Reflections on the Meaning of Innate Gender Reflecting on the vital ethical claim of feminist trans women and allies that gender is an "innate" category, I would like to propose an understanding of this assertion that is at once flexible and compelling. To say that gender is "innate" means to me simply that human beings have an innate tendency to learn or acquire some gender identity (binary or nonbinary) during the first years of life, just as we have an innate tendency to learn some natural language(s) during these years of infancy and early childhood. This ethical claim does not necessarily imply that WHICH gender identity or language(s) we learn is already determined at birth by "brain femaleness" or "brain Yiddish," etc. But it does say that whether already established at birth or acquired through some process of learning or "imprinting," a person's gender identity is largely a fait accompli by the time that the individual reaches an age of informed consent and choice. Thus a transsexual woman's sense of gender identity or femaleness is no more or less real than that of a woman who was Female Assigned At Birth (FAAB): we are authentically sisters, whatever processes of nature and nurture have brought us to this point. Further, the equally compelling ethical claims of "quasi-innate" gender would apply based on the reality that gender identity of some sort (binary or nonbinary) seems an experience of humans in all known societies, even if some future feminist utopia might "abolish gender." If virtually all human beings who have been born experience gender identity, then hypothetical "gender abolitionist" futures do not serve as an escape from the feminist task at hand of practicing FAAB/trans empathy and equity among sisters. More specifically, if the present gendered social realities we face create a need for women's spaces, then those same realities create a need for trans women to be included in these spaces on equal terms with FAAB women. This is not to say that all women must be included in all women's spaces or subspaces, but only that arbitrary exclusions on the basis of "trans women are nonfemale" or "sex not gender" disregard the reality of gender identity and the ethical claims of sisterly solidarity so central to feminism. Margo Schulter mschulter at calweb dot com 31 October 2014