To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

To Sir, with Love: How To Get More Women Involved in Open Source (O'ReillyNet)

You're really getting into a nest of snakes here, not least because the
division of the sexes in biology is nowhere near as nice and neat as you
seem to think.

e.g. one of my friends is, outwardly, a very nice lady. By chance she
discovered when she was about seventeen that she's a completely
androgen-insensitive XY (the absolute absence of periods is a good sign
that something is up). I wouldn't call her `really male'; she's
genetically male with a moderately common mutation, mentally female (to
whatever extent that means anything), and biologically... *mostly* female.

Now obviously humans instinctively classify other humans by gender, so
there's not much point saying `everyone, treat me as a woman' if you're
six feet tall and bearded with a deep voice (nobody will be able to, try
as they might): but surgery exists to make you look like whatever gender
you please, and after that, I'd say it *is* insulting to have people say
you're not `really' your chosen gender.