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@morecowbell@mastodon.social ——> I can’t know for sure since I’m a straight cis female but it seems to me that a person can have a unique conception of their femininity that may align with or diverge from socially-approved standards in whole or in part. So, a claim made by a biological male to be a “girl” or a “woman” — and vice versa — isn’t an automatic endorsement of social conceptions of those terms. The question of whether such a person has “bought into” gender stereotypes requires a deeper conversation usually lacking in public discourse on trans issues and other LGBTQ+ subjects.

Similarly, a trans person’s effort to obtain the same legal rights as biological males or biological females isn’t an automatic endorsement of legally or socially determined gender stereotypes. It is simply an effort to bring their legal existence into alignment with their conception of themselves as much as possible. The same can be said for their effort to align their social existence with their conception of themselves by being addressed with the names and pronouns they have chosen for themselves, by participating in sports and other activities with the gender group they most closely identify with and so on.