How many meanings does ‘woman’ have?

Abstract

Abstract Talia Mae Bettcher argues that gender terms like ‘woman’ have multiple meanings, as different speakers use these terms to pick out different classes—some use ‘woman’ to pick out (roughly) the class of those assigned female at birth; some use it to pick out a class including both that class and trans women. Bettcher is correct, I argue: it is undeniable that ‘woman’ has quite different referents in different speakers' mouths; there is furthermore a kind of conventional meaning which varies across speakers associated with gender terms, one which tracks and varies with these different referential practices.