MYTH: If you have a vagina, you are a woman

FACT: Not in all cases

******

Not all women have a vagina, and not everyone with a vagina is a woman.

When discussing the links between anatomy and gender, we must define two important concepts: sex and gender.

Sex

A person’s sex is usually assigned at birth and is determined by a combination of biological characteristics including hormones, chromosomes and anatomy. In western medicine, people can be male, female or intersex. In other cultures and throughout history, there have been different ways of defining sex.

In the modern western system, females will typically have a vulva, vagina and uterus and XX chromosomes. Males will typically have a penis, testicles and XY chromosomes.

Intersex is when a person’s sex characteristics doesn’t fit the typical definitions of female or male. It isn’t always recognised at birth, and sometimes only discovered later in life.

Gender

Gender is a social construct that refers to things like social norms, behaviours, and expressions. It interacts with, but is different to sex. The idea that you can only be a boy or a girl is called the “gender binary”. We now realise gender is more complicated than that.

Gender identity is how a person identifies. Gender is a spectrum and people can identify as a man, woman, non-binary (outside of the gender binary), genderfluid (unfixed gender), agender (without gender) or another gender.

Being transgender means that your gender does not align with the one given at birth. Cisgender means that your gender does align with the one assigned at birth. Transgender people may choose to transition medically through hormones or surgery, but many choose not to or cannot. You can also socially transition through the use of pronouns, name and dress - with or without surgery.

It is also important to remember that there are many transgender people who do not express their true gender due to fear of persecution and violence.

Labelling all people with a vagina as a woman, or determining that in order to be a woman you must have a vagina, labels the lived experience of many as invalid. This is particularly damaging for those who are transgender, who are marginalised in society and fight daily to live as their true self.

We must strive to be inclusive of all genders and have understanding and compassion for everyone’s choices regarding their bodies and selfhood.