Before following Katherine Boone, an year-old Syracuse high school student, through her sex reassignment surgery in , Ms. Hartocollis did not know whether the term applied to people who identify as female or as male the answer is the former. Coverage of transgender issues is becoming ever more a part of the political conversation, whether it is about access to health care, representation on film and TV or which bathrooms trans people are allowed to use. As these types of stories arise more frequently, reporters are among those confronting the limitations of modern vocabulary. Over the last few decades, The Times has changed the way it writes about transgender men and women. Grammar conventions are shifting just as quickly.