male-to-female

American  

[meyl-tuh-fee-meyl] / ˈmeɪl təˈfi meɪl /

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.

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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.

Etymology

Origin of male-to-female

First recorded in 1965–70

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

male-to-female

Professional guidelines call for hormone therapy — such as testosterone for female-to-male transition and estrogen for male-to-female — to begin around the age of 15 to 16.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2023

Girls who stutter are more likely to recover than boys; as a result, the male-to-female ratio among adults who stutter is about 4 to 1.

From Scientific American ● Jan. 10, 2023

He emphasized that one of the biggest factor in deaths was crowd density and the male-to-female ratio of the crowd.

From New York Times ● Oct. 30, 2022

Melissa Rodriguez, a turtle keeper at the Miami Zoo, told Reuters that “We don’t have the male-to-female ratio needed in order to be able to have successful breeding sessions.”

From Washington Times ● Aug. 3, 2022

Ashley became only the second Briton to undergo male-to-female gender reassignment surgery, in 1960.

From BBC ● Dec. 29, 2021