Trans woman
A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Many trans women experience gender dysphoria resulting from the incongruence between their female gender identity and male sex assignment, which can be alleviated through gender transition.
The term trans woman is sometimes used interchangeably with the earlier medical term male-to-female transsexual, though the latter refers specifically to those seeking medical transition, and is generally considered outdated. Someone assigned female at birth with a male gender identity is called a trans man. The opposite of transgender is cisgender. Trans women may have any sexual and romantic orientation, including being straight, lesbian, or bisexual.
As part of social transition, trans women often adopt a more feminine gender expression with the goal of being perceived as female, for example taking on a new name, hairstyle, clothing style, and voice which affirm one's identity. Trans women generally use she/her pronouns. Trans women also transition medically through gender-affirming medical treatment, in order to develop female sexual characteristics. A major component of this is feminizing hormone therapy, which causes the development of breasts. Some also undergo feminizing surgeries, including breast augmentation, facial feminization, vocal feminization, and vaginoplasty. Relatively few transgender people are able to access surgery, due to legal and financial obstacles.
Trans women face significant discrimination in many areas of life—including employment and housing. In the United States, discrimination is particularly severe against non-white trans women, who experience the intersection of transphobia, misogyny and racism, and are at heightened risk of physical and sexual violence and hate crimes. Historically, media portrayals of trans women have overwhelmingly relied on common tropes and stereotypes, though this has improved somewhat in the 21st century alongside transgender rights activism.
Terminology
Transgender is an umbrella term for people whose gender identity or gender expression are different from those typically associated with members of the sex they were assigned at birth. Transgender women are women who were assigned the male sex at birth, but who identify and live as women.The older term transsexual refers to the subset of trans people who desire to medically transition. The term originated in medicine and psychology in the 1960s, and was largely displaced by transgender. It is now typically considered outdated, though some trans women still identify as transsexual in addition to or instead of transgender.
Transfeminine is a broader umbrella term for AMAB people with a predominantly feminine identity or gender expression. This includes trans women, but especially AMAB non-binary people, whose identity may be feminine but not entirely female.
The closed compound spelling is sometimes used interchangeably with trans woman, but is often associated with the gender-critical or anti-trans belief that trans women are not women, and thus require a separate word to describe them. For this reason, many transgender people find the spelling offensive. Some prefer to omit trans, and be called simply women. Older terms sometimes still seen are male-to-female, but these are outdated.
In other languages
In several Latin American countries, the word travesti is sometimes used to designate people who have been assigned male sex at birth, but develop a female gender identity. The use of travesti precedes transgender in the region; its distinction from trans woman is controversial and can vary depending on the context, ranging from considering it a regional equivalent to a third gender.In Thailand, kathoey refers to a trans-feminine individual, though the term "transgender" is infrequently used to refer to those with this identity. The term is sometimes translated to "ladyboy" in English. Most trans-feminine Thai individuals simply referred to themselves as women, or phuying praphet song, meaning "another type of woman."
Amongst Native Hawaiians and Tahitians, māhū are people of a third gender who possess spiritual and social roles. The term has historically been applied to people assigned male at birth, but now may refer to a large variety of gender identities. The term is sometimes seen as disparaging or a pejorative, similar to faggot.
Sexuality
Trans women vary greatly in terms of sexual and romantic orientation. A survey of roughly 3,000 American trans women showed 31% of them identifying as bisexual, 29% as "gay/lesbian/same-gender", 23% as heterosexual, 7% as asexual, as well as 7% identifying as "queer" and 2% as "other." A 12-month survey of trans women in Europe found that 22% identified as heterosexual, 10% were attracted almost exclusively to men, 3% were mostly attracted to men, 9% were bisexual, 7% were mostly attracted to women, 23% were almost attracted exclusively to women, and 20% were lesbian. A smaller 2013 study of Italian trans women found that 82% identified as heterosexual.The European study found that sexual orientation did not change over the 12 months. A 2018 study found that the most common sexual partner for trans women was cisgender women prior to transitioning. Trans women who had been transitioning for ten years or more were more likely to report a shift in their sexual orientation.
In a 2008 study, no statistically significant difference in libido was detected between trans women and cisgender women. As in males, female libido is thought to correlate with serum testosterone levels but the 2008 study found no such correlation in trans women. Another study, published in 2014, found that 62.4% of trans women reported their sexual desire had decreased after sexual reassignment therapy.
Healthcare
Gender-affirming care
Gender-affirming care for trans women may include feminizing hormone therapy, transgender voice therapy, and gender-affirming surgery.Feminizing hormone therapy
Feminizing hormone therapy is a type of hormone therapy focused on turning the secondary sex characteristics of a person from masculine to feminine. Feminizing hormone therapy often includes a mix of estrogens, antiandrogens, progestogens, and gonadotropin-releasing hormone modulator, though the most common approach is an estrogen in combination with an antiandrogen. Feminizing hormone therapy can induce effects including breast development, softening of the skin, redistribution of body fat towards a gynoid fat distribution, decreased muscle mass/strength, and changes in mood.Feminizing voice therapy
Some trans women may seek to feminize their voice through transgender voice therapy, as hormone therapy does not significantly affect the voice of trans women. The aim of voice therapy is frequently to change the fundamental frequency, resonant frequency, and phonatory pattern to reflect that of cisgender women. This can be accomplished through speech therapy, or surgeries. Throughout multiple studies, voice therapy has generally been shown to increase vocal satisfaction of the patient and a greater listener perception of a feminine voice.Gender-affirming surgery
Trans women may undergo a variety of gender-affirming surgeries as part of their transition process. These surgeries may include vaginoplasty, vulvoplasty, orchiectomy, breast augmentation, and facial feminization surgery.Fertility
While the relationship is not completely understood, feminizing hormone therapy appears to reduce the ability to produce sperm. Individuals who have been on hormone therapy for an extended period of time have been shown to have a lower total sperm count than males not on hormone therapy. Cessation of hormone replacement therapy has been associated with a renewed level of fertility.Tucking is also associated with lower quality sperm production because of the increased temperature of the testicles, causing premature sperm death.
Trans women may elect to undergo fertility preservation through semen cryopreservation.
Discrimination
Like all gender variant people, trans women often face discrimination and transphobia, particularly those who are not perceived as cisgender. A 2015 survey from The Williams Institute found that, of 27,715 transgender respondents, 52% whose families had rejected them attempted suicide, as did 64.9% of those who were physically attacked in the past year.A 2011 survey of roughly 3000 trans women living in the United States, as summarized in the report "Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey", found trans women reported that:
- 36% have lost their job due to their gender.
- 55% have been discriminated against in hiring.
- 29% have been denied a promotion.
- 24% have been refused medical care.
- 60% of the trans women who have visited a homeless shelter reported incidents of harassment there.
- When displaying identity documents incongruent with their gender identity/expression, 33% have been harassed and 3% have been physically assaulted.
- 20% reported harassment by police, with 6% reporting physical assault and 3% reporting sexual assault by an officer. 25% have been treated generally with disrespect by police officers.
- Among jailed trans women, 40% have been harassed by inmates, 38% have been harassed by staff, 21% have been physically assaulted, and 20% have been sexually assaulted.
In her book Whipping Girl, trans woman Julia Serano refers to the unique discrimination trans women experience as "transmisogyny".
Discrimination against trans women has occurred at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival after the Festival set out a rule that it would only be a space for cisgender females. This led to protests by trans women and their allies, and a boycott of the Festival by Equality Michigan in 2014. The boycott was joined by the Human Rights Campaign and GLAAD. The National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the National LGBTQ Task Force also signed on to the boycott but later withdrew support. The "womyn-born-womyn" intention first came to attention in 1991 after a transsexual festival-goer, Nancy Burkholder, was asked to leave the festival when several women recognized her as a trans woman and expressed discomfort with her presence in the space.