Trans woman

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). 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. The term trans woman originates from the use of the Latin prefix trans- meaning 'across, beyond, through, on the other side of, to go beyond' and woman. The term was first used in Leslie Feinbergs's 1996 book Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman. The book describes a trans woman as 'a male-to-female transgender or transsexual person.' 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. She explains that people refer to trans women as 'freaks' and that her gender expression has made her a 'target.' 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.' Levitt mentions how the abbreviation 'MTF' is commonly used, meaning male-to-female. A final perspective by Rachel McKinnon explains how the term is complicated. While some trans women have undergone surgery and may have female genitalia, many struggle in society to pass as a woman and be accepted. This ability to pass can cause one who was considered a trans woman to be seen just as any other woman. She explains that this is controversial since trans women do not have the biological ability to reproduce and are missing a uterus and ovaries. However, she concludes that 'trans women are women' who challenge socially constructed norms of what it means to be a woman. 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'. Trans woman is commonly interchanged with other terms such as transgender woman and transsexual woman. 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.' However, Heidi M Levitt describes transgender as 'different ways in which people transgress the gender boundaries that are constituted within a society.' She then describes how one must understand the difference between sex and gender in order to fully understand transgender. She argues that sex is biological whereas 'gender is a social construct.' 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. 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.' 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. However, not all trans women are transsexual since they may or may not choose to undergo sex-reassignment surgery.