For the past few months I have been making the same mistake and have been getting upset at internet strangers on any discourse post about transmisogyny and how it relates to misandry. Every time I have read a post by a trans femme explaining how transmisogyny affects her, there will no-doubt be comments on how it is a phenmomenon rooted in misandry. This take is such a pet-peeve of mine that whenever I do read the comments, often against my own best interests, I will lose track of time and get rationally upset; my own experiences with transmisogyny have shaped my life as a trans woman, and have been constant reminders in how we are discriminated against in daily life, primarily by cis people.
I will first define what I believe transmisogyny is not. I am by no means an expert on this topic, but rather I am just a trans woman trying to get through life day by day. However, through classes I have taken and readings I have done, I feel like I am able to define this form of oppression fairly clearly. Since I am talking about how this relates to my life, I will use the term "trans woman" when talking about the oppression, rather than "trans feminine people". Transmisogyny is a form of misogyny which places trans woman into the objectified views of a cis woman, while not affirming her gender as being a woman when convenient. In online discussion I often see cis people assume that transmisogyny is just transphobia where people view us as a man, and then the demonization that follows because of the atmosphere regarding men at the moment. This take assumes that trans women are upset at the fact we are seen as hostile because we are perceived as men. This assumption is incorrect at its core. If this were the case, then that means that if men were not seen as inherent predators, then trans women would not be discriminated against as much, since the base assumption that we are men would not be seen as a bad thing. However, this is directly contradictory to my own lived experiences as a trans woman.
Transmisogyny rather is a phenmomenon where us trans women are seen as women when it is convenient, and then reduced to men when we become a nuisance. It is no secret that transphobia is prevalent within society. We all see the bills being passed and the headlines stating that yet another trans person has been beaten to death by a transphobic cis mob. It is scary to be a trans person, even in a socially liberal city, as we are the new "other" group which has been the target of right-wing fear mongering for the past decade. But there is a common line of thought among trans allys that transphobia is exclusively the domain of the TERF and right-winger. That all transphobia stems from the base belief that we are men. This is incorrect, and only serves as a means to reassure the ally that they cannot possibly be transphobic because they are "on the right side of history". In my experiences, transphobia comes from everyone, ally and bigot alike, it is just the form and tolerability which changes. Transmisogyny can come from any cis person (or trans person with internalised transphobia).
When a trans woman speaks out and gets angry at her treatment, what is the response? Some people listen, internalise her frustrations, and try to change their behaviour. Some people ignore her, thinking that she is exaggerating her lived experiences. But the group which sees her anger, and then thinks of her testosterone puberty as the reason she is angry, are the transmisogynists. This group has reduced her to being a man just because she speaks out about her treatment. Now, some may think that this is a problem because men are seen as inherently angry people; that they are dangerous because they can lash out at any time. And although in modern discourse this is how men are seen, this is not what distressed the trans woman. What distresses her is that she learns that if she speaks out against mistreatment, her right to being seen as a woman is taken away; and now she needs to re-prove to the world she is indeed a woman. Even if the perspective against men was less severe, that they were not seen as predatory, the trans woman would still be upset. She would still be seen as a man. Whatever your take on the reality of misandry is, it should be clear that it is irrelevant to her concerns. Even if it was seen as "okay" to be a man, this form of transmisogyny would still exist: a trans woman would still lose the respect of the masses when she is being "uppity".
A purity culture then forms: a trans woman is not allowed to be anything but what cis people want them to be. This is analagous to how women were seen before feminist movements changed the way that women were treated; a woman was only allowed to be what men want them to be. And this is what transmisogyny is. When a trans woman has her identity effectively revoked when she speaks out, when her experiences being seen as a sex object due to her being an exotic figure are ignored, when people tell her that the discrimination she faces is just because she is seen as a man; these all push her into the "male" box, and she learns not to rock the boat because all she wants is to be seen as a woman.
It seems that when transphobic bills are put forward, such as the infamous "bathroom bills", cis allies will think that these are abhorrent. They understand that us trans women are in danger of being harassed, and they don't want us to be hurt. But a common joke is to post a picture of a passing trans man and say "do you want him in your bathroom?" Immediately they compare a trans woman to a man. They don't talk about the humiliation we feel going into the wrong bathroom. They don't talk about how we are likely to be hate crimed because we are nearly-passing and obviously faggy. They post a man to effectively say "trans women aren't nearly as manly as he is". This is a form of transmisogyny. It is an ally defending us by using the assumption of a TERF that we are men. Sure it uses their fear of men against them, and it can be argued that this is also perpetrating misandry. However, even though the two topics often come up in the same arguments, if the misandry didn't exist trans women would still be seen as dangerous because they are an "other". Was it misandry when cis lesbians were seen as predatory, and that they were threatened against going into women's bathrooms? Yes, I would say it was. Masculinity was seen as dangerous, and that is why they were harassed. I would say there is also misandry in the trans woman example. However, the trans misogyny that is different to the misandry is the reduction of a trans woman into a man to win an argument. We aren't seen as women in the ally's response because it is easier to reduce us to men when convenient; we are never truly seen as a woman by either party.
I will end this article with an example of transmisogyny I faced in my life. As a content warning, it describes an experience when I was sexually assaulted.
I was hanging out late one night with friends on a trip we took in a hostel lobby. We were talking and having a good time. I feel my friends all see me as a woman, and I was comfortable in my own skin. The friends consisted of a cis woman, a non-binary person, and a cis man. This stranger comes into the lobby and decides to join our conversation, which we all thought would be a good idea so we indulged. The stranger's first act was to go to the table me and my friends were sitting at, and proceed to guess our sexuality. She pointed at the cis woman and guessed "lesbian". She pointed to the enby and guessed "lesbian". She pointed as the cis man, and guessed "gay". She pointed at me, hesitated a moment, and guessed "trans".
If we were to immediately analyse this first interaction, we can see that she viewed being transgender as being a sexuality; my first interaction with this woman was having my identity become a sex object to her. This should have been the first indicator she was a chaser looking to get some dick; in the process she now only sees me as a source of it.
She continues to chat as we continue to chat. But she starts to sexually harass the cis man. Even though she thought he was gay, she was pressuring him to fuck her. This continues as me and my friends are uncomfortable, but we all were high and feeling unsafe so we didn't have the mental fortitude to stop it. Notably, the woman never approaches my friend. She keeps her distance, always stopping short of touching him. She only ever verbally harasses him, by explaining in detail her sexuality and how she feels she can convert gay men.
I was feeling unsafe, but I was hoping that she would leave me alone. But this thought didn't last long when she snapped to me, started calling me beautiful and approaching me. I thought she would just verbally harass me, as she did my friend, but instead she immediately grabs the back of my head and forces me to look at her. Throughout the night, she would continue to assault me and harass my friend, stopping only when a friend of hers pulls her away from us.
She felt like she had the right to my body, only because I am a trans woman. She didn't feel safe approaching the cis man, but because she saw me as something other than a man but not quite a woman she felt like she could approach me; she saw me as something she is allowed to fuck without repercussion. This immediate objectification of me came because she didn't see me as a woman; she never approached the people she viewed as women. She was not being misandirist; she respected the man's autonomy, even if it was for her own physical safety. But because she felt like I wouldn't fight back because I am a trans woman, she targeted me. If society's misandry didn't exist, would I have no been fetishised? Would she not have felt similarly safe violating me? I think if you believe this, you are just looking for a way to ignore trans women for your own cause.
Men face their own discrimination in today's society. I think it is abohorrent how men are seen as inherently predatory; this belief affected me before I realised I was trans. I felt like I would be harassing any woman I talk to, so I avoided it completely. I was self hating when I thought I was a man, because I listened to women and didn't want to hurt them. But this is a completely separate topic to the issues I face as a trans woman. The feelings and effects are disjoint. I think we should be able to talk about both issues without minimising the minority who is actively at risk in the political atmosphere.
I wonder if it will be misandry when my right to transition and HRT is revoked, too.