personally I am hoping for the trifecta, so maybe read it in a trinity* bathroom? The clean up will be easier.

When I came out, that absolute goldmine of bigotry and brain-dead takes, my sister expressed some transphobic ideas. She was angry because, to quote her, “these men with their gender identity are coming along and invading my gender”

My first reaction was to be impressed by her arrogance. I was used to Little Miss Prejudice punching way above her entitled white but WOW, to proclaim an entire gender as your dominion, that’s hardcore godlike self esteem.

Unfortunately I internalized her views. I accepted that I was an inferior interloper to womanhood. I did what every trans person does. I digested cis heteronormative society’s views of transness and accepted myself as second place to Cis in the gender stakes. I took cisgender to be OG women and transgender to be a bit of a photocopy. The watermark was there, but it wasn’t exactly a watermark. I internalized the idea that women was synonymous with cis women and I was entering the femme-O-sphere as women-lite. If you are a guitar nerd, I was like the made in China Les Paul Special in the Gibson catalogue. If you are a music fan, I was like the Ringo in the Beatles.

Sure trans women are women, but they aren’t cis women.

So when someone else pointed out that it’s cis entitlement when cis women say they are being erased by the use of “people who give birth” in reference to people who give birth instead of birthing women, it kinda blew me away. Here was a trans person specifically saying that neither cis nor trans was more valid than either in their identification as a gender. This wasn’t someone saying “Trans women are women”. They were straight up saying “Woman”.

Cis women who need to claim erasure when we speak about “people who do something we associate with ovaries and uteruses” that's just entitlement. The common chant we hear from the Terfs and GCs is “Sex Matters” is nothing more than an adult tantrum by someone slowly realizing equality is here.

Sure, women do give birth, but so does anyone with a functional uterus. Sure cis women breast feed, so does anyone who has a set of functional boobs and a hungry kid. Sure women menstruate but some non binary people and some trans men do too. It’s not erasure when we speak about “people who have menstrual cycles” or “abortion is a human rights issue”, it’s merely the reality we exist in. It’s fact, some non binary people have kids, some trans men have periods and some trans women breastfeed. It doesn’t matter how much JK Rowling misspells women or Matt Walsh, the LGB Alliance and Maya Forstater stick their fingers in their ears and chant “lalalalalalalaallaa”, because I can show you real world examples of non binary people, trans men and trans women doing all those things.

And so it is with gender, cis people and trans people. It’s cis entitlement that dictates that cis is synonymous with “The real McCoy” gender. It’s cis entitlement that allows my sister to say “invades MY gender”.

Woman does not mean cis woman, it means woman. Trans women have as much claim to the title woman as cis women do. There was no invasion, but there is normalization and equality.

Sure cis women may have been recognized as such from birth, trans women may have taken a circuitous route to get there. But neither is more or less valid than the other.

So yes, it’s only true equality when we recognize that cis women are women, just like trans women.

* a trinity bathroom is a bathroom in which a bath, shower and toilet is present, it was a selling point on 1960s houses.

PS. To my sister and the GCs who made it this far, I am legally recognized as a woman in Denmark, as far as Mette and co are concerned, I am as OG as you.