Purpose/Context.

This article categorizes the theories described in empirical studies of transgender men to contribute to epistemological and methodological advances in bioethics from transdisciplinary approaches.

Method/Approach.

We conducted a qualitative narrative literature review under a research objective and question, bibliographic search, study retrieval, systematization, selection, database construction, primary analysis, evaluation, and analysis by topic. The review encompasses empirical studies of transgender men in Spanish and English published in Pub-Med, APA, DOAJ, and Scielo between January 2010 and May 2019, with no design limits. The articles included were classified by emerging theme and by theory, according to their authors.

Results/Findings.

Of 79 articles, 46 had a quantitative approach, 25 qualitative, and 8 mixed. The emerging themes are discrimination, diversity, education, health, identity, marketing, society, and violence. There is a lack of theoretical foundations in 83.5 % of the publications; theory is indirectly described in 15.2 % and explicitly described in 3.85 %, particularly queer, recognition, and gender and sexual identity theories.

Discussion/Conclusion/Contributions.

Empirical production on transgender men lacks explicit theoretical basis, except for three articles, suggesting the need for own bioethics developments that have an impact on individual and collective decision-making.

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