the references don't show up on CX in the target translation section but they show up after publishing.
is this ok @Amire80?

on cx	after publishing

In T267869#7220709, @Jpita wrote:

the references don't show up on CX in the target translation section but they show up after publishing.
is this ok @Amire80?

TL;DR: probably OK.

But read on :)

There are two things that may make the references' content appear in an article:

1. A paragraph with the <references /> tag. Sometimes it's written just like this, and sometimes it's inserted using the {{reflist}} template or something similar.
2. If there are <ref> tags on the page, but no <references /> tag anywhere on the same page, then the references are shown automatically in the end of the article.

What probably happened in your testing is #2, which is OK.

To also test #1, click "Add translation" in the last paragraph, under the references. It should then show the references also during translation.