Do Females Have to be Feminine?

During a recent CNN “townhall” focused on public education, Niko, a student from Arlington, VA, addressed Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin:

“Look at me. I am a transgender man. Do you really think that the girls in my high school would feel comfortable sharing a restroom with me?”

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2023/03/10/transgender-student-policy-governor-glenn-youngkin-tapper-sot-vpx.cnn

I live in Arlington and recognized Niko as a student who spoke at a September 2022 school board meeting, saying:

“Can you imagine what would happen if I went into the girls’ bathroom?”

https://www.apsva.us/post/school-board-meeting-september-22-2022/

Niko, who attends an alternative county secondary program, where students call teachers by their first names and set their own schedules, also compared not using preferred pronouns to denying the Holocaust and the 2020 election results (remarks start at 2:11:15).

In both videos, Niko is clearly a female using testosterone, who also has short hair and a flattened chest. Does this student think peers at a school “notable for its open and liberal culture” will not be comfortable sharing a bathroom with someone with short hair? Does the bound or surgically altered chest make Niko appear to be male and, therefore, unwelcome in the girls’ bathroom? Niko was noticeably shorter and smaller than many of the other speakers at the school board meeting, so the girls’ discomfort would not be due to a reaction to a large physical stature. Why would girls not feel comfortable with a fellow female in the bathroom?

While mulling these questions, I stumbled across this Germaine Greer interview. She has a few thoughts on the difference between femininity and sex. Not all viewers will agree with her assessment, but her arguments are interesting.