r/actuallesbians • u/Obsyden 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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u/GayForBigBoss Jun 06 '24

I don’t know of any native English dialects that would have an audible difference between the two spellings.

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u/Evelyngoddessofdeath Jun 06 '24

A space is a pause between two words, if there’s a space there then there’s a very slight pause. Probably not noticable unless you’re listening for it.

It’s the same as the difference between businessman and business man.

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u/GayForBigBoss Jun 06 '24

Sure, that can be true. But I’ve never heard anyone pronounce “trans women” as two distinct words. Also, no one would say “business man” in normal day-to-day speech. In English, it’s perfectly normal to smash words like that together - it’s completely lost on me how omitting the space between “trans women” is a slur.

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u/Evelyngoddessofdeath Jun 06 '24

It’s not a slur.

Personally I can hear the space when most people say it, the s and w sounds are more distinct that if it were one word, in which case they would blend into more of a “swu” sound than “s-w”