While we do not need to dirty the word feminism ourselves (how much dirtier can it get?), or drop it from our own lexicons as monikers of what we believe in the face of a misogynistic world, but amongst ourselves, amongst other feminists, we ought to start by saying, "I'm a transfeminist."

By identifying ourselves as anti-cissexist, we become more of a threat to patriarchy; we stab at the heart of the meaning of sex - a sanctuary of patriarchy that has been left largely unattacked. Today's science has some biologists refraining from naturalistic explanations, with more individuals acknowledging the in-necessity of biological essentialism (or the idea that sex is more fundamental than gender). Complexity and scientific data reveal that sex produces logical necessity in no more certain terms than gender. Trans women are changing their secondary sex characteristics; XY females are giving birth; biologists are growing to call this natural variation; sex, the collective slate of biological traits that premises an entire ideology of repression, is becoming more and more obviously a social construct to those outside of the humanities.

The sanctuary, in other words, is vulnerable. Through transfeminism, we can further erode its defenses, and patriarchy's crowning defense can be exposed for the myth and oppressive lie that it is.

There is only one way we can invoke solidarity in this project, and positively know we are in good company.

By creating a post in which a trans woman, whose identity was being "protected" by the OP, was not given, the audience was left to speculate and draw conclusions from their preconceptions of what OP's "trans woman" might have said or was like.

Or at least, it superficially appeared.

But the work had already been done. She had been described as "hating trans men." The conception was already there for the audience to synthesize from, and so all that was left to do was criticize the trans woman and offer explanations as to why she hated trans men.

The audience took its cues and filled in the blanks: misandry, and then transandrophobia were offered up.

What was notable about that unfolding process was that the trans woman could have been hypothetical. Her identity had not been divulged. Her actual words, motivations behind them, and the fact that she was, "respected and liked" by the OP, which suggested a social gracefulness or insightfulness about her, were inconsequential.

By the time the post was through, her motivations were coherently settled.

From misandry to transmisandry to misogyny, the absentee trans woman progressed as a man-hating woman, then trans-man-hating male, then woman-hating man, existing in descriptive contradictory states, yet whose actual reality was not necessary for these descriptions.

Her existence was only important insofar as it was rhetorically useful.

This is because the crux of trans men's, men's, and the casual audience's transmisogyny, and resulting grievance around rejection of transandrophobia and misandry, is motivated by narrative control. The reality of the trans woman or her motivations, which were certainly influenced by transmisogynistic experiences both systemically and interpersonally, are rhetorical constraints that these groups can and will ignore.

Trans men in particular who operate like this, just as cis men who operate under the reactionary concept of misandry, work to create a false equivalence between personal prejudice and systemic oppression in order to position themselves as the ultimate moral and epistemological authority on transgendered bodies. The cisgendered audience agrees with this project because it reasserts their ontological purity by reinforcing bioessentialism through the social reduction of trans women, ultimately, to male; therefore, man.

my tme waiter:

"i hate the terms tma/tme; we all have been misogynistic- i may be misogynistic again!

anyway, did you know i, a man, get mistaken for being a trans woman? so much transandrophobia nowadays.."

me, staring at a corncob that's been floating above my head for 5 minutes:

primer for fellow transfeminists:

this post got deleted because it has a study with fudged numbers re: trans women's sexual assault and created a misleading dichotomy that most likely set off the alarmbells for the transfem mod(s).

moderational reaction aside, the post is typical; the title is an eye-roller if you're already in a bad mood, the miscalculated sexual assault statistic will put you in a bad mood, and the OP's follow-up that they've "seen multiple studies claim that trans men face the most violence in general," will lead you to start rebutalling mentally.

any more, and i'll be regurgitating the post, so go ahead; it doesn't get better, you'll still be annoyed.

frankly though, there's nothing here that's noteworthy, that hasn't been said or accused, nothing that would stop the show on a regular day.

you, a transphobe, waking up a trans man:

"nobody cared who i was until i put on the mask."

tme people when trans women show up at the survivor's center with a scarf:

"as a trans man, prepare for the accusations of transmisogyny. I don't hate trans women but-"