Female Language in Research Articles Written by Transgender Scientists

Abstract Physiological examinations of trans individuals reveal that their bodies over time align to correspond with their gender identity and shift away from the parameters associated with gender assigned at birth. Considering this, the present study looks at language production of transgender scientists to determine if their language changes along with their physiology. The investigation centers on one aspect of scientific trans discourse—that is the frequency of female language. It was expected that those scientists who transitioned from male to female would use female language more frequently after the transition, and those who transitioned from female to male would exhibit fewer instances of female language. However, the opposite appears to be true. According to the evidence collected from 10 professional scientific articles, the frequency of female language goes up for those scientists transitioning from female to male and goes down for those who transition from male to female.