They are known now, and has been known for a very long time.

When you change your gender does it apply retroactively? I assume it doesn't because that is needlessly complicated.

I remember this being settled on the Chelsea Manning talk page. In short, you refer to women as women even if they previously identified as men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Chelsea_Manning

>This article should adhere to the identity guideline because it contains material about one or more trans women. Main biographical articles should give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what's most common in reliable sources. Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. Other articles should use context to determine which name or names to provide on a case-by-case basis. If material violating this guideline is repeatedly inserted, or if there are other related issues, please report the issue to the LGBT noticeboard, or, in the case of living people, to the BLP noticeboard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Iden...

>Give precedence to self-designation as reported in the most up-to-date reliable sources, even when it doesn't match what is most common in reliable sources. When a person's gender self-designation may come as a surprise to readers, explain it without overemphasis on first occurrence in an article. Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to by the pronouns, possessive adjectives, and gendered nouns (for example "man/woman", "waiter/waitress", "chairman/chairwoman") that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise. Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent). Direct quotations may need to be handled as exceptions (in some cases adjusting the portion used may reduce apparent contradictions, and "[sic]" may be used where necessary). MOS:MULTIPLENAMES calls for mentioning the former name of a transgender person if they were notable under that name. In other respects, the MoS does not specify when and how to mention former names, or whether to give the former or current name first.

Avoid confusing constructions (Jane Doe fathered a child) by rewriting (e.g., Jane Doe became a parent). Direct quotations may need to be handled as exceptions (in some cases adjusting the portion used may reduce apparent contradictions, and "[sic]" may be used where necessary). MOS:MULTIPLENAMES calls for mentioning the former name of a transgender person if they were notable under that name.

This is needlessly complicated. Editing all previous quotes and trying to rewrite past events is confusing.

But she didn’t father a child, since she isn’t a father. The expectation that one be accurate is not “complexity”: it’s how you avoid saying things that are wrong. It is often simpler to be wrong. “Pi is 3” simplifies infinite complexity, in fact. But that doesn’t make it acceptable.

At that time she was identifying herself as a father though. There is no need to whitewash history.

When people get married and change their last name they don't make people go into quotes from the past and change them, and that is far less of an identity change then we are talking about here.

Bruce Jenner won an olympic medal. They don't need to scrub Bruce Jenner from old episodes of the Kardashians.

Bruce Jenner then became Caitlyn Jenner. There is just no reason to try to change history.

When people change their last name, newly-created references to them do in fact use their new name, even if talking about old events. That said, it's not really an analogous situation, because when people change their last name it's generally in response to a life event, and so references to them that predate that life event weren't inaccurate, they're just old. Transgender people who change their name aren't doing so in response to a life event, they're doing so because their old name was never who they were. It was a name forced upon them by their parents and society. Chelsea was always a woman, it's just the world didn't know until she came out. The name she used to go by was never really her, and continuing to use it is supremely disrespectful to her.

Or to put it another way, if you have a friend that comes out of the closet and announces they're gay, do you ever talk about "when they used to be straight", or do you recognize that they were always gay and you simply didn't know?