On Misandry, Part 1: Obscuring Gender Relations and Reifying Transmisogyny
The Misandry Model of Transphobia is Feminism's Current Hamartia
On the Classification of Trans Women
The portrayal of trans women as “men in dresses” is not to highlight our maleness but our failures at femaleness. It is wrong to assume gender in our society is some equal force; that the crime of trans women isn’t simply being seen as a man when they want to be seen as a woman.
A tragic flaw present in many feminist, Leftist, queer, and trans spaces and discourses is that transmisogyny, the unique oppression that targets transfems and trans women, is grounded in or originates from misandry, the hatred or dislike of men. This error undermines all transfeminist activism and theory built around it like a faulty step in a mathematic proof.
The misattribution of transmisogyny with misandry causes three major errors in theory and praxis. First, it obscures the actual cause of and justifies the continued perpetuation of transmisogyny both in our patriarchal society and in feminist and queer/trans spaces and organizations. Second, it declaws feminism by turning it from a movement against male supremacy to a lobby for gender appeasement. Third, it obscures the cause of transmasc oppression by characterizing the oppression they suffer from the patriarchy as misandry.
I will cover the first major error in this post. This error arises both from the symptoms of trans-female oppression and the obscuring of gender relations within our Euro-American patriarchal society. As activist and biologist Julia Serano pointed out in Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, two sexisms exist within our society: traditional and oppositional. Traditional sexism is “the belief that maleness and masculinity are superior to femaleness and femininity,” and oppositional sexism is “the belief that female and male are rigid, mutually exclusive categories.”
Traditional sexism exists to justify the current patriarchal gender hierarchy, namely that men are superior and thus should control women. Oppositional sexism exists to justify traditional sexism by maintaining rigid, naturalized, and mutually exclusive gender roles, expressions, identities, and sexualities. Oppositional sexism drives homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and nonbinary-erasure.
In other words, traditional sexism exists above and alongside oppositional sexism. But while oppositional sexism may be the driving force behind homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and nonbinary-erasure, it is in service to traditional sexism. We must never forget this. If we do, we will miss the whole picture. Both sexisms exist in unity, constantly reifying each other, but traditional sexism is what provides oppositional sexism its base while opposition sexism is what maintains traditional sexism.
People assume that trans women’s oppression, transmisogyny, comes from them being seen as men. Much of the oppression they face has them being depicted as men or suffering the consequences of “being men in dresses,” but these are symptoms of transmisogyny, not transmisogyny itself.
The violence of misgendering is not new or invented solely for the ridicule of trans people. Misgendering has been used against the queer community, people of color, and gender-nonconforming folk since, like, forever. Lesbians historically have been assumed to be male in some way whether it be having elongated clitoris, being hermaphrodites, having male souls, and so on. The inverse is true of gay men who were assumed to be feminized or female in some way: castrated, female soul, etc.
In the United States, Black women were violently de-gendered under slavery and to this day continue to be masculinized and policed in their gender expression and identity. And feminine boys/men are degraded as useless girls and women whereas masculine girls/women are portrayed as freakish boys and men.
The portrayal of trans women as “men in dresses” is not to highlight our maleness but our failures at femaleness. It is wrong to assume gender in our society is some equal force; that the crime of trans women isn’t simply being seen as a man when they want to be seen as a woman.
The feminine boy or man will be asked why he doesn’t just become a girl, but the trans girl or woman will be asked why couldn’t she just have stayed a feminine boy. The concern here is not with expanding our horizon on gender expression and identity but to destabilize those who have transgressed the acceptable gender expressions and identities.
Butch trans women are also asked why transition if they were staying masculine, yet no one bothers to tell masculine boys or men they can transition if they want to, because it was never about caring for an individual’s expression or identity but pointing and laughing at unacceptable expressions and identities. Misgendering is an act of destabilizing its target(s).
Treating Trans Women as Princes Turned Paupers
But when we see women who are masculinized as punishment such as Black women, intersex women, lesbians, masculine cis women, and trans women, they are vilified, violated, and subjugated more so than “normal” women. Yet, they aren’t treated like a spy in the midst of patriarchy like how old money treats new money.
The forced masculinizing by the patriarchy isn’t an indication the of power of its targets. Black women, intersex women, lesbians, masculine cis women, and trans women are not empowered or powerful because/when they’re masculinized. This is punishment. It may be that to maintain the facade created by oppositional sexism, patriarchy cannot simply classify gender non-conforming, intersex, non-White, queer, and transgender peoples as genderless as it denaturalizes the concept of gender as innate and static. Oppositional sexism says we have to live with our genders, so if something can be without it, it gives the game away.
Instead, the masculinizing of women and feminizing of men is a way in an allegedly gender-symmetrical society to point out their failures at being their “naturalized” genders. It is essential to mention, however, that despite men being feminized as punishment and women masculinized, the effects are different. Despite the oppositional layer, we live in a traditional sexist society at its core where femininity is devalued, so the punishment of feminizing men functions both as a way to maintain a naturalized model of gender under oppositional sexism and to subjugate the feminine under traditional sexism.
Masculinizing women, however, while it accomplishes the same thing as feminizing men under oppositional sexism, its nature changes when looked at how it functions under traditional sexism. Whereas feminizing men de-powers, subjugates, and weakens the man, masculinizing women doesn’t empower, liberate, or strengthen the woman. The facade of gender dimorphism or symmetry under oppositional sexism may make the masculinizing of women seem like simply the inverse of feminizing men, but it actually obscures what’s truly happening.
Masculinizing women serves the same function as highlighting the failure of these women at being their naturalized and immovable gender, but here masculinizing really isn’t the equal yet opposite of the feminizing of men. When we see how the process functions under traditional sexism, if maleness and masculinity are championed and deemed superior to femaleness and femininity, then masculinized women should be deemed as superior to feminine women.
But when we see women who are masculinized as punishment such as Black women, intersex women, lesbians, masculine cis women, and trans women, they are vilified, violated, and subjugated more so than “normal” women. Yet, they aren’t treated like a spy in the midst of patriarchy like how old money treats new money. Indeed, if that were the case, their femininity would be the things highlighted. When feminized men are brought down to the level of women, it’s to highlight their failures as men. Masculinized women aren’t brought up to the level of men. They’re brought lower than women. They lack what the patriarchy sees as useful in women, which is usually bundled into what the patriarchy deems ‘feminine.’
Trans women aren’t seen as men but as failed women. To only see trans women’s oppression as being mistaken for men is to buy into the narrative the patriarchy is trying to sell you. It has you treat trans women as princes turned paupers while the patriarchy continues to treat trans women as servants’ servants—a fate so poor that Achilles chose death over it! Throwing trans women in male prisons, for example, is not simply an act of violent misgendering but a form of systemic medical and sexual abuse. You have only looked at the foam of the river and have yet to even peak at the current below!
The reason I emphasize traditional sexism existing above and alongside oppositional sexism is too often it seems people only see one or the other but never both simultaneously. This creates incorrect and rigid views of gender, sexuality, and patriarchy. Often, it makes those who fight solely against oppositional sexism into warriors of traditional sexism and those who fight against solely traditional sexism into warriors of oppositional sexism. While that sounds contradictory, when you lack full clarity of a situation, it’s easy to become a pawn on someone else’s side without your knowing.
For example, several trans activists and theorists who understand oppositional sexism often overemphasize the oppositional nature of gender. This can manifest in different ways. One way is asserting the Euro-American gender binary is the origin of gender oppression. This is incorrect, but I’ll speak more about it later. Another way this manifests is in treating the two poles of gender—masculinity and femininity—as equal and opposite. So, when society is transphobic toward trans men by categorizing them as women, the oppositional-obsessed apply this situation to trans women as equal but opposite. Because of this, they assume when society is transphobic toward trans women, they are categorized as men.
In a society where genders are equal but heavily policed, such as one where a gender binary is the origin of gender oppression, this conclusion would make sense. But such conclusions are ignorant of traditional sexism. Likewise, if these conclusions are made in our current Euro-American patriarchal society, then they are also removed from our reality. If trans women’s main oppression was simply not being validated for their gender identity, then these conclusions would speak some truth. But they speak no truth and offer no reality.
All Genders are Equal but Some are More Equal than Others
Transfems and trans women are still expected to perform the lowest and dirtiest labor, the only labor we’re deemed useful for, and any transgressions on our part over this treatment are treated with threats of violence, isolation, abuse, and vitriol. We are—no matter where—the women who are okay to hit.
The short-sightedness of centering oppositional sexism is that it leads to the forgetting or dismissing of traditional sexism. Let me make this clear: oppositional sexism is an extension of traditional sexism. The issue, however, is oppositional sexism is the driving force of homophobia and transphobia, which leads many queer and trans activists and theorists to miss the forest of traditional sexism for the tree of oppositional sexism.
When lacking a foundational understanding of traditional sexism, oppositional sexism’s most dangerous effects are obscured because instead of being seen as a function of traditional sexism, it’s seen as a thing in itself. Thus instead of acting as the justification for traditional sexism, oppositional sexism becomes its own sexism, one whose functions exist to perpetuate itself. This fundamentally misunderstands the current Euro-American patriarchy. This grasps the movement of the stars but not of the Earth.
Viewing oppositional sexism as the origin or driving force of patriarchy or the current gender hierarchy distorts any and all analysis of the current material reality of gender and sexuality and will fail in praxis. Since oppositional sexism creates the rigid, naturalized, and mutually exclusive categories of masculinity/maleness and femininity/femaleness, the perceived path to liberate ourselves from the current gender hierarchy is the abolition of the gender binary.
It’s not that the gender binary shouldn’t be abolished, but its abolition alone will not overthrow the current gender hierarchy implicitly or explicitly. Gender hierarchies with gender pluralism have existed throughout history and cultures, whether patriarchal or matriarchal. Even cultures and societies untouched by European colonialism and imperialism developed patriarchal gender hierarchies on their own.
Gender pluralism on its own will not necessarily bring gender equity or equality, especially within our Euro-American patriarchal society, because the gender binary is just a way to naturalize and make rigid maleness and femaleness as a way to fortify traditional sexism and how it naturalizes the subjugation of women by men. If traditional sexism is the king, oppositional sexism is either the clergy or knights, providing hegemonic control via force or coercion.
Oppositional sexism as sole focus often reinforces traditional sexism within feminist and queer/trans spaces and theory. When we borderline buy into the idea that the two accepted genders are equal but opposite, it causes the constant recomposition of man versus woman. We become obsessed with learning if a woman is a male woman or female woman, an AMAB woman or an AFAB woman, and so on. This obsession with classifying women and women-adjacent peoples outside their identities whether they be trans, cis, demi-girl, femme nonbinary, etc. into AMAB or AFAB only reinforces the oppositional sexist notion of rigid and naturalized gender categories.
This is not to say we can’t specify if we are a trans woman or cis woman, but if we obsess with what people were assigned at birth instead of their current identity and lived reality, then we are playing into both oppositional sexism and the gender binary. Obsessing over trans women being AMAB and trans men being AFAB often encourages traditional sexism within feminist and queer/trans spaces by enforcing a masculine over feminine hierarchy of labor upon trans men over trans women.
Through a progressive coat of paint, traditional sexism has been reinstated in feminist and queer/trans spaces. The notion trans women owe labor toward cis women and other queer/trans peoples because of being assigned male at birth is what author May Peterson coined as “transfeminized debt.” This expectation of labor from trans women is the same as what is expected of us from the patriarchy, known as “transfeminized labor.”
Therefore, nothing has changed from leaving the outside world and expecting to find safety and community within feminist and queer/trans spaces. Transfems and trans women are still expected to perform the lowest and dirtiest labor, the only labor we’re deemed useful for, and any transgressions on our part over this treatment are treated with threats of violence, isolation, abuse, and vitriol. We are—no matter where—the women who are okay to hit.
Any theory whose praxis reproduces the same conditions it’s looking to abolish is a failed theory. This is not a dictatorship of the proletariat ensuring the erasure of bourgeois ideology, this is one of the few times Orwell’s ending to Animal Farm where the pigs become no different from the humans would actually be applicable instead of being the reactionary garbage it was: “all genders are equal but some are more equal than others!” and it’s never trans women.
Further Reading
“Trans & Nonbinary 101” by Nico Bailey
Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue by Leslie Feinberg
Marxism and Transgender Liberation by Red Fightback
Transgender Marxism, eds. Jules Joanne Gleeson & Elle O’Rourke
A Short History of Trans Misogyny by Jules Gill-Peterson