Indya Moore's "Biologically Female Penis" Tweet

Submission 17,530

Overview

Biologically Female Penis refers to a controversial tweet by transgender actress Indya Moore from the FX television show Pose. The tweet sparked debates online over the semantics of terms like "biologically female" in the context of transgender people.

Background

On February 16th, 2019, Moore posted a tweet^[4] stating that "Trans women are biological women" (shown below). Over the next week, the tweet gained over 21,500 likes and 4,300 retweets.

The following day, Moore tweeted^[6] "If a woman has a penis, her penis is a biologically female penis" (shown below). Within four days, the tweet garnered more than 5,000 likes and 1,200 retweets.

Developments

On February 19th, 2019, the LGBT+ news site Pink News^[2] published an article about Moore's statements, which cited a University of São Paulo Medical School study comparing the brains of transgender and cisgender adults. That day, the site tweeted a link to the article along with the message "trans women's penises are women's penises" (shown below).

That day, The Daily Dot^[3] published an article titled "Pose’s Indya Moore goes viral for arguing trans women have ‘biologically female’ penises." On February 20th, Moore tweeted^[5] "I am a biological non-binary" (shown below).

That day, Redditor HurleyFerk submitted a screenshot of the "biologically female penis" tweet with the title "I've always suspected my dick was female" to /r/TumblrInAction,^[1] where it gathered upwards of 7,900 points (89% upvoted) and 990 comments within 24 hours.

Also on February 20th, Ben Shapiro posted a tweet^[7] claiming "there is no such thing as a biologically female penis."