‘A woman is a person who says she is’: Progressive activist Maya Wiley justifies trans ideology because people called her a boy when she was a child

During the hearing, titled, “Standing Up for the Rule of Law: Ending Illegal Racial Discrimination and Protecting Men and Women in U.S. Employment Practices,” Wiley introduced herself by stating her pronouns, she/her. Wiley was asked by Mace to define what a woman is and then responded with the definition, “A woman is a person who says she is.”

Wiley then tried to justify this saying, "When I was a child I was called a boy." Mace immediately expressed dissatisfaction with the circular-reasoning from Wiley, emphasizing that there a biological definition of the word woman.

"Biological women are real women. A guy who was born as a man who wants to pretend to be a woman and put him and his 'big Jim and the twins' in a locker room with underage girls… is disgusting," Mace stated.

Mace, who took issue with Wiley’s stances on transgender issues and cited her own experience of being raped at 16. She argued against allowing biological men who identify as women to use women's bathrooms and locker rooms, stating that she is “not going to put other women and girls into unsafe situations with biological men.”

Wiley, a civil rights activist and attorney, argued in her testimony to Congress that transgender-identifying people, particularly transgender women of color, face “deep discrimination and are vulnerable to sexual violence and murder.” She claimed that attention on this issue is lacking and that societal work to combat hate must be “a rising priority.”