PWHV

PWHV (People Who Have Vaginas), or IWHV (Individuals Who Have Vaginas), is a term for anyone who has a vagina, regardless of gender.

Other terms used for this concept include PHV (People Having Vaginas); VAPs (Vaginal People); or, formerly, POV (People of Vaginas/People of Vulvas) and IOV (Individuals of Vaginas).

PWHV includes individuals who have had a vagina from birth and individuals who have had sex reassignment surgery to create a vagina. The term includes most cisgender women, non-binary individuals who have a vagina (either from birth or through sex reassignment surgery), transgender men who are transine or pre-transition, some intersex individuals, transgender women and other transfeminine individuals who have had sex reassignment surgery, and some transsex/altersex/AMAB-V men.

PWHV is a term designed to combat the ideology that having a vagina is what makes one a woman, and to promote gender-neutral language and terms. The term also allows simplicity in describing genitalia in medical situations, such as sex education, where describing individuals as "female" may ignore the existence of intersex and trans individuals.

A similar term to PWHV is müllerian, however müllerian refers to having every trait of a female, not just a vagina. One who is müllerian is also a PWHV, although one who is a PWHV is not always müllerian.

Related terms are PWHP and PWHN.

History
The term POV was coined by Cryptocrew on March 13, 2021 in order to help relieve dysphoria and discomfort in many genderqueer individuals. The alternate wordings of PWHV, PHV, and VAP were created by Wiki user foreigntoolmaker on September 30th since some people were uncomfortable with POV. Weniviere, the coiner of the term, did not realize that the original wording "people/individuals of vaginas" sounded uncomfortable, due to English not being her first language, and has since acknowledged this grammatical mistake and embraces "PWHV/IWHV" as the main term.