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A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. Trans women have a female gender identity and may experience gender dysphoria (distress brought upon by the discrepancy between a person's gender identity and their sex assigned at birth). Gender dysphoria may be treated with gender-affirming care.
Gender-affirming care may include social or medical transition. Social transition may include Name change, hairstyle, clothing style, and/or set of pronouns associated with the individual's affirmed gender identity. A major component of medical transition for trans women is feminizing hormone therapy, which causes the development of female secondary sex characteristics (, redistribution of body fat, lower waist–hip ratio, etc.). Medical transition may also include one or more feminizing surgeries, including vaginoplasty (to create a vagina), feminization laryngoplasty (to raise the vocal pitch), or facial feminization surgery (to feminize face shape and features). This, along with socially transitioning, and receiving desired gender-affirming surgeries can relieve the person of gender dysphoria. Like cisgender women, trans women may have any sexual or romantic orientation.
Trans women face significant discrimination in many areas of life—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 transmisogyny and racism.
The term transgender women is not always interchangeable with transsexual women, although the terms are often used interchangeably. Transgender is an umbrella term that includes different types of gender variant people (including transsexual people).
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 It is now typically considered outdated, though some trans women still identify as transsexual in addition to or instead of transgender.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 (commonly abbreviated to both transfem and transfemme) 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 (one word) 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.German Lopez, Why you should always use "transgender" instead of "transgendered", Vox, February 18, 2015 Some prefer to omit trans, and be called simply women. Older terms sometimes still seen are male-to-female ( MTF, M2F), but these are outdated.
In Thailand, kathoey refers to a trans-feminine individual, though the term "transgender" is infrequently used to refer to those with this identity. (2025). 9780190210373, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780190210373 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." (2025). 9780789006561, Routledge. ISBN 9780789006561
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.
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 (with some controversy) 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.
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 via masturbation or testicular sperm extraction.
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 that trans women reported that:
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. Discrimination is particularly severe towards non-white trans women, who experience the intersection of racism and transphobia.
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.
According to Trans Murder Monitoring, between Oct 1, 2022 and September 30, 2023, 321 trans and gender-diverse individuals were killed, with trans women or trans-feminine individuals accounting for 94% of the deaths.
In 2015, a false statistic was widely reported in the United States media stating that the life expectancy of trans women of color is only 35 years. This appears to be based on a comment specifically about Latin America in a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which compiled data on the age at death of murdered trans women for all of the Americas (North, South, and Central), and does not disaggregate by race.
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.
One type of violence towards trans women is committed by perpetrators who learn that their sexual partner is transgender, and feel deceived ("trans panic"). Almost 95% of these crimes were committed by cisgender men towards trans women. According to a 2005 study in Houston, Texas, "50% of transgender people surveyed had been hit by a primary partner after coming out as transgender".
In the 2020 film , director Sam Feder explores Hollywood's history of trans representation and the cultural effects of such depictions. Many notable 21st century trans actresses and celebrities shared their stories in the film, including Laverne Cox, Alexandra Billings, Hari Nef, Jamie Clayton, AJ Clementine, and more.
Some famous trans women in television include Laverne Cox (playing Sophia Burset on Orange is the New Black), Hunter Schafer (playing Jules Vaughn in Euphoria), Josie Totah, Cho Hyun-ju (from Squid Game), and Caitlyn Jenner (from Keeping Up with the Kardashians). Pose, an American television show, depicts the lives of several trans women.
Karla Sofía Gascón became the first openly trans person to receive acting nominations at the Academy Awards, BAFTAs & SAGs and win the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance as Emilia Pérez / Juan "Manitas" Del Monte in the 2024 film Emilia Pérez.
Alex Consani became the first trans woman to win Model of the Year.
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