Quote of the Day

What is a woman?

A “woman” is a gender construct forced by much of society onto people who are assigned a female sex at birth or are intersex. It is a set of norms and behaviors, often ridiculously arbitrary (boys should prefer blue; girls, pink) that emerge from culture, which varies over time and place and has shifted throughout history. Gender is not binary and neither is sex. Intersex people exist, whether the right wing wants to acknowledge them or not, and XX and XY are not the only chromosomal pairings humans have. If gender were an inherent quality, it would be unchanging, immune from cultural forces and socialization and would not have to be enforced, as if often is in conservative cultures. Babies are not born performing gender; it is something they learn from the societies they’re raised in – the adults who assign them those roles as soon as they’re old enough to understand them.

Anyone sincerely who does not understand this answer and asks follow up questions may be worth engaging, but overwhelmingly, the people asking that question [have] no intention of understanding it and in fact, [will go] to great lengths to willfully misinterpret it. There is no point [engaging with] people who do this.

– Elizabeth Spiers
Excerpted from “The Correct Answer
to ‘What Is A Woman?’”
Medium
September 18, 2026

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Gabbi Pierce on the “Evolution of Gender”
• What the Bible Really Says About Gender Justice
• Maddie Marlett: Quote of the Day – April 8, 2024
• In St. Paul Schools, “Trans Advocacy Is Always Advocacy for Everyone”
• Celebrating Every Body
• The Bigger Box of Crayons We All Deserve
• Judith Butler on the Reactionary Movement and Fascist Trend Opposed to Diverse Ideas About Gender
• Trans 101