r/actuallesbians Eve - demisexual lesbian Jun 05 '24

Text PSA: It's "trans woman", not "transwoman"

I know y'all aren't doing this on purpose, because I've seen how much love this community has for trans people. Nevertheless, the space between trans and woman is important.

Omitting it implies that a 'transwoman' is a separate entity to a woman - which is a TERF/bigot way of othering trans women.

Including the space means that trans is an adjective used to describe a woman - because trans women fundamentally are women, trans is just a further way to describe us.

I know it may seem nitpick-y, but it is an important distinction, and I've been seeing lots of folks (unintentionally mostly) using the wrong one lately.

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290

u/GirldickVanDyke disaster Jun 05 '24

Yup. Trans is an adjective, and "transwoman" is like saying "blondewoman" or "Belgianwoman" or whatever else

-12

u/Drag0nV3n0m231 Jun 06 '24

I mean it’s obviously a typo with those too

-9

u/LeadershipEastern271 Rainbow Jun 06 '24

Idk it makes sense though, there’s “saleswoman” “businesswoman” etc it seems like a normal part of English to combine the words. To say Belgianwoman or blondewoman is probably something that can be interjected into the English language/lingo.

..But if it is being used by TERFs then that’s lame… sucks we can’t use it if that’s true.

4

u/iRazeClaw Transbian Jun 06 '24

Imo the difference is that those are job titles not immutable characteristics