The language concerning transgender issues has evolved in recent years, and you may well be using outdated language. Confusing this issue is that even some transgender people are using outdated or imprecise language, either out of habit or out of a desire to be understood. Language change is rarely instantaneous: Instead, it spreads around over time, and the old language can persist for years.
“Sex” can refer to either the body in its unmodified state or a judgment made near birth based on observation. The two main sexes are “male” and “female”, but there are gray areas even here. In general, sex is determined by observation of the genitals at birth; historically, infants with genitalia somehow inconsistent with one of the two most common sexes have undergone involuntary surgery in order to bring about as much conformity as possible.
As many people learn in basic biology class, chromosomes are a significant indicator of sex: Most males are XY, most females are XX. However, the majority of people don’t get their sex chromosomes tested, and there can be mismatches between genitals and chromosomes. Even fertility isn’t definitive: Males with chromosomes other than XY and females with chromosomes other than XX can still be fertile.
So, for the majority of humans, “male” and “female” are based exclusively on a designation near birth made by a medical professional or other adult involved in the birth event. Hence, it is common in the transgender and gender non-conforming community to talk about “Assigned Male at Birth” or “Assigned Female at Birth”.
This leads to two elements of linguistic sloppiness. First, it’s common to use acronyms here: AMAB, AFAB, AGAB. However, some in the community have started (rightfully, in my view) pushing back against those acronyms because they lead to present tense. “I’m AMAB” says “I am assigned male at birth” when the reality is that I was assigned male at birth.
The second is that AGAB is the common general acronym instead of ASAB. This brings me to a very important distinction that English hasn’t fully caught up with, that of gender versus sex.
What I described about is sex: A determination usually based on genitals, much less commonly on chromosomes. Gender likewise has two components. The first, usually more significant component is how someone feels about their own identity: Are they purely a man, purely a woman, or some other category (maybe a combination, maybe neither, maybe something else entirely)? The second is how someone presents themself to others in their environment, according to the cultural norms.
Critics say trans people have no clear definition of “woman” and “man”, but we do. A woman is a person who, in good faith, says they’re a woman. “In good faith” is needed because there are a few people who abuse this definition in order to support an inane point. Yes, anyone can claim to be whatever gender at some given point in time. However, for someone to lie about this is uncommon and generally blatant enough that such exceptions can be often be identified.
I feel confident that few transgender people feel that they can change their sex: Someone who was born male will always be male; someone who was born female will always be female. The exception to this would be people whose birth assignments were somehow inaccurate, such as chromosomal variations that aren’t discovered until much later.
For this reason, “They transitioned from male to female” and “They were a man, now they’re a woman” are both inaccurate, for the same reason that the medical field has mostly moved from “sex change surgery” to “gender confirmation surgery”. Neither sex nor gender is changed for a transgender person: What changes — transitions — for many transgender people is their presentation and interaction with the world, bringing their externally recognized identity into compliance with their gender (which they’ve always had) instead of their sex (which they’ve always had).
It is very important to note that being transgender does not require any transition at all: The “trans” in “transgender” simply refers to the fact that someone’s gender and sex are different. The opposite of “trans” is “cisgender”, and so “cisgender” refers to the fact that someone’s gender and sex are the same.
I say “simply” in the preceding paragraph while acknowledging that both “sex” and “gender” are more complicated than the cis/trans distinction suggests. Throughout language, we attempt to balance complex nuances with communicative effeciency.
For the reasons above, the adjective “biological” is meaningless in these discussions. Everyone is biological. “Biological male” is redundant: Using “male” should indicate that we’re talking about sex. “Biological man” is contradictory: Using “man” should indicate that we’re talking about gender, and biology is irrelevant to that.
So… what’s a better way to describe a male who is a woman? Honestly, that’s one way: “This woman was assigned male at birth.” It’s rarely anyone’s business anyway, but in the cases that it is, there it is. “She’s a transgender woman” usually communicates the same thing. I’ve heard people get frustrated that can’t remember whether a transgender woman is a female who presents as a man or a male who presents as a woman, but if we’re consistent with using male/female for sex and man/woman for gender, there’s no actual problem here.
Language aside, though, it’s key to understand that transgender people don’t honestly believe they can fully change their bodies to change their sex. Gender confirmation surgery is one significant way to change genitals to match gender, and short-term uterine transplants may in the near future allow for trans women to give birth, but there will be significant limits until we reach some sort of Star Trek-level medical future. Would some of us like to be able to change our sex? Absolutely. Are we all deluded into believing that, in 2024, it’s possible to do so? Absolutely not.
It’s also key to understand that each transgender person has different needs about in what ways they want to bring their body and presentation into conformity with their gender.
The muddying of male/female with man/woman (and boy/girl when speaking about children) is still common and likely to be so for a while, but I think we can strive to being clearer in our speech.