Transition

Transition is the process by which a transgender person brings their life and body into line with their gender identity. It is usually understood in three strands:

• Social: new name, new pronouns, new presentation, living as oneself (see social transition);
• Legal: updating name and gender markers on documents — in mainland China, changing the gender marker currently presupposes completed surgery, which makes the legal strand far steeper there than in many countries;
• Medical: hormone therapy, surgeries, and other gender-affirming care.

The key fact: there is no standard route and no finish line. Some people transition socially and stop there, fully and permanently; some pursue all three strands; many move in stages dictated by money, family, or policy rather than desire. Every configuration is a complete transition, and the pace is nobody else’s to grade.

Nor is transition “becoming someone else.” Most people describe the opposite: the outside finally catching up with the inside, so that the person others see matches the person they have always known themselves to be. That is exactly why “transition” replaced the older “sex change” framing — see the bianxingren entry.

In Chinese: xingbie guodu (性别过渡), or simply 过渡 in community speech.

Register note: standard in both formal and community usage; English uses it as a verb (“she transitioned”).

Common misuse: asking “is your transition finished?” — usually a polite disguise for “have you had surgery?” Transition has no universal endpoint, and surgery was never the exam.