"They call me a woman and they call me she/her because that’s their perception of me. And isn’t their perception valid both in fact and in law? Who am I to dictate how someone else sees me and interprets what they see?[emph. added]"
I'm puzzled by only one thing. You point out with utter clarity that people have a right to perceive us as we appear to them--inasmuch as they're entitled to their own darn thoughts and opinions. It’s not for me to demand that anyone refer to me in a way I choose from some special menu.
But at the same time, in a great many sentences of your wonderful post, you don’t manage to make subject and verb agree. Are you too leery of cultural conflict to say—as we logically must, in the English language–“Someone . . . he . . .” rather than the mathematically-challenged, logically confused, and politically correct, “Someone . . . they . . . “????
Regardless, thank you for posting, and please keep up the good work!
“But at the same time, in a great many sentences of your wonderful post, you don’t manage to make subject and verb agree.”
This is actually how my mind works. Which explains why I’ve never had a best selling novel!
But I figure if I get the idea out there then b people like yourself will articulate it to others better than I can. So please do feel free to build on this and call it your own. The message is more important than the messenger.