The application of TME/TMA terminology stops making sense once you take intersectionality into account. Dark-skinned women, particularly dark-skinned black women, are victims of masculinization and often experience this because the concepts of womanhood and femininity (at least in western societies) are almost always measured by eurocentric standards, colorism, and a general proximity to whiteness. Violent transmisogynists shoot first, ask questions never.
Michelle Dionne Peacock was a 59-year-old black woman who, by our communitiesâ definition, wouldâve been transmisogyny-exempt on account of being a cisgender woman. However, she was killed on account of Tommy Wayne Earlâs misogynoir AND transmisogyny, even going so far as to refer to her as a âmale acting like a womanâ when questioned on the murder. Earl had no grounds for his accusations apart from Peacockâs appearance which, last time I checked, doesnât indicate anything save her blackness. Considering Earl also had to be separated from black inmates due to ânot getting along with themâ, I think itâs warranted to assume his transmisogynistic motive is equally rooted in misogynoirist behaviors/mindsets that masculinize black women. In other words: heâs just as much of a violent racist as he is a violent transmisogynist, and whether or not Peacock was actually a transgender woman meant nothing to him. Only his ideology mattered, therefore that was the only âtruthâ he recognized. Most transphobes are like this.
Caster Semenya and her battle against the International Olympic Committeeâs intersexist, transmisogynistic policies is another case I think of, though thankfully it isnât a fatal one. In 2019, World Athletics (formerly the IAAF) introduced new regulations that forced intersex athletes and other athletes with DSDs like Semenya to take medication that would suppress their testosterone levels. Semenya refused, as was her right to. Ever since, she has been pursuing legal action against these regulations. In tandem with her legal battles, transmisogynoirist and intersexist cultural wars were sparked because of the barring of Caster Semenya. Her being a cis woman in actuality did not stop these culture wars from happening. People only cared about the narratives being fed to them, and again, most transphobes are like this.
Semenya is not the first nor the last cis black woman in the sports industry to be subjected to this treatment. Far from it. Serena Williams is infamously made a target by misogynoirist sports reporters and commentators whose actions against her often skew into transmisogynist territories as well (see: Mark Knightâs political cartoon for The Herald Sun from September 2018). In that same year, Williams addressed internet conspiracies around her having been âborn a manâ as well.
Even Michelle Obama has been subjected to transmisogynoirist harassment from American right-wingers who repeatedly make conspiracies and accusations of her âsecretly being a manâ. Quite recently, UFC fighter Josh Hokit peddled this exact rhetoric on the South Lawn of the White House. Emboldened by the likes of Joe Rogan and in the shadow of the Trump Administration, no doubt.
On a less public level, I was shared a video by a black co-worker that applies to this; said video was of a black woman being harassed in a womenâs restroom. As sheâs filming, an older white woman comes around the corner and insists that she is in the womenâs restroom, implying that the woman recording shouldnât be there. She tries to ignore the old lady at first, but ultimately (and rightfully) tells her to leave her alone. Only for that same woman to claim sheâs âmeanâ for doing so, as if she didnât spend most of her time harassing this woman.
Admittedly, I used to sympathize with peopleâs reasons for using TME/TMA terminology in communal spaces. I felt obligated to use it since it was the least I could do for my peers. In retrospect, this terminology is flawed. People regard it as another version for AGAB terminology (which cannot be stressed enough that it was appropriated from intersex spaces in the first place), but itâs deeper than that.
I am not a woman, but your average person is going to assume I am a black woman. They have the potential to exercise the same violent misogynoirist, or even transmisogynoirist, mindset against me as Tommy Wayne Earl had against Michelle Dionne Peacock. My experiences arenât like that of an actual black trans woman, nor was it for Michelle, but that doesnât change the fact that our societies donât care about distinction. Our societies can and will operate on its own optics regardless of who we are, and once they perceive us one way, they arenât going to stop and check if thatâs actually true or applies to their beliefs. If American white supremacists can still peddle âMichelle Obama is a man!â conspiracies in 2026 and with confidence, what makes you think our societies as a whole will suddenly start caring about who does or doesnât apply to their systems of oppression?
Not only does this terminology overlook the nuances of sex and how it is experienced among people, but it also overlooks nuances like the racialization of gender and sex, especially when those nuances CAN and HAVE led to the discrimination of people like Michelle Dionne Peacock, Caster Semenya, Serena Williams, Michelle Obama, that woman getting dressed, and many, many more.
You cannot separate these cases of racist, misogynoirist discrimination and violence from the transmisogynistic rhetoric therein. You simply canât. Itâs all connected. The notion that any of these women are men relies on our societiesâ fearmongering around black people and transgender people alike as well as how they dehumanize us. Worst of all, we see the fallout of that constantly in our communities, seeing how black trans peopleâ especially black trans womenâ hold the highest statistics of being hate-crimed out of any other transgender demographic.
The more I looked into these cases, the more I stopped referring to myself as âTMEâ. If we can acknowledge that transphobia is capable of affecting cisgender people, then how is it any different from acknowledging that our societiesâ weaponization of gender and sex canât be binarized by something like TME or TMA? Cisgender black womenâ be them perisex or intersexâ most certainly are affected by transmisogyny, given the many ways misogynoirist and transmisogynistic ideologies intersect. Those circumstances alone show why TME/TMA distinctions ARE arbitrary.
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