Trans women

A trans woman (sometimes trans-woman or transwoman) is a male-to-female (MTF) transsexual or transgender person and the term trans woman is preferred by some individuals over various medical terms. Other non-medical terms include t-girl, tg-girl and ts-girl. Transsexual is the more common term.

Overview
"Transition" refers to the process of adopting a social and personal identity that corresponds to one's own sense of the gendered self, and may or may not include medical intervention (hormone treatment, surgery, etc.), changes in legal documents (name and/or sex indicated on identification, birth certificate, etc.), and personal expression (clothing, accessories, voice, body language).

Terminology
"Shemale", along with "tranny",  "ladyboy" and similar terms, are often used in a derogatory manner to indicate a pre-op trans woman possessing both breasts and male genitalia. Like many potentially derogatory labels (such as faggot or dyke), some have adopted the terms as endearments, as forms of self-empowerment or as reclaimed words, for example San Francisco's club Trannyshack.

Some trans women who feel that their gender transition is complete prefer to be called simply "women," considering "trans woman" or "male-to-female transsexual" to be terms that should only be used for people who are not fully transitioned. Likewise, many may not want to be seen as a "trans woman" owing to society's tendency to "Other" individuals who do not fit into the sex/gender binary, or have personal reasons beyond that not to wish to identify as transgender post-transition. For this reason, many see it as an important and appropriate distinction to include a space in the term, as in "trans woman", thus using "trans" as merely an adjective describing a particular type of woman; this is in contrast to the usage of "transwoman" as one word, implying a "third gender".

Sexual orientation
The stereotype of the effeminate boy who grows up to live as a woman has a very long history. It is a common misconception and stereotype that all transgender and transsexual women are heterosexual (attracted to males). However, research on the sexual orientation of trans women in the past has been dubious at best. Many studies on this issue have suffered from reporting bias, since many transsexuals feel they must give the "correct" answers to such questions to increase their chances of obtaining hormone replacement therapy. Patrick Califia, author of Sex Changes and Public Sex, has indicated that this group has a clear awareness of what answers to give to survey questions to be considered eligible for hormone replacement therapy and/or sex reassignment surgery:

""None of the gender scientists seem to realize that they, themselves, are responsible for creating a situation where transsexual people must describe a fixed set of symptoms and recite a history that has been edited in clearly prescribed ways to get a doctor's approval for what should be their inalienable right.""

Libido
Studies indicate that trans women have a higher incidence of decreased libido (34%) than biological females (23%), but the difference was not statistically significant. As in males, female libido is thought to correlate with serum testosterone levels   (with some controversy ) but there is no such correlation in transwomen even though they do tend to have lower testosterone.

Notable trans women

 * Calpernia Addams, actress, author, autobiographer, entrepreneur, activist, fiddle player
 * Allenina, model, actress, dancer, and director
 * Nadia Almada, Big Brother UK 2004 winner, transsexual
 * Alexis Arquette, Actress, Musician, member of the Arquette family of actors
 * April Ashley, model
 * Estelle Asmodelle, actress, author, dancer, and Australia's first legal transsexual
 * Georgina Beyer, the first trans person in New Zealand (and the world) to become a mayor (1995) and a member of Parliament (1999)
 * Alexandra Billings, American actress
 * Maddie Blaustein, American voice actress
 * Kate Bornstein activist, author, performance artist, playwright
 * Jennifer Finney Boylan, American author and activist
 * Wendy Carlos, American composer and electronic musician
 * Candis Cayne, American actress and entertainer
 * Lynn Conway, computer scientist and electrical engineer
 * Caroline Cossey (a.k.a. Tula), English model
 * Jayne County, American rock singer
 * Roberta Cowell, First male to female trans person in the UK (1951)
 * Katelynn Cusanelli, castmember on MTV's The Real World: Brooklyn, and the first transgender individual to star on the show.
 * Molly Cutpurse, English author
 * Lili Elbe first surgically reassigned person, Denmark (1930)
 * Amanda Lepore, American model and performer.
 * Bülent Ersoy, Turkish singer, Ottoman classical music
 * Bibiana Fernández, Spanish presenter and actress
 * Ina Fried, senior writer for CNET Networks
 * Harisu, South Korean entertainer, actress, and singer
 * Rebecca Heineman, One of the founders of Interplay and long time video game programmer.
 * Jenny Hiloudaki, Greek model
 * Dana International, Israeli pop singer
 * Andrea James, Film-maker and activist
 * Aya Kamikawa, Japanese politician
 * Isis King, American designer and finalist on America's Next Top Model
 * Christine Jorgensen, first male-to-female trans person in the US (1953)
 * Members of Lipstick Conspiracy, a transgender rock band based in San Francisco, California
 * Deirdre McCloskey, American economist
 * Jan Morris, British writer
 * Ataru Nakamura, Japanese singer
 * Judiel Nieva, alleged witness of a Marian apparition
 * Kim Petras, German singer
 * Renée Richards, American tennis player
 * Miriam Rivera, reality television star and model
 * Joan Roughgarden, Biologist
 * Amanda Simpson, Senior Technical Adviser to the United States Department of Commerce
 * D. C. Simpson, American cartoonist (Ozy and Millie)
 * Allanah Starr, pornographic actress and party hostess