3 quick notes before we begin:

• This post is for readers who already understand and support foundational gender identity norms (e.g., proper pronoun usage). If you’re looking for more of a “Gender 101,” please start here.

• Do you strongly believe that gender is a simple, crystal clear binary? No judgment, but this probably isn’t the post for you. This piece is not meant to be persuasive (i.e., I didn’t include arguments to convince you that more complex gender identities are valid). Rather, my intention here is to help people with similar worldviews align on ideal terminology.
• The norms I’ll be describing reflect the current progressive culture in the United States, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, and they may differ elsewhere.

As a cis-gendered, mostly-heterosexual, male person with highly progressive, social justice-oriented views who’s tried very hard to be an excellent ally, the question of what I should call “female people” has plagued me for years.

• I don’t want to get in trouble. 
• I don’t want to offend.
• I don’t want to marginalize or minimize.
• I don’t want to box people in.
• I don’t want to miss someone’s fullness.

I see how complicated gender identity is nowadays, and I see how divided we all are, and I want to do what I can to make this stuff easier.

• If you see someone who very likely has a uterus, dresses and presents themselves in a typically feminine way, and was very likely raised as a girl, what should you call them? Are you ever allowed to use the word “woman” anymore?
• The language is constantly evolving, so which terms are ok and preferred? AFAB? People-with-uteruses? Female-bodied? Fem? Femme?

So, I decided to deeply investigate this topic and do my best to write the most straightforward, rational, but also accurate guide possible to simplify the complexity (that will of course still be imperfect, and will still offend some people; but we have to start somewhere).

(P.S. I’ll give you a cheat sheet at the end to simplify the key takeaways.)

We need to be real here: It’s asking a lot to expect people to get all this right. Even after endless reading and endless conversations, I’ve still felt confused.

And if I’m confused after putting in that amount of work, it feels completely hopeless to expect the average person to figure any of this out.

Indeed, it’s incredibly reasonable that so many people feel overwhelmed by all this—it’s a lot to take in, so let’s give each other grace!

Unless someone is clearly malicious or there’s a major power differential (e.g., a CEO/politician versus a regular employee/citizen), let’s try to call each other in instead of out—i.e., be curious and empathetic rather than shaming (and, I’m not trying to tone police here—it’s ok to feel angry too if you have a marginalized identity).

Thank you for reading and holding the complexity and nuance of all this. 

This stuff isn’t easy, and I hold empathy for all of us trying to navigate it together.

Being human is messy.

If you only know how a “female-looking” person appears externally (e.g., how they dress, behave, or sound), and you don’t know how they identify or what their sex is, what’s the safest way to refer to them?

• What about “female”? Not ideal. “Female” is a sex term (i.e., referring to biology or anatomy), not a gender term (i.e., referring to identity or cultural norms), and you can’t always know someone’s sex just by looking at them.
• What about “woman”? Again, not ideal in many cases. “Woman” is a gender identity term, and you can’t always know how someone identifies (i.e., sees themselves) just by looking at them.
  • (But, if you know that a particular person identifies as a woman, then it’s totally fine to use that word for them.)
• “Female-presenting” (i.e., they look female), “feminine-presenting” (i.e., their style/mannerisms/etc. seem feminine), or (in queer-affirming spaces) “femme-presenting” are all good.
  • Keep in mind that “femme” is often associated with the queer community, so it’s more accepted/normalized in those kinds of spaces than mainstream ones. In general, “female-presenting” and “feminine-presenting” are safer bets.
• Avoid “female-bodied” and “biologically female”—they’re considered outdated, inappropriate, and reductive terms.
  • You probably mean well, but those terms can conflate anatomy with identity and erase the experiences of intersex, nonbinary, and trans people.
  • Those terms imply that a person’s body defines their gender, which undermines the whole idea that gender is a societal and social construct rather than a set of physical or biological traits.
  • (Again, this is the core difference between sex and gender: “Sex” refers to biology, whereas “gender” refers to social and cultural norms/identities/expectations, which can vary by culture and time. Also, see the additional “side note” at the bottom of this section.)
• “AFAB” (assigned female at birth) is tricky. 
  • First of all, the question in this section is what to call someone who is “female-looking,” so the sex they were assigned at birth might not actually be relevant (e.g., consider a trans man who is read by others as male, regardless of his sex assigned at birth). 
  • Still, “AFAB” is often used in conversations among progressives (especially in trans and nonbinary spaces) as a quicker way of saying “people who were raised and socialized as girls.” And in the vast majority of cases (in the US, at least), those two things are synonymous, since most people who were assigned by the doctor as a certain sex were then raised as that sex. 
  • However, in progressive language, there’s also a goal to “design for the margins” (to include as many people’s lived experiences as possible, even if it’s a small percentage). In this case, there are situations where someone’s birth assignment and upbringing didn’t match (largely due to how intersex cases are treated by doctors—see the “side note” below).
  • Additionally, since the acronym “AFAB” is literally pointing to what someone was assigned at birth, it’s often used in trans and nonbinary conversations to talk specifically about challenges or experiences related to having been assigned the wrong sex. 
  • So, in general, “socialized female” is a more general term and is also more likely to be understood by a broader audience. That said, “AFAB” is still a commonly used term in spaces where everyone is more on the same page with progressive gender identity norms.

Side Note: Why biological sex is far more complex than you’ve likely been taught

• It’s not as simple as XX/vagina = girl, XY/penis = boy.
  • Biological sex is not just defined by one thing. It includes at least five different factors: chromosomes (XX, XY, XXY, XO, etc.), gonads (ovaries, testes, ovotestes, or none), hormones (testosterone, estrogen, and sensitivity to them), internal anatomy (uterus, vas deferens, etc.), and external genitalia (clitoris, penis, labia, scrotum, etc.).
  • Those often don’t perfectly align. In fact, people are born with biological traits that don’t fall neatly into “male” or “female” at roughly the same frequency as red hair.
• The line between “normal variation” and “intersex” is not clear-cut, even to doctors.
  • For example, a clitoris over 1cm used to be labeled a “micropenis,” and some people with XY chromosomes and androgen insensitivity look completely female.
  • So, even though it might seem like there should be clear-cut biological rules to determine someone’s sex, the reality is that doctors who encounter ambiguous cases at birth simply decide the sex—often based on what subjectively looks “normal” to them.
  • That can involve performing surgery on the infant to force them into one culturally-imposed binary box or the other (and, this process often manifests as trauma later in life).

What if we’re discussing issues like systemic privilege, oppression, pay equity, and so on?

“Women” might be ok, but often better is something like “women, trans, and non-binary people” or “women and people perceived as women.”

If we’re talking about something related to childbirth, then the best terms are “people who menstruate,” “people with periods,” “people with uteruses,” or “people capable of becoming pregnant” (since that could include non-binary people with uteruses, trans men with uteruses, etc.).

In other words, use “female-presenting” if referring to appearance/presentation, “women and people perceived as women” if referring to how society reads/treats them, or “people with uteruses” if anatomy is important to the conversation.

So wait, why isn’t there a simple term for the vast majority of non-male people who have a uterus, were raised female, and look female?

I do think this is a substantial problem right now, and it’s something that we progressives need to figure out if we hope to get more cis, straight people on board with accepting and championing the fullness of gender identity.

In other words: Somewhere around 80-90% of non-male people fall into the category of “uterus, raised female, look female,” but there’s no ideal, simple word to describe that (other than “woman,” of course, which relies on knowing how that person identifies).

Why isn’t this more straightforward? Because humans are very complicated.

• “Women” can be presumptive if you don’t know the person (i.e., they might have trauma or wounding around needing to “perform” femininity, or they might identify as intersex, non-binary, or trans and would feel like “woman” is putting them into a box they very much don’t want to be put in)
• “People with a uterus” is a biological/anatomical term that could include some trans men, nonbinary people, and intersex people, as well as cis women.
• “People who were raised female” is a socialization term, and someone might be AFAB but is also still, or was born as, intersex.
• “People who look female” is a gender expression/presentation term that could include cis women, some trans women, some nonbinary people, and some gender-nonconforming people. It could also feel harmful to trans men or nonbinary folks who might still appear “female” to some people (e.g., if they haven’t started hormone therapy yet, or they’ve chosen not to do so, or they’ve taken testosterone but still retain body/face characteristics that look “female” to some people).

The key, then, is to figure out why you’re even choosing or needing to name someone’s sex/gender in that moment.

Is it related to… 

• Biology/anatomy? Use “people with a uterus” or “people capable of pregnancy” or “people who menstruate” or “people with ovaries.”
• Socialization? Use “people socialized female” or “people raised as girls.”
• Expression/presentation? Use “femme-presenting people,” “femme people,” “female-presenting people,” or “feminine-presenting people.”
• If you’re sure that they were assigned female at birth, raised female, and identify as women, you can also just say “cisgender women” or “cis women.” (And, let’s also recognize that not all cisgender women have uteruses—e.g., medical exceptions, hysterectomies.)

I hear people saying “fem,” but is it “fem” or “femme”? 

“Femme” is the proper term for gender expression, and it has strong roots in the LGBTQ+ community, especially.

Even better, though, is “femme-presenting” since that’s specifically referring to how that person looks (i.e., their presentation of their gender—clothes, hair, make-up, etc.—is feminine).

The masculine equivalent would be “masc” or “masc-presenting.”

Why does it seem like there’s so much care and complexity around “feminine” words versus “masculine” words?

First of all, we could apply the same care by using words like “masc-presenting,” “people capable of producing sperm,” “people socialized male,” “people raised as boys,” etc.

But, there are a few reasons why there tends to be more emphasis on the female/feminine side:

• Male is still seen as the default due to the historical/systemic power dynamics in the United States and most of the world. Even males who use “they/them” pronouns often feel more ok with being referred to as a “guy” or a “dude.”
• The stakes of getting it wrong tend to be lower since men tend to have more social privilege and are at lower risk of being marginalized in many work-related contexts, etc. 
• That said, we should be careful to avoid erasing the experiences of gender-nonconforming people who were raised male. It’s important to recognize the experiences and truths of guys who don’t like being labeled “men” since that can feel like a loaded, negative term nowadays (since there are so few positive male role models in popular culture and so much toxic masculinity).
• And, let’s also be kind to fully-straight, cis men who are trying their best. There’s a very real male mental health crisis right now. Men die by suicide in the US at nearly 4 times the rate of women. Nearly a third of men report having no close friends (almost triple the rate for women). Many experts connect the rise of extremist online communities to the feelings of alienation and shame among young men.

OMG, all this is amazingly complicated. Are there simple default terms to fall back on? Please summarize all this for me!

• Most often, when we want to refer to “female people,” we could instead just say “women and femmes,” or “women, trans, and non-binary folks,” or (depending on the context) “people socialized female,” or (in progressive spaces) “AFABs”.
• “Non-male” could also get the point across in many cases, but it’s not ideal since it feels exclusionary and focuses on who’s not included rather than who is. (Even so, it’s still sometimes used in progressive spaces for brevity.)
• Ultimately, though, it really depends on what you’re actually trying to convey, which can sometimes require surprisingly deep introspection. 

For example, say you want to create a dance event that feels extra safe for “female people,” so you want to exclude “male people”…

Who exactly are you inviting, then? 

• Is it anyone socialized as female (including trans men, or not? And what about trans women, who would not have been socialized as female?)? 
• Is it anyone female-presenting? 
• Is it anyone who identifies as femme? 
• What about someone who has a uterus and was socialized female but now identifies as non-binary (or perhaps masc-leaning non-binary) and does not identify as a femme?

As you might imagine, there’s rarely a perfect answer here that will satisfy everyone. The best we can do is approach these kinds of questions with integrity, compassion, and sincerity. 

As an example, though, here’s one way that hypothetical dance event could be framed: “This event is for women (cis and trans), femmes, and nonbinary people who feel impacted by lived experiences of girlhood, womanhood, or femininity. Bottom line: it’s meant to be a non-male-centered space. If you’re unsure whether this is for you, please reach out, and we’d be happy to discuss.”

Here’s a quick cheat sheet based on what specifically you might be trying to convey by using a gender/sex word:

Anatomy (biology, reproduction)?

• People with uteruses/ovaries, people with penises/testes
• People capable of pregnancy
• People who menstruate, people who don’t menstruate

Socialization (upbringing, internalized roles)?

• People socialized female, people socialized male
• People raised as girls, people raised as boys

Presentation (looks, behavior)?

• Female-presenting, male-presenting
• Feminine-presenting, masculine-presenting
• Femme-presenting (in queer-affirming spaces)

Avoid:

• AFAB, AMAB (avoid these in most cases for general audiences unless you’re specifically referring to something related to their sex assigned at birth; but, it’s probably fine if you know everyone in the group understands that we’re probably actually talking about “someone who was raised and socialized as male or female)
• Female-bodied, male-bodied
• Biologically/genetically female, biologically/genetically male
• Use “woman” only if you’re sure the person identifies that way (otherwise, use more specific or inclusive language from the list above, especially in mixed-gender groups where you don’t know everyone’s identity)
• For some people socialized as men, the term “guys” can feel less negatively charged (and, there are also some male-presenting and male-socialized people who wouldn’t want any masculine term used on them)

Remember: If anyone (including yourself) gets any of this wrong but still seems to be trying their best and not acting out of malice, let’s have grace!

Let’s give them compassion and call them in rather than out! 

Phew, that was a lot. You got through it!

Thanks for reading 🙂👍🏻

—Michael (they/he), July 2025