male-to-female

[meyl-tuh-fee-meyl]

adjective

1. Sometimes Offensive.,  noting or relating to a person who was assigned male at birth but whose gender identity or gender expression is female.

noun

1. Sometimes Offensive.,  a person who was assigned male at birth but whose gender identity or gender expression is female. MTF, MtF

Sensitive Note

Male-to-female was once the accepted terminology for women who were assigned male at birth. The term continues to be used in medical literature, and some transgender people do identify that way. Especially among younger transgender people, however, trans woman is now a more popular term for this demographic. For some people, the term male-to-female can be offensive for its implication that trans women were “originally” male, and have only now become female.

Word History and Origins

Origin of male-to-female¹

First recorded in 1965–70