♛Womanhood As A Bridge, Not a Battlefield

There is no single way to be a woman. Never has been.
Womanhood comes in every shape, form and color – Black women. Asian women. Latina women.
Queer women. Religious women. Disabled women.
Women who gave birth. Women who chose not to. Women who couldn’t.
Rich, poor, loud, quiet, feminine, androgynous, bold, soft — all equally women.
And yes —  trans women too. Not by exception. By essence.

More and more, I see people building fences around the word woman.
Trying to make it smaller. Narrower. Conditional. Easier to police.
Womanhood has long been policed, but today we’re watching it be redrawn through fear — narrower, harder, crueler. Like we didn’t fight decades to move past this.

They tell us you have to be born a certain way. Bleed a certain way. Look a certain way.
The qualifiers aren’t new — but their resurgence is loud. ‘Real.’ ‘Biological.’ ‘Natural.’ As if womanhood could ever be narrowed to a checklist of body parts, genitalia, chromosones and in doing so, they forget its heart.
They ignore its history.
They erase womanhood’s existential truth: that it is lived, not assigned.

I didn’t become a woman — I am a trans woman becase I finally became free to stop pretending to be someone else. I stopped performing a forced masculinity due to a specific genitalia. I stopped perform as the man I was sexed and expected to become just for the appendages I was born with. I started living in truth. That’s not ‘transition’ — that’s emergence. 
And that wasn’t easy.
It meant facing inner demons and every social, cultural, religious, political, and economic message of who I was never allowed to be. 
But I stopped. I listened. I let the truth speak. 
And I finally let her — me — lead. 
I made it. I am here.

I didn’t “become” a woman.
I reclaimed who I’ve always been, in the way only I could.
Not through pretending. Not through performance.
But through deep listening, loss, love, grief, and radical truth-telling.
I — we — earned my place under the umbrella of womanhood not by birthright — but by truth, by courage, and by right.

I wasn’t born in the wrong body.
I was born with the perfect body to be the Trans Woman I am proud to be.

It’s not just biology. Not just history. Not just performance. It’s more than the sum of those parts — and sometimes it defies them altogether.
It’s a relationship to power, to identity, to intuition, to community, and to self.
It’s not static — it evolves. It expands. It makes room.
Not every woman experiences womanhood the same way. Not every woman arrives at womanhood by birthright — and that’s exactly the point. We are here. We’ve always have been. We’re not making womanhood weaker — we’re making it more honest. Trans inclusion doesn’t dilute — it expands.

If we all fit the same box, check the same list, womanhood wouldn’t be powerful — it would be a cage.
A cage designed — decades ago — by those who now sit back, watching women tear womanhood apart.
Eager for us to return to the same old trap.
Hoping we stay divided. Easier to control. Easier to erase. Just as women once were — not so long ago — and far too easily forgotten.

You’ll notice something about my language:
I say “women” — and “trans women.”
Not because I think trans women aren’t real women.
But because I don’t need to put a label on someone else to validate my own — because I am reclaiming who I am, proudly. My place under the umbrella of womanhood is not granted — it’s lived. It’s my truth, my birthright, and my history.
To me, a woman is a woman. Full stop.
And I am a trans woman. Proudly. Not secretly. Not apologetically.
My womanhood stands in relationship with, not in opposition to, other women.
I will never call anyone “cis” unless they choose that label for themselves.
Not because I’m afraid of it — but because I value autonomy and respect.
I don’t want anyone to erasing my truth — and I refuse or erase anyone else’s.
I’m not here to convince anyone. I’m not asking for permission. I’m not performing otherness — I’m living my truth.

And I know: not every trans woman claims that truth in the same way I do.
Some can’t. Some won’t. Some don’t want to.
That doesn’t make them less brave, or less real, or less valid.
Their truth is as valuable as mine. Our differences don’t divide us — they expand us. We are sister, we are sisterhood.

Here’s what I know:
When the rights of any woman are under attack, all of us are at risk.
Trans women’s rights today. Reproductive rights tomorrow… Healthcare access. Autonomy. Safety. Dignity.
We don’t get to pick and choose which women we show up for.
We either stand under the umbrella of sisterhood together — or we all get soaked.
So no — this isn’t about convincing anyone.
It’s about choosing unity over fear. Truth over division.
It’s about offering shelter from the storm, not who gets to hold the umbrella.

For the ones who know womanhood has room for all of us.
For the ones tired of being divided, diluted, or denied.
For the ones ready to reclaim their power and step in their power— and lift others as they rise.
If that’s you — I’m here.
Welcome – YouAreNotBroken.

For more on the evolving understanding of womanhood and inclusion, see this insightful article on intersectional feminism.