Following the UK’s controversial Supreme Court ruling that legally defined being a woman purely based on biological sex, I have decided to create a more trans-inclusive set of criteria for what defines a woman. If you are a cis man reading this and think, “Wait, I do all of these things?” Congratulations! You are now part of the sisterhood. If you’re a cis woman reading this and you think, “Wait, I don’t do any of these things?” Uh oh! You’ve been demoted to male. Have fun!

1. Do you know what an “everything shower” is? Do you perform them at least once a month?
2. Do you only wash your hair on specific days of the week and refuse to change those days? If you have an important event coming up and your hair is greasy do you STILL refuse to just wash your hair and cancel the event instead?
3. Do you always have at least two different kinds of beverages on the go? Is one of them an iced latte with non-dairy milk? Matcha? Herbal tea?
4. Do you have a skincare routine you follow religiously? Is one of the products moisturiser?
5. Do you KNOW what a mattress protector is?
6. Do you own any candles? Do you regularly use them?
7. Do you like astrology? Defend it? Do you know your “big three”?
8. On one of those greasy hair days, do you pull your hair back into a slicked bun and refuse to go outside because you just feel so gross?
9. Do you have a complicated relationship with winged eyeliner?
10. Do you ever have any sapphic thoughts? A homoerotic friendship with your childhood best friend? A lesbian or lesbian-adjacent experience from your youth?
11. Do you have a famous musician or writer that you just feel like really GETS you? Is that musician or writer DEFINITELY not a man?
12. Do you own a Polaroid camera? Do you want to own one or for someone else to own one and take nice candid pictures of you all the time?
13. Have you ever been prescribed birth control in response to a potentially life-threatening illness or injury? Has this ever made you mad?
14. Do you like anything heart-shaped or nature-themed?
15. Do you own a specific piece of jewellery that you refuse to part with? Because you just think it goes with everything?
16. Do you think Jeff Buckley should be considered an honorary teenage girl?
17. Do you love poetry? Have you ever attempted to write your own poetry in the notes app of your phone?
18. Do you ever ask follow-up questions when someone is talking to you rather than just talking about yourself for twenty minutes uninterrupted?
19. Do you believe in love? Romance? Do you want Jane Austen to narrate your life?
20. If sexuality was a choice, do you think you’d just choose to be a lesbian? Because men kind of exhaust you and piss you off all the time?

Ava Young