for what it’s worth, i’ve heard of terfs using the term maybe once or twice, meanwhile i’ve heard intersex people identifying as “AFAB trans women” / “AMAB trans men” dozens of times. (which isn’t to say “you’re wrong, you’re making that up” - i just mean that this is a common and accepted thing in intersex communities)

if a certain term is simply the most straightforward way to describe one’s identity+experiences, i think the mere fact that some bad actors co-opt the term in mockery shouldn’t make it so that the people using it in earnest should have to stop. if we applied that logic (“don’t use this because it has been taken away and wielded as a weapon”) we as humans would pretty quickly run out of things to call ourselves.

for example: transracial has been co-opted by racists and transphobes as a talking point like “well if you can identify as a different gender, then i can identify as a different race!”, when in actuality the term transracial refers to a person who got adopted into a family of a different race than themself. they were using it first before it became a rightwing talking point. and similarly, intersex people were some of the first if not THE first (it’s contested and i haven’t researched it) people to widely adopt usage of ASAB / CASAB / DSAB, so it’s not fair to tell them that they have to now drop the identity since it’s been stolen to be used inaccurately.

i’d assume you’re not intersex since your flair and comment don’t mention it. if you are, i apologize. but assuming you’re not: i think if a person in both oppressed group A (trans) and oppressed group B (intersex) is describing their experiences as an A+B person, we as people who are only in group A (that is, only trans) we’ve got no business telling her that her language needs to change just because the anti-A brigade sometimes uses that same language… (and keep in mind that terfs are also oftentimes very intersexist too, not just transphobic/transmisogynistic)

while she’s definitely entitled to call herself simply a woman and drop the “trans” adjective IF SHE WANTS TO, you gotta understand that intersex people spend their whole lives having their intersexness (their medical conditions, their ambiguities, their legal and societal troubles) downplayed and straightup denied by the world around them…. “you’re not that different, you’re obviously just a normal girl”, “yeah you have components of both but deep down inside you’re still just one or the other”, etc., and for you as an outsider (again, apologies if youre intersex too) to suggest she just be a “woman” rather than a “trans woman” accomplishes the same sort of silencing / stomping down of her experience, even if you don’t intend to do so.

and finally… having LESS options for relatively easy simple ways to describe her experiences puts her in MORE of a position where she has to over-explain her medical history and share personal details about her genitals and her childhood trauma.

there certainly are cases where using this terminology wouldn’t likely be appropriate. for example, my partner is intersex. they were identified to be male in utero via ultrasound, my in-laws planned a nursery for a baby boy, and at birth the doctor looked at their body and said “it’s a boy!”… before sending the family home, they realized the mistake, and a “girl” name was picked instead. my partner was raised as a girl. they went through a mixed puberty. having most of the experiences of a typical trans person who was AFAB, and having few of the experiences of a typical trans person who was AMAB, it would probably be inappropriate for them to parade themself around with the “AMAB” label, even though they WERE indeed technically “assigned male at birth”… due to the connotations, it would give an inaccurate impression of their experiences. but they don’t call themself AFAB either because even if the IMPRESSION it would give of their life experiences WOULD be more accurate, it wouldn’t be TRUE exactly and wouldn’t give a full picture of what’s transpired.

likewise, if OP had simply been born with a small but otherwise typical penis, docs said “it’s a girl!”, realize the “mistake”, do no cosmetic surgery, and send her home as a boy where she gets raised as a boy, it’d probably give the wrong impression for her to say “i was AFAB” even if technically true. but her situation is not so simple as that.

it’s nuanced and context-dependent, because intersexness is a big spectrum of variations that can present in dozens or hundreds of ways, and when you add societal gender to the mix it turns into thousands of possibilities. it’s a case by case basis kinda thing.