Also written: trannie
| Source | Year | Position |
|---|---|---|
| SumOfUs | 2016 | Avoid |
| DC Fiscal Policy Institute | 2017 | Avoid |
| American Psychological Association | 2023 | Use with care |
| Diversity Style Guide | 2023 | Use with care |
| NLGJA: The Association of LGBTQ+ Journalists | 2025 | Avoid |
“Terms avoided/questioned by sex and … trannie, tranny”
A Progressive's Style Guide lists "trannie, tranny" among the terms avoided or questioned in its sex-and-gender section, grouping it with other slurs and dated clinical labels for transgender people.
“Avoid … Tranny … Transgender people”
DCFPI places "Tranny" in the Avoid column of its sexual-orientation and gender-identity terminology table, with "transgender people" among the suggested replacements. (The OCR collapsed the two table columns; the avoid-column placement is unambiguous.)
“TERM TO AVOID … SUGGESTED ALTERNATIVE … tranny … transgender person … Some people may use terms to describe themselves and others that may be perceived as pejorative but are empowering for those individuals and their communities. "Tranny" or "queer" are examples …”
The APA's avoid/alternative table lists "tranny" among terms to avoid, with "transgender person" as the suggested alternative. Its comment notes that some people use such terms for themselves as empowering and that some community members have reclaimed them, while others consider them offensive: leaving self-identified use as the exception.
“Often a pejorative term for a transgender person, it is now being reclaimed by some transgender people. Offensive when used as an epithet and should be avoided except in quotes or as someone's self-identified term.”
Where DCFPI and SumOfUs only list the word and NLGJA states a bare prohibition, DSG is the source that spells out the full structure the page turns on: pejorative as an epithet, but reclaimed inside the community, with exactly two carve-outs: direct quotation and a person's own self-identified use. Reclamation is internal; it never licenses an outsider.
“Do not use this derogatory slang for a transgender person.”
NLGJA's dedicated entry directs writers not to use "tranny," calling it derogatory slang for a transgender person and cross-referencing its "slang" and "slurs" entries. The slurs entry allows such terms only rarely: in quotations with a compelling reason, or when subjects use them for themselves.
All five sources agree on the baseline: “tranny” is a slur for transgender people and should not be used in a writer’s own voice. NLGJA states it plainly (“Do not use this derogatory slang”), and DCFPI and SumOfUs both file it in their avoid / terms-questioned columns alongside other rejected labels, pointing toward “transgender person” or “transgender people” instead. None of the corpus sources treats the word as neutral or acceptable for general use.
The sources add one point about reclamation. The APA and the Diversity Style Guide both note that some transgender people have reclaimed the term and use it for themselves as empowering, the APA pairing it with “queer” as an example of a term that is pejorative to some and reclaimed by others. The shared rule is a self-identification carve-out: the term may appear in direct quotation, or when a specific person uses it about themselves, but reclamation is internal to the community and never extends to outsiders. The Diversity Style Guide states this most plainly (“avoided except in quotes or as someone’s self-identified term”), and NLGJA’s slurs entry reaches the same result from the journalism side.
Chronologically the treatment is stable. The 2016 SumOfUs guide and the 2017 DCFPI guide already list it among terms to avoid; the 2023 APA guide and the 2025 NLGJA stylebook keep the avoid posture while making the reclamation exception explicit. What changes is the precision around the self-identified-use exception, not the underlying judgment that the word functions as a slur when used by outsiders.
See the structured audience notes above: journalists and editors should keep the word out of their own voice and quote it only with cause; activists and internal communicators should remember that in-community reclamation never licenses outsider use; and in every case a person’s own self-identification governs how that individual is described.