The following is an open letter response to Elinor Burkett, the author behind the recent article posted in the New York Times titled "What Makes A Woman."

Dear Elinor,

If you're going to make an argument against the mainstream media's trans narrative, maybe address the media itself instead of assuming that a recently out, highly privileged trans woman is a mouthpiece for the trans community.

Caitlyn Jenner never claimed to be speaking for us in the first place.

1. You're putting words in our mouths.

Quotes about a change in behavior following hormone therapy don't necessarily insinuate that hormones themselves are the cause. You might assume that a trans woman who says "I'm so much more aware of my emotions" is disillusioned by internalized misogyny, until you realize that trans men often say similar things.

And so do people who find love.

And so do people who find a passion in life.

And so have you, given you've ever had a moment of euphoria.

So maybe you're the one making unfair assumptions.

2. You posture that "Their truth is not my truth." Effectively putting the trans community into one category, while you're off in your own special group.

Well. No one's truth is another person's truth.

Here you list out social scenarios that suck for women. You claim that trans women don't experience them.

First, the anatomy-specific scenarios. These range from not only transphobic, but ableist and homophobic as well. You're really going to reject someone's womanhood based on an inability to have children? What about lesbian women? What about straight cis women who cannot have children? These arguments are erasure, pure and simple.

Next you talk about male vs female socialization as if all trans people come from Jenner's background. As if everyone transitions at the same age. As if the ability to declare your gender identity is something to be earned from the cis people around you. As if each cis woman's experience isn't wildly different from the experiences of other cis women anyway. As if you understand the effect of gendered socialization on young trans people (not that you mention this, because you're clearly under the impression that being treated as male, despite being female, is really easy to cope with.)

For some reason you also talk about:

Wage gaps (as if most trans people can even get hired, or that the ones who can don't suffer from this.)

Fear of rape (as if rape and murder aren't things that every trans girl worries about constantly)

Men seeing women as objects (as if the men in your life won't see trans women as women. Why would you make that assumption, I wonder?)

These experiences are universal to female-presenting people, and are in no way cis-specific. Which brings up another point. I think that trans men would have a serious problem with the thought that they are somehow more "woman" just because they've experienced these realities. And I think that a cis woman who has never experienced some combination of these scenarios would be offended that you've chosen to reject their female identity as well.

In short, who are you to designate which parts of people's realities made them who they are?

3. You fight feminine stereotypes only to inject your own new rules.

"I fully support Caitlyn Jenner, but I wish she hadn't chosen to come out as a sex babe."

I know this quote wasn't yours. But you cited it. So own up to it.

Any argument that involves policing the actions of another woman is just reinforcing gender roles or building inverse pyramids. Do you also have a problem with the cis women in your life that embrace their sexuality in conventionally "feminine" ways? No? Then you might be transphobic. Yes? then you're just inverting the hierarchy.

4. You nit-pick the language of newly out trans people.

"Female brain"

I don't see why this is ever a topic of discussion on either side, because the participants never seem to have the credentials to talk about neurology. But maybe recognize that from a trans perspective, validation of your gender identity pretransition is kind of hard to come by. So maybe don't take it so personally when a person says something to make themselves feel better.

Just because someone feels that her brain is inherently female does not require you to apply the same logic to yourself. Maybe some brains are more highly gendered than others. Maybe yours is more neutral. Maybe this is all total nonsense and she just wants to feel justified in making a really, really hard decision. Maybe the phrasing of "female brain" wouldn't exist at all if people like you weren't constantly asking trans people to justify their own existence.

5. You assume that sex reassignment surgery statistics somehow add to the conversation.

"...three times as many gender reassignment surgeries are performed on men"

Being trans feminine, I'm not an expert on FtM surgeries. But from what my trans masculine friends tell me, SRS procedures are of a significantly higher quality for MtF patients than they are for FtM ones. So please stop pretending that you can infer anything at all from this statistic.

Also, it's pretty offensive that you refer to the patients as "men." We don't choose to be transgender. We choose to transition. These are separate concepts.

6. You naively try to relate gender transition to a transition of race.

"Imagine the reaction if a young white man suddenly declared that he was trapped in the wrong body and, after using chemicals to change his skin pigmentation and crocheting his hair into twists, expected to be embraced by the black community."

This is just a strawman. I'm sure you would agree that any person has the capacity for both feminine and masculine traits, expressions, etc. It's nonsensical to say the same thing about race.

7. You confuse the necessity of gender inclusive policy with a person's right to identify themselves freely.

"Ms. Jenner and Ms. Manning, to mention just two, expect to be called women even as the abortion providers are being told that using that term is discriminatory. So are those who have transitioned from men the only "legitimate" women left?"

It would sound a lot more like you're finding legitimate hypocrisy if you weren't simultaneously taking the opinions of multiple entities into account at once. People can identify however they like. Organizations should speak in terms that include everyone they provide service to. If that is a revelation to you, I'd suggest spending more than twenty seconds thinking about your ideas before you cowardly post them in a space where other people don't have a voice.

8. You assume that the media's trans narrative is what we actually believe. Which couldn't be further from the truth.

" So long as humans produce X and Y chromosomes that lead to the development of penises and vaginas, almost all of us will be "assigned" genders at birth. But what we do with those genders — the roles we assign ourselves, and each other, based on them — is almost entirely mutable. If that's the ultimate message of the mainstream of the trans community, we'll happily, lovingly welcome them to the fight to create space for everyone to express him-, her- or, in gender neutral parlance, hir-self without being coerced by gendered expectations. But undermining women's identities, and silencing, erasing or renaming our experiences, aren't necessary to that struggle."

I agree that it's not necessary, but I would also argue that it's not happening in the first place.

Your own prejudices are causing you to see it that way.

The media misinterpreting the trans community is causing you to see it that way.

Famous trans people using the wrong words are causing you to see it that way.

For as much as you mention the need for feminism in our society, you seem to have completely forgotten that the fight isn't close to over yet. Misogyny isn't coming back because trans women suddenly have visibility. Misogyny is simply more apparent in light of us existing. You certainly don't assume that all cis women in real life are identical to the cis women on TV, so why are you bringing back that archaic way of thinking for this specific topic?

...

In any case, I don't need your permission to fight for my space to begin with.

- Ava Vita