Do you consider women that used to be men as women?

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Yes, and I hate when people still call them a man out of pure stubbornness. My family do it all the time.

Women are women, whether they were born that way or changed. It doesn't bother, or matter, to me.

I would feel a great deal of sympathy for people who went through puberty as a man then try to change back to a more feminine look, it doesn't often work out well physically.

If life is so bad for them as a man that they would put themselves through the ridicule and judgemental attitudes, then I think we can believe them that they really see no other option.

Speaking as a female, I can't imagine how awful it would be to be living in a man's body, I would hate it, so I would look at them and feel glad it wasn't me who got stuck with being born in the male version of a body.

So yes I would see them as female and unfortunately deformed from birth (for them. Obviously the male body is a thing to be admired just as much as the female, but as a female you don't want to live in it!).

What about the ones who have the chromosomes of a women, but genitals of a man?

They're whatever they want to be.

Gender is a social construction.

If you were a trans woman, what would you like to be considered as? Anyway in my mind, woman =/= female. Female is the scientific/biological descriptor. Woman is the societal/cultural descriptor. While trans women mightn't be biologically female, they'll always be a woman to me.

To me it's not a matter of what they are biologically, or what my opinions of transgender people are, I'd still show respect for their choice of identity by referring to them as "she". They probably went through a lot of personal struggles to get to that point, so showing respect is the least I can do.

Women who "used to be men" are still men. Their brains are still that of men's, their voices still sound like a man's, and their male characteristics are still pronounced (bigger hands, bigger shoulders, bigger heads, angular faces, longer femurs, usual male pubic bone spacing, longer torsos, taller than the average female height, etc.).

Their chromosomes still come up as XY chromosomes, while we biological women will always show XX chromosomes. And they still can't produce ova because they have no uteri and must rely on synthetic hormones to "experience" femininity.

Yes. I would not even have to assume that she has female genitalia. In fact, even if I knew that she did not, I would still consider her female she tells me she is.

When it comes to a person's gender identity, each individual is the one and only authority as to their own.

Yes.

I have a trans friend who confuses me though. He is FTM but not transitioning for a variety of reasons. He still uses his female name and this thoroughly confuses me as it's definitely not a "unisex" name and I often refer to him as her. Fortunately she does not get offended. Yeah, you can tell that I'm confused because in this response I don't know whether to refer to him as her or her as him. Mostly I just talk about my friend by their name because it's a lot easier than feeling guilty about gender slippage in my speech!

They are the same. You are what you believe you are in that regard. Bits n pieces don't matter.

have you had your chromosomes tested? if not you don't even know for sure if you're xx or xy
genitals don't always match chromosomes
hormones don't always match chromosomes or genitals
genitals aren't always unambigiously male or female

If they've physically become women then what they used to be isn't really relevant. Who are we to judge?

For evy7

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hPN1bmbyXw&feature=related[/youtube]

"Women that used to be men"? If they identify as women, they have been and always will be women, regardless of their physical appearance. What's inside someone's head is incomprehensibly more important than some dumb social rules that state that only men can have penises and women vaginas.

Yes, I will still refer to her as a woman out of respect as that is what she prefers to be referred to as.

I would call her a woman, and I wouldn't feel sorry for her, either. She's very brave to have gone through what she has despite the way society, her family, and her friends think about gender.
I want to cut off my breasts (have to settle on a small B cup because my husband doesn't want them totally gone)... and I know once I get the money and actually do it, people are going to talk, and many won't understand. And that's nothing compared to changing genders. I sort of know how hard it is because I identify way more strongly with men than with women in how I think, although I act like a woman in some ways, and when I mention to my husband that I'm not a woman, he tells me, "Well, I know I didn't marry a man." I hate that it has to be binary like that for so many people. I don't fully identify with either gender, really.