Yesterday was bad. Waves of panic came crashing over me. The absurdity of it all was just too much to bear. Women in this debate tend not to talk about their feelings but use arguments and appeal to reason and soul destroying, cold statistics and facts. Yesterday, I was told,

...for the hundredth time that my femaleness is not what makes me a woman. It is quite irrelevant in fact, as females can be men and males can be women. Being female has actually nothing to do with being a woman. Femaleness for that matter has nothing to do with anything ...

important enough to be named, reflected upon or talked about. It is reductive, just body parts. My experience of navigating this sexist world everyday as a female body, for decades now, doesn't matter in comparison to a man's feeling, a man's few words: "I identify as a woman".

Being told from an early age that I was not destined for greatness but my value would be measured by how much a man wanted me doesn't matter, being subjected to the degrading male gaze from age 12 and the realisation that I was entirely vulnerable to his will doesn't matter,

The crushing thought that from the day I started menstruating I could get pregnant if raped and that I should therefore be extra careful doesn't matter, the 3 dead fetuses I carried inside of me and delivered in pain and blood don't matter, the beautiful children my body made

..and birthed in pain and joy don't matter, the fact that I could sustain and nurture their life with the milk from my breast doesn't matter, the fact that I was denied career positions and accolades I deserved because of my "inconvenient" reproductive capacity doesn't matter.

The sexual assaults, the insults of men, their spit on my face as a punishment for daring to say no to them, or simply walking in a public space with my young female body, doesn't matter. My (sometimes welcomed) invisibility now that I am past my "sell by date", doesn't matter.

These do not make me a woman. The sum of all these experiences is irrelevant, carries less weight than the undisputed words, the lie (how can it be true?), of a man: "I identify as a woman". Soon, if we don't win this fight, I will only be recognised in law as a woman

...if I tell the same lie as these men "I identify as a woman", on forms, questionnaires, official documents. Nothing else will do. I will have to say: I identify with the idea some men have of what it is to be a woman but my experience of being female, everyday

...for 40 years is irrelevant. If this is not an admission, an irrefutable proof that it is only men who have the power to name and make the "truth" for everyone else (women), and that this movement is quintessentially patriarchal and oppressive, I don't know what is.

Women's reality and experiences don't matter, a man's lie makes the law and the "truth" of what a woman is.

Women, stand up, speak up, reject this erasure. We can not let this happen. Yesterday the enormity of what women are asked to swallow with a kind smile on our face was too much to bear. But today, I have to repress the panic, the crushing feeling of endless injustice and fight.