I think Ms. Povey has defined "gender essentialism" in a way that does not address its political importance. Trans people FEEL or KNOW or SENSE - I don't know the right word and don't want to imply that I do - their true sex. How do they do that? What enables them to say that they are, indeed, members of one of the "traditional" sexes, just not the one that matches their anatomy?

For me, "gender essentialism" simply reifies that ability; it is not a thoroughgoing set of criteria but rather a belief that we can know our sex without looking at our bodies because there is something "essential" about sex membership.

Gender essentialism is politically fraught because many feminists (so-called "TERFs") believe that there is no there there, that all sense of gender is culturally imposed. TERFs, I think, believe that you can't be "trans," because there is no objective essence of sex membership for you to feel. Atypical Sexual PREFERENCE is ok, and it is genetically influenced, but you cannot know your sex except by your anatomy, because there are no other cues.

Some people may be born without a clear sex, just as any creature may have a genetic difference that takes them outside otherwise useful generalizations - e.g., that humans have five senses. But those people, many of whom are described in this article, are not what gender essentialism is about. Gender essentialism does not insist that there are only two sexes or genders. It insists that you can know/feel/sense your sex independently of your anatomy, i.e., that there is something "essential" about your sex, wherever that something comes from.

As someone who doesn't have a dog in this fight (cis-het male), I would be happy to learn that I have misdescribed the situation.