Quote:
Originally Posted by Soldier Boy
OK so a dictionary is void of emotion (of all kinds) and should be a neutral tool with plain definitions... word definitions and etymologies are actually not static and do change over time. In purely linguistic terms it's actually right that they include this supplementary definition because, like it or not, it has become common usage with a section of English-speakers... and that's all a dictionary is there to do; list what people might mean when they say a word. Key though is that it remains an additional definition and not "the" definition.
What I would change though, and what I think is a linguistic mis-step;
"an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth"
Again removing "feelings" from the equation (because a dictionary should be an emotionless linguistic tool) - it SHOULD read;
"an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have had a different sex at birth”
At the VERY least I would accept "may have been observed to have"
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Removing all emotion from the matter, a transwoman isn't a woman in any meaningful way - they are a male who's taking steps (be they cosmstic, surgical, sartorial, or medical) to appear to be the sex they arent. But whatever they do or have done to themselves, the last two words of that previous sentence are the most important: they aren't.
Legitimising definitions of woman which include transwomen skate a bit too close to also legitimising self-ID - if a dictionary says a transwoman is a type of woman, why shouldn't their documents?