Why "Transandrophobia Does Not Exist" dismisses Intersectionality and Race.
When I have lengthy discussions with other blogs like this, I tend to repost my side to make it it's own post. I will include additional information, of course.
---------- 1/12/26 ----------
The claim that "transandrophobia does not exist" and that "men are not oppressed for being men" are steeped in not only racism but is the antithesis of transfeminist intersectionality.
When men with intersectional identities are oppressed, they are not oppressed in the same ways women of those same intersections are. This is because intersectionality focuses on the person as a whole, and not a set of parts. Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, Intersectionality was first meant to describe how overlapping sums of marginalized identity relate to systems of power, like the patriarchy. As such, intersectionality opposes the idea that an entire person can be analyzed in isolated parts.
For example, a black trans woman does not face racism, transphobia, and misogyny but instead faces an entirely unique form of oppression named transmisogynoir. She is not faced with these because all three of these oppressions "exist", it is that all three of these materially affect her everyday life as a sum of her parts. The point is, misogyny does not have to exist against the majority group for the minority group to experience it. The majority of white people do not face racism, but that does not mean that it does not exist. The majority of men do not get hurt by the androphobia in their circles, but that does not mean that people are not afraid of masculinity and men there.
Let's loop back. Intersectionality is meant to describe marginalized people, and while intersectionality can apply to those who are not marginalized, it is not made to analyze their relation to power as their relation to power is not overlapping - it is direct. A cishet perisex man who is not currently poor, not currently disabled, and is a patriarch is not a marginalized man. His relation to systems of power is clear, he directly benefits from it. That is what I call units of oppression. If intersectionality focuses on the sum, units of oppression focus on the individual parts. Units opposes axis, as axis usually imply one or two interlocking states (such as trans and woman), while units tally up the entirety of self (black, trans, woman, poor, disabled, etc).
Thus, the backward notion of "androphobia isn't faced by men so transandrophobia cannot exist" is a failed argument. Not only does the conversation not surround non-marginalized men when we speak about intersectionality, the failure of the transfeminist movement to recognize that leads to arguments like this. When we deny marginalized groups of people the ability to name their own oppression, we also deny racialized, disabled, poor, and other groups the ability to do the same under the same argument; that it is not systemic and therefore does not hurt anyone. Not only is that statistically false, but black feminists have discussed this matter. While recognizing that black feminism needed to be created to distance from the racism of the first/second wave feminism and from the androcentric black power movement, black feminism encourages and puts value in the ability for black men to be and to express themselves underneath black feminism. Most black feminists recognize that misandronoir is a real problem faced by black men from white peers without ignoring the idea that black men can enforce the same subjugation they deal with against black women.
The act of saying "transandrophobia does not exist" excuses the consequences of intersecting identities that, usually, black and brown trans/intersex people face. It is to claim that it is justified for a black man to not be able to say that he has been harmed for being a man. The trans man is oppressed for being a man because he is transitioning towards manhood. You cannot separate the gender from the transness the same way you cannot separate the trans woman from her womanhood. She experiences life as a woman and he experiences life as a man, and those two experiences are affected by how their transness is perceived and how "real" their gender presentation is. This goes for people of color too. People of color were oftentimes not seen as their gender/sex because of their race, and that adds a layer of racism when those experiences are denied.
When an asian man is infantilized, so is an asian woman - but hers is uniquely rooted in misogyny. This though, does not mean that the asian man does not experience his own struggles with infantilization and fetishization of the fantastical skinny Koren twink. A man being portrayed as a predator in spaces where he holds no power to be the ruling class/oppressor class (white, abled, cis, etc) is a form of androphobia (page 85.)
Androphobia is the irrational, medical fear of masculinity or men. It oftentimes becomes androsexism in which people use intersexism, dyadism, and attack non-hegemonic/intersex forms of masculinity. most people who are androsexist are men themselves, not women, and no one claims that women are androsexist unless they are making intersexist jokes. Any form of "this gender does not face oppression" is rooted in racism the same way "intersex people are all bigenital" is rooted in sexism.
This is not the argument that men suddenly have their ability to use sexism erased because of their marginalized status, it is arguing that misogyny and privilege are not biological or social factors given to men but rather up kept by the patriarchy's systems that both subjugates men and women. If maleness and gender are not biological, why is the patriarchy deemed a biological addition to a child?
Furthermore, it is a racist action to point out that men, as a united whole, are not oppressed for the act of being men. While pointing out that white cishet perisex men are less likely to be affected by androsexism and are not oppressed for being men isn't a racist action, it is indeed part of racism to avoid nuance and intersectionality when discussing genders and their various positions in relation to power. If that sum of a being (gender, sex, disability, class, etc) is historically barred entry for their gender or sex, they are oppressed for being that because that is not given to them. White men are given the privilege of being seen as real men because they do not have those same barriers unless they are trans, intersex, poor, disabled, etc. This is the same for trans women, where there is a standard of pretty privilege similar to cis women and the desperate need to pass as a form of protection(page 2.)
On the topic of trans men not challenging the patriarchy by being men, that is a nuanced conversation as well. Trans men don't challenge patriarchal structures the same way trans women also don't challenge these structures. The very act of being a binary trans person in a world where being binary and conformant is expected is not a challenge to the patriarchy at all, yet the mere act of being trans/intersex is an attack on the status quo. So now we have two groups who both attack and surrender themselves to what is known as the patriarchy and its expectations. This is a big problem in the trans community, even nonbinary people do it, where we have chosen that instead of destroying the spaces that do not welcome us - we ask them to accept us. There is no amount of acceptance a transphobic cis person can do for a trans woman to make her feel like she is who she is. Relying on the patriarchal structure of gendering things as man and woman at all is an act of not challenging the patriarchy. If you are transitioning to womanhood and do not put in the work to deconstruct your internalized misogyny, your racism, or your sexism, you are not challenging the patriarchy the way you claim to be(page 2.) If you are transitioning and you do not put in the work to change what woman/man means other than "opposite" to each other or otherwise think that cisness is the default by not reframing who gets to be a man or a woman (using "gender is social, sex is biological"), you are not challenging the patriarchy.
Androsexism is interpersonal sexism. It is the result of defining, subjugating, and furthermore attacking forms of masculinity, manhood, and marginalized masculines. Butch lesbians specifically experience butchphobia. Which is the intersection between androphobia, lesbophobia, and misogyny. Transgender men face transandrosexism because of the intersections between transphobia, cissexism, and androphobia. Those three make unique experiences the trans man suffers from - and transandrophobia can intersect with racism and ableism. Trans men do in fact have these lived realities of nuanced identities under oppressive power structures. The oppression is their transmasculinity being targeted and their identities being downplayed as "pooners" and much more on the same level as trans women.
The excuse that it is the trans man's "femaleness" or his "transness" that gets him in trouble is degendering/third-gendering him. It places him into a category of "other" rather than man. It decouples his gender from him to form an argument that doesn't include him, that misgenders and uses bioessentialism against him. He is a man, and he is harmed for being one. The person who coined transandrophobia is a man of color, and he details that people's fear in men begets the fear of trans men as a whole. The production, the fear of masculinization of "girls", the sexualization of the "feminine" sex on masculine bodies, and the misogyny thrown against them with words like "transandrocunt" and "pooner" are all there.
If the phrase "transandrophobia does not exist" was pointing out how men benefit from the patriarchy, it would confront trans men's ability to benefit from internalized misogyny and androsexism and not that they do not face oppression for being trans men. The phrase decenters trans people and recenters cis persisex men in order to claim that trans men are not trans.
