The gender identity of trans woman and trans man can be, in the logic of binary gender norms, in accordance with their ‘opposite gender’ they were assigned at birth. Also, people who just partly identify as the opposite gender can use the terms trans woman or trans man as self-labelling terms. Besides that, trans* people can also have a gender identity beyond binary gender norms, for example as non-binary.

How a trans* person would like to be named and addressed is different. Therefore, it is important to listen to and respect the person. Differences should be made between self-labelling and non-self-labelling terms. The description ‘used to be a man/woman’ is non-self-labelling and inappropriate as it connotes that the gender identity of the person has been different in the past.