Dani

We all agree that 'transandrophobia' as a word refers to discrimination targeted towards transmasculine people. We all agree that transmasculine people face discrimination on the basis of being transgender. We agree on this latter fact becaus transmasculine people are transgender, and all transgender people face discrimination on the basis of being transgender.

The word transandrophobia was developed to exist as a counterpart to transmisogyny. I presume no one is going to deny this because frankly who has the time. At a surface reading, the two words existing in tandem appear to refer to the different variations of transphobia experienced by transmasculine and transfeminine people, as well as the variations of transphobia directed at non-binary people based on their perceived assigned gender. Given that the discrimination against these groups does manifest in different ways (once again, I presume no one has the time to waste on denying this), these terms seem useful in principle. Why, then, has so much discourse arisen from them?

Allow me to introduce you to my dear friend Context.

The word transmisogyny was not developed simply to refer to the specific ways that transphobia manifests against trans women. Transmisogyny refers to the intersection of transphobia and misogyny - which does sound at first blush like the same thing, but it gets more complex very quickly. Transmisogyny refers to the unique combination of disgust, sexualisation, objectification, neglect, and abuse that trans women suffer from. It refers to the way that trans women are socially abandoned, talked over, and harassed, and that there is always social capital to be gained in perpetrating this.

The term is similar in origin to misogynoir, the unique combination of racism and misogyny experienced by women of colour, especially black women, which is most easily explained by pointing out that black women face more discrimination in a variety of ways than white women and than black men.

Trans men also face a particular manifestation of transphobia characterised by belittlement, condescension, and infantilisation. These effects of transphobia are similar to many of the ones faced by trans women, but one of the key differences is that transphobia directed at trans men typically paints its targets as helpless victims who can't possibly know anything, and transphobia directed at trans women typically paints its targets as predators and inherently sexual.

Because transphobia manifests in different ways towards different categories of trans people, terms to distinguish them seem theoretically helpful. Why, then, does the word transandrophobia spark such a visceral reaction? There are two reasons.

The first is the aforementioned context. Transmisogyny arises as an intersection of transphobia and misogyny. As its counterpart, the etymology of transandrophobia is easily interpreted as the intersection of transphobia and androphobia (or misandry). Since discrimination against men on the basis of being men (as opposed to being black, gay, or trans) is not real, and is a concept that reliably arises in backlash to feminism, a term that traces its roots back to it was always going to set off alarm bells.

(Transphobia against trans men is, of course, primarily rooted in the misogyny of cis people that fail to see trans men as men and believe they are merely interacting with a deluded woman, but referring to this manifestation of transphobia as transmisogyny would not only be incorrect, but worse: unhelpful.)

The second reason is unfortunately significantly simpler. The word transandrophobia sets off alarm bells specifically because of this discourse. People keep being assholes about it. The court is in shambles, and no one seems capable of making a salient point without immediately following it up with a deranged one. Trans men are being told that they aren't discriminated against, trans women are being bullied for talking about their own experiences, differing levels of seriousness are somehow leading to sexual harassment, isolationism and defensiveness are both running rife as people become jaded and sharper with each other, words people develop to describe their identities and the resultant discrimination are being forcibly turned into dogwhistles (I'm not getting into TME/TMA here but a lot of the same nonsense has happened with those terms), and all of this is on top of trans women in particular being rampantly banned from this website.

I am not a trans man. I cannot give a trans man's perspective. What I can do is empathise with the sheer whiplash that must result from coming across a word developed to describe a very specific brand of discrimination and then seeing people claim that that discrimination isn't real based on a different understanding on what the word means. I can see how easy it would be to react defensively to that and to develop conceptions about what trans women must be like that become blatantly transmisogynystic without realising because those conceptions are developed as a reaction to people lashing out.

I am a trans woman, however, and as a result I am acutely aware of why my sisters are lashing out in the first place. Whether or not it accurately describes the transmasculine experience, the word transandrophobia is being used by increasingly many people who perpetuate transmisogyny either without even realising or with terrifyingly cruel intent. It is impossible not to become jaded when our attempts to talk about our own experiences are talked over, used to sexualise us, or made about men - something that, ironically enough, I have to presume cis women can relate to too.

There are so many trans women who have been burned too many times or had their patience worn down to a stump, and there are so many trans men who have been thrown in at the catastrophic deep end of discourse about whether their oppression is even real. Everyone is too angry to take the necessary step back and I'm not sure I can blame a single one of you. Everyone here has been wounded for something we thought was innocuous, whether it relates to this particular discourse hellscape or something entirely different. I completely understand the sheer lack of patience at play here. I understand the urge to join in with things that are not necessarily for me. I understand how difficult it can be to restrain oneself from unnecessarily adding one's voice to the conversation. I understand that tumblr itself desperately wants to shove the most braindead, blatantly nonsensical, borderline ragebait takes under all our noses. Especially that last one, holy shit.

In conclusion, I think we do need a word for transphobia as experienced by trans men, but I don't think transandrophobia is it. The word's confusing origin, implication of the existence of misandry in the generic, and above all how inflammatory it's become make it useless at best. I'm not a trans man, so I don't think I should be the one to come up with the word, but as a trans woman I will make the request that it not exist as a counterpart to transmisogyny, both to avoid further confusion regarding intersectionality, and also because I honestly think whatever it is should exist independently as your own word rather than as a forced reflection of ours.