>>13087700I agree, and I think society agrees with us even if governments are trying to force all-or-nothing or if that causes people to be polite to trans women.
IMO secondary sexual characteristics are the primary indicator of whether or not someone is a woman. Things like breasts, degree of body/facial hair (stubble/prevalance), skull size/shape, hips, height, shoulders, degree of musculature, voice etc. come together to paint a picture of someone's gender.
But, it's hard to tell sometimes! There are plenty of people, cis included, who don't fit into neat little boxes. That's where tertiary sexual characteristics come in -- tertiary meaning things like what you're saying, stuff like hair, presence of an active beard, makeup, eyebrow styling, nail care, clothing, degree to which beard/body hair is allowed to proliferate etc.
The purpose of these stereotypes is to allow society to quickly and easily identify the gender of someone who is in that grey area. They can and will change (eg. nobody does foot binding anymore), but they help people demonstrate their gender in cases in which it's not clear. There's a line at which point the secondary characteristics overrule the tertiary ones, but it's not something that's easily defined.
In short, 60 year old gigahons are not women just because they cake a pound of makeup on. Women with massive tits and men with big beards cannot easily fit themselves into the opposite gender just by declaring it to be so. But a trans girl who has been taking HRT since 14 and is cognitively recognized as a woman even if you put them in a shirt and tie? That's a woman. And I'd argue trans women with a few minor masculine features that make them sort of clocky but not read as a man are women, too.
