A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women may experience gender dysphoria and may transition; this process commonly includes hormone replacement therapy and sometimes sex reassignment surgery, which can bring immense relief and even resolve gender dysphoria entirely. Trans women may be heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, asexual, or identify with other terms (such as queer).

The term transgender woman is not always interchangeable with transsexual woman, although the terms are often used interchangeably. Transgender is an umbrella term that includes different types of gender variant people (including transsexual people). Trans women face significant discrimination in many areas of life (transmisogyny, a subset of transphobia), including in employment and access to housing, and face physical and sexual violence and hate crimes, including from partners; in the United States, discrimination is particularly severe towards trans women who are members of a racial minority, who often face the intersection of transphobia and racism.

Both transsexual and transgender women may experience gender dysphoria, distress brought upon by the discrepancy between their gender identity and the sex that was assigned to them at birth (and the associated gender role or primary and secondary sex characteristics).^[1]

Both transsexual and transgender women may transition. A major component of medical transition for trans women is estrogen hormone replacement therapy, which causes the development of female secondary sex characteristics (breasts, redistribution of body fat, lower waist–hip ratio, etc.). This, along with sex reassignment surgery can bring immense relief, and in most cases, rids the person of gender dysphoria.^[2][3]

The term trans woman originates from the use of the Latin prefix trans- meaning "across, beyond, through, on the other side of,^[4] to go beyond" and woman.^[5] The term was first used in Leslie Feinbergs's 1996 book Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman.^[5] The book describes a trans woman as "a male-to-female transgender or transsexual person."^[6] This definition is widely accepted and used in the Oxford English Dictionary. However, she elaborates on it by saying that being a trans woman often has a negative connotation.^[6] She explains that people refer to trans women as "freaks" and that her gender expression has made her a "target."^[6]

Heidi M. Levitt provides a simpler description of trans woman. She defines trans woman as "the sex of those who transition from one sex to the other."^[7] Levitt mentions how the abbreviation "MTF" is commonly used, meaning male-to-female.^[7] A final perspective by Rachel McKinnon explains how the term is complicated.^[8] While some trans women have undergone surgery and may have female genitalia, many struggle in society to pass as a woman and be accepted.^[8] This ability to pass can cause one who was considered a trans woman to be seen just as any other woman.^[8] She explains that this is controversial since trans women do not have the biological ability to reproduce and are missing a uterus and ovaries.^[8] However, she concludes that "trans women are women" who challenge socially constructed norms of what it means to be a woman.^[8]

The CDC refers to the word "transgender" as "an umbrella term for persons whose gender identity or expression (masculine, feminine, other) is different from their sex (male, female) at birth".^[9] Trans woman is commonly interchanged with other terms such as transgender woman and transsexual woman.^[7] According to OxfordDictionaries.com, transgender means "denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex."^[10] However, Heidi M Levitt describes transgender as "different ways in which people transgress the gender boundaries that are constituted within a society."^[7] She then describes how one must understand the difference between sex and gender in order to fully understand transgender.^[7] She argues that sex is biological whereas "gender is a social construct."^[7] Thus people who are transgender express themselves differently than their biological sex. In contrast, Levitt explains that "transsexual people have a sexual identity that does not match their physical sex" and that some desire sex-reassignment surgery.^[7]

In addition, the Oxford English Dictionary refers to transsexual as "having physical characteristics of one sex and psychological characteristics of the other" and "one whose sex has been changed by surgery."^[5] These definitions show that someone who is transsexual expresses their gender differently than assigned at birth. In addition, they may want or undergo surgery to change their physical appearance. Thus trans women fall under the umbrella of being transgender because their gender was assigned male at birth but they identify as a woman.^[7] However, not all trans women are transsexual since they may or may not choose to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.^[7]

Some trans women who feel that their gender transition is complete prefer to be called simply women, considering trans woman or male-to-female transsexual to be terms that should only be used for people who are not fully transitioned. Likewise, many may not want to be seen as a "trans woman," often owing to the societal otherization of trans individuals. Among those who do refer to themselves as trans women, many see it as an important and appropriate distinction to include a space in the term, as in trans woman, thus using trans as merely an adjective describing a particular type of woman; this is in contrast to the usage of transwoman as one word, implying a "third gender".^[11]

Trans women may identify as heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, asexual, or none of the above.^[9] A survey of roughly 3000 American trans women showed 31% of them identifying as bisexual, 29% as lesbian, 23% as heterosexual, 7% as asexual, as well as 7% identifying as "queer" and 2% as "other".^[12]

In a 2008 study, trans women had a higher incidence of low libido (34%) than cisgender females (23%), but the difference was not statistically significant and may have been due to chance.^[13] As in males, female libido is thought to correlate with serum testosterone levels^{[14][15][16][17]} (with some controversy^[18]) but the 2008 study found no such correlation in trans women.^[13][19]

Trans women face a form of violence known as trans bashing. The Washington Blade reported that Global Rights, an international NGO, tracked the mistreatment of trans women in Brazil, including at the hands of the police.^[20] To commemorate those who have been murdered in hate crimes, an annual Transgender Day of Remembrance is held in various locations across Europe, America, Australia, and New Zealand, with details and sources for each murder provided at their website.^[21]

One cause of the violence towards trans women is the perpetrator feels “tricked” upon learning their sexual partner is transgender. (See Trans panic defense.) Approximately 56% of violent crimes towards trans people between 1990–2005 occurred because of this perceived deception. Almost 95% of these crimes were committed by cisgender men towards trans women.^[22] According to a 2005 paper looking at HIV needs analysis in Houston, Texas, "50% of transgender people surveyed had been hit by a primary partner after coming out as transgender".^[23]

According to a 2009 report by the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, quoted by the Office for Victims of Crime, 11% of all hate crimes towards members of the LGBTQ community were directed towards trans women.^[23]

In 2015 a trope took hold in the United States media to the effect that the life expectancy of a trans woman of color is only 35 years, a number both "terrifying and ludicrous".^[24] This appears to be based on a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which compiled data for all of the Americas (North, South, and Central), and does not disaggregate by race.^[25][26]

In 2016, 23 transgender people suffered fatal attacks in the United States. The Human Rights Campaign report found some of these deaths to be direct results of an anti-transgender bias, and some due to related factors such as homelessness.^[27] (For context, the FBI reported that 17,250 people were murdered that year.^[28]) See Homicide statistics by gender.

Trans women, like all gender variant people, face a vast amount of discrimination and transphobia.^{[12] []} A 2014 survey from The Williams Institute found that, of 6,546 respondents (self-identified transgender, as well as gender nonconforming), 57% whose families had rejected them attempted suicide, as did 63–78% of those who suffered physical or sexual violence at school (any level).^[29]

A 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 that trans women reported that:^[12]

The American National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs' report of 2010 anti-LGBTQ violence found that of the 27 people who were murdered because of their LGBTQ identity, 44% were trans women.^[30]

Discrimination is particularly severe towards non-white trans women, who experience the intersection of racism and transphobia. In the United States, multiracial, Latina, black and indigenous American trans women are twice to more than three times as likely as white trans women to be sexually assaulted in prison.^[31]

In her book Whipping Girl, trans woman Julia Serano refers to the unique discrimination trans women experience as "transmisogyny".^[32]

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 ("HRC"), the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation ("GLAAD"), the National Center for Lesbian Rights ("NCLR"), and the National LGBTQ Task Force ("The Task Force"). 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.^[33][34]