Should we keep a women-born women space at the

foundation of a 21st century gender politics?

The notion of women-born women is self-explanatory, so we only need to

define what doesnt fall under this category. Who are not women-born
women? Men, transgender and genderqueer people. The distinction
between men-born men and women-born women is again clear, but who
are transgender and genderqueer people? Transgender people are
individuals who are born with a biological sex that is different from what
they identify as. They might or might not have undergone gender
reassignment surgeries and hormone therapies, so they might not be
identifiable based on physical appearance. Genderqueer people are
individuals who do not identify with any of the two binary gender
identities.
In everyday human interactions it is not needed to for instance make a
distinction between women-born women and transgender women, but in
some practices it is necessary. The most commonly debated implications
of the question we could think of are gender neutral bathrooms and
changing rooms and the appearance of a third gender on medical and
legal documents.
Gender neutral changing rooms and bathrooms might seem discriminatory
but in fact they save a lot of people a lot of embarrassment and negative
feelings. A genderqueer person whose biological sex is male but is dressed
up as a female might go to the womens bathroom or changing room
unnoticed, but if a partially transitioned transgender woman does the

same, she might be confronted with confused or hostile looks, or remarks.

It is therefore more comfortable for both partieswomen-born women and
transgender womento have a separate unit for transgender individuals
at this point. Arguably, society should reach a level of awareness and
tolerance where there is no need for such distinction but the realities of
2015 show that there is a need for this protection of the comfort zones of
both parties. Also, as shown by controversies Burkett is pointing towards in
her article, a lot of transgender people identify as transgender, and they
want to be recognized as one. (They find it discriminatory when only
women are mentioned somewhere.)
However, even if these designated spaces disappear, for practical reasons
it is important to keep them on any medical documents, reports and
transcripts.