Just remembering that post -- a week or so ago by the time my queue serves up this one -- where a transphobe said that trans women weren't real because "we have innate gender recognition instincts".
And... honestly... we kind of do? -- but it makes the opposite point from the one that person thought they were making.
Here my gender recognition instinct says: this is a picture of a man and a woman, both of whom happen to have penises.
Not that my gender recognition instinct should be taken as authoritative either. For all I know, this could be a picture of two women. Or two nonbinary people. Or something else.
Gender norms are constructed and to a large extent arbitrary. To the extent that such a thing as a "gender recognition instinct" exists, it's fallible like the rest of our cognitive psychology. It can be fooled. It can be wrong... about other people.
I do think most of us have an instinct that looks at our society's constructed gender norms and says I am one of these, not one of those, or for some of us neither of these fit me. This is called our gender identity.
So if you're going to go round demanding people "Define what a woman is!", it's a bit of a self-own to then talk about "innate gender recognition instincts".
A woman is someone whose innate gender recognition instincts tell her she's a woman. There you go.
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