> But you cannot doubt that a trans woman is "really" trans. Trying to be the opposite of your biological sex is what "trans" literally means.
Breaking it down, trans has two parts to it. The smaller part is simply describing those who are going through transition. There's no identity requirement here, though most people would consider themselves trans if they're going through transition.
But on the other hand, you can also be trans if you...simply identify as such, even if you make no effort to socially or medically transition, with or without a formal diagnosis.
The flip side is, you also can suffer from dysphoria and wish you were born as the opposite sex and still be cisgender, as long as you don't actively want to identify as transgender for whatever reason.
So I'd say a large part of it is identity based. If (say in a survey) we let people classify themselves into short/medium/tall and it was self-reported like gender was, we'd probably use "survey respondents who identify as being tall" or "tall-identifying people" too.
Breaking it down, trans has two parts to it. The smaller part is simply describing those who are going through transition. There's no identity requirement here, though most people would consider themselves trans if they're going through transition.
But on the other hand, you can also be trans if you...simply identify as such, even if you make no effort to socially or medically transition, with or without a formal diagnosis.
The flip side is, you also can suffer from dysphoria and wish you were born as the opposite sex and still be cisgender, as long as you don't actively want to identify as transgender for whatever reason.
So I'd say a large part of it is identity based. If (say in a survey) we let people classify themselves into short/medium/tall and it was self-reported like gender was, we'd probably use "survey respondents who identify as being tall" or "tall-identifying people" too.