A trans woman is a woman who was assigned male at birth. That is the definition, and there is nothing partial in it. A demigirl is partly a woman — a real connection to womanhood that only goes so far, with the rest being some other gender or none at all. Demigirl says nothing about what you were assigned at birth. There are demigirls assigned male and demigirls assigned female.
So the pair only really gets confused in one direction: someone assigned male at birth, facing the feminine, trying to work out whether “woman” is the whole of it or most of it. Both pages agree on how to answer that. There is no test, no percentage, no threshold. Some people use one word for a while and then the other, and neither use was a mistake.
How to tell them apart
- Tick “female” on a form. If it feels like the truth, that is a trans woman. If it feels like you rounded up, that is a demigirl.
- Be called a woman, then be told that is the whole of it. A trans woman hears that as correct. A demigirl is fine with the first half and not fine at all with the second.
- Try on the other words. Demigirls often find cis woman, trans woman and agender each wrong by roughly the same amount. Trans women find “woman” simply true and the rest beside the point.
More likely Demigirl
- There is definitely a girl in here, and definitely something else — or nothing — alongside her.
- You want to be included in women's things without being counted as one of them.
- You have privately worked out a percentage and been annoyed that it will not hold still.
More likely Transgender Female
- When you picture ten years ahead and it goes well, there is no man in the picture — and the person there is a woman, not most of one.
- Someone poses the button that changes your body overnight and you have had the answer for years.
- You have wanted to be a woman, consistently, for years, when nothing was forcing you to.
When both words are honestly available
- You are a demigirl assigned male at birth who also uses trans in the wide sense: the gender you were handed is not the one you have, and “partly” is still not. Both pages say that is your call.
- You used one word first and the other later. Some people start at demigirl and arrive at woman; some start at woman and find the leftover. Neither was a stage to be embarrassed about.
What people get wrong
A demigirl is a trans woman who has not finished yet.
For some people it turns out to be a stage. For plenty of others it is where they stay. Demigirl is a steady state, not a schedule, and neither outcome is owed to anyone watching.
You have to be assigned female at birth to be a demigirl.
No. Plenty of demigirls were assigned male. Some find the word before any transition, some during one, some without ever wanting one.
Questions people ask
- Can a trans woman be a demigirl?
- The two words make different reports: woman completely, and woman partly. A person assigned male at birth can be a demigirl, can call herself trans, and can move from one word to the other over time. Some demigirls also call themselves women and nothing else, and that is a real position rather than a misunderstanding. What the words cannot both describe is the same feeling.
- How do I know if I am a trans woman or a demigirl?
- Try this. If every expectation attached to women vanished overnight, would “woman” then fit you completely? If yes, and you were assigned male at birth, read the trans woman page. If it would still cover only most of you, the leftover is what demigirl is about. The test is not how much you like womanhood; it is how much of you it reaches.