Talk:Trans woman

Transfeminine source

@Aquillion: Your suggestion of finding a better source for the term transfeminine is a good one. Perhaps this would suffice? If so, could someone incorporate it into the article for me? I despise mobile editing and am restricted to it right now.

@VivianIsBee: Also pinging you

--Equivamp - talk 04:33, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

Plain English-first sentence-non-specialist guidelines being overlooked (lede issue submission)

Please see the FAQ at the top of this page. (Really, someone should have hatted earlier, but better late than ever.) Loki (talk) 18:18, 2 October 2026 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

  The encyclopedia invokes context when specialized language is going to be considered (i.e "In mathematics...", "In psychology...", "In law and ethics...") even sometimes in the title of the article and subjects close to a universal language like "law and ethics", when no context whatsoever is being mentioned universal language is being invoked (in this case plain English, not to mention that English wikipedia is one of the few i've found so far that has constructed the lede with this particular semantics). The context is invoked in the measure that specialized language is being used, to answer to an user saying that the reader should be familiarized with the subject already. Merrian-Webster's definition states that is a word that appeared that way, with that meaning, until 1996, that undermines it being plain English and going through linked definitions to woman they doesn't mention something different from female until mentioning gender identity thus supporting an user (Crossroads) that this term, gender identity, introduces the appropriate context.  

"Transwoman is a woman" is then not redundant as a form of presenting the information, but is tautological in the specialized language being brought up, mainly if it doesn't have any definition, in this vein, the definition of woman that the lede is implying is something like:  

• someone who is a ciswoman or a transwoman (1)

or

• something related but different from biological female (2)

which is not plain English, certainly not 1, and for 2 the term that would be adequate is "femininity" for which there is a subsection in the Woman article,  or rather a whole wikipedia article, Assigned male at birth is still specialized, unnecessarily technical language so my suggestion is:

Someone in principle not having any significant difference with a woman apart from sex.

One important reason i ended up adding the term "in principle" is that in practice, that is, the opposite, we have places like sports/athletics where this womanhood has been contested . Note also how the technical expression of "assigned male at birth" is being primarily assessed and secondarily linked.

 About the use of the word person/someone: The consensus must place a precedent for future possible dissensus in matter of the language that Wikipedia should defend for the sake of neutrality and mainly the capacity to elaborate a NPOV, i mean this, if all the language that forehand there is to achieve a neutral point of view is qualified as biased then any other language proposed to be neutral, for being itself proposed, will even less likely be accepted and even more considered biased, thus the encyclopedia would have no language and would be finished. I'm talking about the perfect examples of the words "person", "someone" and "biological" holding a neutral virtue now being considered inappropriate is something that simply kills the editorial ability. "A trans woman is not a biological woman" is something that an encyclopedia has to say at some point, hopefully, but not necessarily, with that exact wording because, again, words like "biological" are raw materials that editors have to have for their purposes. The issue about an expression that is not openly deprecating or pejorative being or not being deprecating or pejorative is discussing someone's intentions or point of view, and that is, in good faith, a forum matter.   

  An article that in all of its corners demands to be blindly adherent to the resources language is making a case for opening a new encyclopedia version, name it Gender Studies English Encyclopedia gse.wikipedia.org or something, i think that the principle that wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information relates here;  there has always to be a place where the article tries to harmonize with the rest of the knowledge and give the reader the due right to be away from any partialized context being passed as universal (this leads to the first paragraph of this submission); the principal of these would be the lede, the particular semantics and jargon of "(male) who is a woman assigned male at birth" is doing the opposite of that, pushing the reader directly and entirely into the resources view. A content can fail NPOV by going further to the resources but also can fail by not elaborating a cautious position over where the resources are.

Is interesting how despite allegedly being the most up to date way of speaking --writing anyway-- it sounds archaic to me... and wonder if someone feels the same. My guess is that maybe as it has been curated in the die of the authoritarian claims of a group of alive people (i'm talking about the LGBTQ+/gender guidelines by which we have to write in a certain manner because someone says so) it can't help but reflect some sort of dogma, explaining why some editors find it awkward and objectionable.

One final thing would be that although the specialized terms might be explained in the body of the article, the introduction is also precisely meant to be a  summary, not compelling the reader to go further, so it has to be as least necessarily technical as possible. IreneoAcutis251 (talk) 01:03, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

I have no idea what you are talking about but I will ask four questions: 1. What do you actually propose to change? Please say which text and what you think it should be changed to and provide Reliable Sources that support that change. 2. Did you use an LLM to draft that huge block of text? 3. Have you had a Wikipedia account before? 4. Are you deliberately misspelling "trans woman" and one word to try to cause offence? --DanielRigal (talk) 02:12, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

@DanielRigal: I presume the word salad here is human-made, and any time wasted is not deliberate. The argument is that the is a woman definition relies on a specialist definition of woman specific to queer studies—it does not—therefore we should switch to a different definition or else fork GENSEX into its own encyclopedia—presumably rhetorical.

@IreneoAcutis251: Welcome to Wikipedia! While I believe you are writing in earnest, these 7+ paragraphs are circuitously written and difficult to understand. and may be seen as disruptive. The first sentence of this article, including NPOV arguments similar to those you raised, have been discussed to death, to the tune of 400KB, and not yielded a consensus; see the "Q1" at the top of this page for further context. If you're here to stay, I'd recommend finding your footing in less controversial discussions first. It will benefit you greatly to express yourself clearly and concisely; less is more. Arguments are generally won through their basis in Wikipedia policy and reliable sourcing, not through original reasoning. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk • stalk) 03:54, 4 September 2026 (UTC)

@DanielRigal 1 is what happens in the second paragraph (there are actually 6 in total) 2 No. 3 Yes. 4 I should not answer that, asking someone's intentions is even more disruptive than not assuming good faith.

@RoxySaunders Yes, but i think i can put it more concretely in that if you take the corpus of what you call GENSEX and sort of transliterate it, not to say copy, without developing a smooth connection with Wikipedia --by the way arguing that you're just sticking to the resources, against which I talked about in the submission: that NPOV does not necessarily just means that --you are perpetuating Wikipedia as just a Collage of information.

I went through both rfc's as much as i could but, realizing that my issue was not about NPOV or original research but as the title says, about plain English i tried making it as short as i could trying not to miss the most serious points also minding the horde of things there are to address in the rfc's, explaining the dispersion (salad), in other words, please be considered, i think everything i wrote is important. (Attending any summary request) I ended up elaborating something touching on NPOV that was not intended but i guess I now assure, although still subjugated to the plain English issue which is:

I do not assert unfaithfulness to resources but a flaw related to the opposite at the level of language, and, an account of the poor validity of the Merriam-Webster reference and the addition of those references that introduce another resource-backed POV and, having contrary points of view (i know right...), we have to appeal to common discretion (by the way outraged by the lack of consensus) which i dare to say supports the fact that my suggestion simply still asserts womanhood (some of the resources) with the limitations given by other resources.

I don't think anything similar has been touched on in the rfc's or talk pages but any indication would be glad. And obviously when I introduce those two references I'm strongly supporting the users uncomfortable with the status quo, in the sense that that dissensus should not be trivialized or considered superfluous or simply silenced. Regarding the extension of this two entries, naively is distension on the talk page what i'm trying to prevent, i encourage any replier to check the simplicity and tentative/eclectic nature of the change suggestion before (it even impresses myself tbh). IreneoAcutis251 (talk) 01:33, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

@IreneoAcutis251: I'm afraid it is still very difficult to understand what you are trying to communicate. –RoxySaunders 🏳️‍⚧️ (talk • stalk) 01:54, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Yeah. I have no idea either. I would advise the OP to make a coherent suggestion for a specific change in the form:

"Change [text] to [text]. [Optional: No more that two sentences explaining how this is an improvement.] This is supported by [At least one Reliable Source]."

If the OP thinks that a lot of things need changing then I would advise them not to make an overcomplicated suggestion. Make a simple request covering one matter and then, if necessary, come back to other matters later in a separate request. Keep it short. Keep it simple. Make sure that everybody can understand it. --DanielRigal (talk) 15:40, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

the current lede wording has been through multiple RfCs and reflects stable consensus under MOS:GENDERID, see the talk page archives for the prior discussions. objections to MOS:GENDERID's legitimacy belong at WT:Manual of Style, not this article's talk page. this page can only discuss how the article applies existing consensus guidelines.

the proposal itself seems to be OR... (WP:NOR/WP:NOTFORUM applies to essay-length philosophical arguments not tied to sources). if there's a specific reliable source suggesting different terminology is now standard, that's what would actually move this. a restated dictionary-definition argument will get us nowhere. also, WP:PLAINENGLISH is about avoiding unnecessary jargon, not about omitting terminology that's necessary for accuracy. "assigned male at birth" is the latter.

separately: "a trans woman is not a biological woman" isn't an accurate or neutral framing to add per your suggestion. "biological woman" isn't a settled term that categorically excludes trans women in the sourcing. also, like another user mentioned, please use "trans woman" (two words), which is standard in WP:MOS and in reliable sources. the one-word spelling is generally avoided on Wikipedia.

i believe this is my first time actually replying instead of just reading the nerd-talk, so i apologize for any mistakes and any advice would be appreciated. Witness1603 (talk) 05:55, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Re: the two sources you cited because i missed them on my first read. the reliability of The Guardian on this matter is dubious at best because of the 'political' nature of the subject matter and The Guardian's previous record when it comes to reporting on the issue.

that aside, i don't think they support the proposed change to this article's lede. those sources are about a specific eligibility policy in one sport (a narrow, competition fairness question decided by one of a specific sport's governing body). per WP:DUE and WP:RS, i don't think a ruling in athletics can be generalized into a reason to hedge the lede's description of who trans women are. Witness1603 (talk) 07:30, 25 September 2026 (UTC)

References

suggested definition change

Please see the FAQ at the top of this page. Loki (talk) 18:17, 2 October 2026 (UTC) The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

the primary definition given in the introduction to this article is 'A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth'

this is lacking in accuracy and clarity because according to wikipedias own definition of transgender in the article on the topic:

'a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth.'

i also have issues with this definition, as will be explained further, however, even with this definition, we are excluding intersex people from the discussion, who can be transgender but may not relate to this in terms of their sex assigned at birth (nor would it be accurate from many perspectives)— and essentializing what is assigned at birth. this definition is limiting from both ends as will be explained.

'a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth' as a definition of transgender, is in fact also limited— if at least providing more clarity than the assumptions made in the definition given of trans women. for example, someone can be transgender by transitioning into the gender they were assigned at birth. if someone is assigned female at birth, then identifies as nonbinary for a given period of time, before transitioning to female— and this individual does not experience this transition as a 'detransition' but a 'retransition', and thereby transitions into the role of female and identifies as a transgender women— that individual is a transgender women— even being assigned female at birth. this view is far more in line with the queer perspective, is more accurate to the meanings of terms like 'transgender' and 'gender' etc. and has more utility as a definition that matches with the practical implications of these labels.

no definition is ever perfect, but perhaps a suggestion of directions for the given definitions could be as follows:

'A trans woman or transgender woman is a woman who identifies as such, and/or experiences gender transition to the category known as woman'

and

'a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were assigned at birth, or any individual who experiences gender transition as a process, and/or identifies with the term transgender'

i am aware that these definitions are clunky, but they are at least more workable, and more reflective of how these terms manifest. thank you for your consideration. ~2026-52945-54 (talk) 02:32, 2 October 2026 (UTC)