Gender transition under male supremacy

Towards a grand theory of sex change

This lengthy essay was cut from my upcoming book, Feminism’s Monster. It also contains my “megachart”, which followers and friends may have already seen on my social media.

If you want to think gender, think male supremacy. Every part of a gender transition, in either direction, is dominated by male supremacy. Trans women — who begin by being perceived as male and end by being perceived as female — experience a somewhat different process than trans men — who begin by being perceived as female and end by being perceived as male. Non-binary people, who will be discussed at the end of this essay, sometimes occupy a similar social position to trans women (if they are trans-feminine), sometimes occupy a similar social position to trans men (if they are trans-masculine), and sometimes experience a markedly different journey. Non-binary people cannot be collectively analyzed because non-binary is a category that defies definition. Both groups trans women and trans men, find their lives shaped by male supremacy at every turn, sometimes in similar ways, sometimes in different.

Most people’s ability to accurately understand transgender experiences are hamstrung by a dogged refusal to accept trans people as members of the sex into which they transition and live. Even those who pay lip service to the idea that “trans women are women and trans men are men” often insist on analyzing these people solely through the lens of their birth sex. In order to combat this stunningly inaccurate representation, I provide thorough analyses of how trans women’s, and trans men’s lives manifest in a rigidly patriarchal system, with a much less thorough addendum focusing on non-binary people.

Trans women under patriarchyⁱ

“To paraphrase Dworkin, trans women are sex, are inseparable from sex, because we are reduced to nothing but our capacity for risky, exotic, transgressive, boundary-breaking, taboo, forbidden, unholy sex, by cis people who call us sickos because they can’t stop thinking about our dicks.”

— Talia Bhattⁱⁱ

In a patriarchal society, the mandate for (cis) women is simple: “be fucked, reproduce”.ⁱⁱⁱ In order to reduce women to this dehumanized state as breeding vessels, women must be socially and ideologically constructed as nothing more than wives and mothers. Laws and social conditions allow men to violate women with impunity, restrictions on abortion ensure that women with unwanted pregnancies are forced to carry them to term, misogynistic media (up to and including pornography) constructs images of women as submissive and masochistic sexual objects, and regulations on male behavior ensure that even men who feel generous towards women don’t get too chummy with them. Women have endured these harsh conditions for millennia. Recently, during the past 150 years of feminist movement, and especially (in the U.S.) since the start of the Second Wave, women have made significant progress towards liberation and humanity. However, the fight is ongoing — the yoke of male supremacy is not so easy to shake.

Trans women, existing as women but unable to fulfill the second mandate — reproduce^iv — find themselves with a different lot: be fucked, die. Trans women play an important role in keeping the patriarchal machine functioning: they are marked as acceptable targets for misogynistic violence. Violence against transsexual women greases the wheels of male supremacy and keeps them turning.

In order to justify violence against women — usually rape, sometimes murder — a male supremacist society declares that the woman was “asking for it.” Look at how she was dressed — she should have known better — women like it when men use force — she shouldn’t have led him on. She was asking for it. It doesn’t matter if it’s true — it never is — it just has to be plausible. In a woman-hating society, the bar for plausibility is low.

In a patriarchal society, merely to be a trans woman is to “ask for it.” Because being trans is seen as a choice, the “man who chooses to be a woman” must want to be raped, want to be harassed, want to be belittled, want to be murdered.^v

(Cis) men and women both benefit from trans-misogyny. For violent patriarchal men, trans women are a type of woman that they can hurt with little to no social repercussion. They can fuck a trans woman, and not even have to marry her — and when the shame of their deviant sexual act catches up with them, they can murder the trans woman and escape punishment using the “trans panic defense”. For cis women, trans women conveniently absorb some of the violence directed at them. As long as trans women exist, cis women are not at the bottom of the gender hierarchy. Thus, cis women are directly incentivized to uphold trans-misogyny.

Although there are numerous examples of ways in which trans women are treated as acceptable casualties of patriarchal violence, the most obvious and most egregious example is V-coding, a practice of state-sanctioned sexual slavery in male prisons.^vi In order to curb the epidemic of rape in male prisons, some trans women are given as sexual slaves to particularly violent male prisoners. This happens because trans women are treated as acceptable targets of misogynistic violence. If a trans woman is being raped, it saves the people who really matter — cis women, and especially cis men. Everyone else gets to be a little safer, because no one important is really hurt. Don’t mind if you hear the trans woman screaming — she asked for it, don’t you know?

In order to maintain the facade that trans women “ask for it”, trans women must be relentlessly sexualized. Many different facets of patriarchal society collude to carry out this project of mass sexual harassment. In Chapter 6 of Feminism’s Monster, I examine this process in excruciating detail, arguing that this mass project of sexual harassment constitutes a form of cultural rape.

In a patriarchal system that values women for their virginity and monogamy, a woman who has been raped is marked spoiled. She is dehumanized; she loses her person status. Because the cultural rape of trans women is constant and highly visible, all trans women are rendered subhuman. This subhumanity best explains the intense hostility to which trans women are constantly and incessantly subjected.

Thus, trans women are raped. They are murdered, often by the men who rape them. They are harassed and catcalled on the street. They are called slurs to their face: tranny, faggot, she-male. People make invasive and dehumanizing comments about their bodies and medical histories. They are dehumanized, treated as playthings to be picked apart, by doctors and queer/feminist theorists alike. Any type of misogynist violence is permissible against the tranny, because the tranny is not human — and once you’re done with her, you can discard her by accusing her of being a predator. Everyone will believe you, because an entire mountain of fabricated evidence exists to accuse all trans women of being rapists. There is a marked sadism in the violence and harassment enacted upon trans women. Those who demean, belittle, humiliate, assault, rape, and murder trans women often delight in having a victim who is a socially acceptable target.

But misogyny never works alone. Just as women, and especially trans women, are rendered abject in a patriarchal world, people of color are rendered abject in a white supremacist society, such as the United States. People of color are villainized, sexualized, and demonized in a wide variety of ways, the precise details varying from racial group to racial group. In the United States, one of the most potent — but not the only — forms of racism is anti-Black racism, bolstered by centuries of slavery, rape, lynching, segregation, legal discrimination, and mockery. Racism is deeply baked into the DNA of the United States, to the intense detriment of all people of color. Thus, trans women of color are triply marked. Just as (cis) women of color face both racism and sexism — and their combination — trans women of color face the triple intersection of racism, transphobia, and misogyny. The intersection of antiblackness and transmisogyny is known as transmisogynoir, while the intersection of other forms of racism and transmisogyny is known sometimes as racialized trans-misogyny.^vii These forces have tangible and deadly consequences. It is Black trans women who make up the majority of transphobic murders. Trans women of color are more likely than white trans women to be arrested, to be sex workers, and to go to prison. Trans-misogyny is structured by racism; it more intensely and negatively affects trans women of color in severe and intensely dehumanizing ways.

Some white trans women, moved to solidarity by their own experiences with discrimination, become staunch antiracists. These trans women engage in activism and analysis to support trans women of color, and works to make the world a more racially just place. However, many more white trans women refuse to confront their own racist biases. They desperately cling to their white privilege, because, as trans women, it is often the only privilege they have. They refuse to recognize that trans women of color might have distinct experiences from them, might face more intense forms of misogyny and transphobia, and face distinct forms of racism unknown to white trans women. White trans women, like any other white people, often uphold racism — actively or passively — because they reap the benefits of being on the top of the racial hierarchy. (It is worth noting, however, that in some online circles, there is a belief that white trans women are more likely to be racist than other groups of white people; this is a trans-misogynistic myth.)

Many other factors can increase stigma against trans women. Trans lesbians tend to be more stigmatized than straight trans women, playing on general homophobia. Disabled trans women face distinct challenges, and are often barred from employment, in some cases rendering them homeless. Trans women who do end up homeless must deal with both all the material challenges the situation presents, and the intense, dehumanizing societal stigma associated with being homeless. Trans women who are addicted to drugs, or who do sex work, face the intense stigma associated with those actions. Often, in the bigot’s mind, these other stigmas seem to justify trans-misogyny: they are taken as proof of just how depraved the trans woman really is.

I have examined the complicated relation between (cissexual) feminists and trans women at length, especially in my upcoming book. Beyond being feminist subjects, trans women also have a complex history as feminists. There have been trans women feminists for decades, but those feminists have often faced violent expulsion from the movement, up to and excluding death threats. As a result of this antagonistic history, some trans women are rightfully skeptical of feminism. A small number of trans women are classically misogynistic, and choose not to identify with feminism for this reason — the classic “right-wing women”. Many trans women believe in vague feminist platitudes but do not seriously commit themselves to the movement. However, a significant — and growing — number of trans women participate earnestly and militantly in feminist movement. Trans women have been strong outspoken feminists for decades, and this continues. More work is needed to understand trans women through a feminist lens, and all trans women should support feminist movement, for the sake of their own liberation and the liberation of all women. Furthermore, the notion that trans women are particularly prone to misogyny is a trans-misogynistic myth.

Trans women face tremendous amounts of violence. And after the violence is done, one final crime is committed against trans women to seal their fate as abject victims: they are denied legibility as women.

For millennia, violence against women was invisible because it was normal. Violence against women only counted when it was a crime against a man. A husband raping his wife was normal, but a man raping another man’s wife was a crime because it was a violation of the husband’s property — see Deuteronomy 22:28-29. Men had rights; women did not. All men were created equal; women did not factor into it. Over the course of the feminist movement, and especially beginning in the radical Second Wave, feminist activists began to name and identify violence against women. By naming women as human beings with an absolute right to themselves, they were able to recognize the persistent culture of male violence against women as the epidemic of misogynistic crime that it is. This fight is ongoing, but decades of feminist activism and writing have led to tremendous progress in the fight for women’s liberation. The first step in liberation is to name the crime.

Trans women are denied even this small privilege. Because they are treated as “not really women”, misogynistic violence against them doesn’t count. Because they are relentlessly sexualized and demonized, they are perceived as always “asking for it”, and thus, any and all violent acts committed against them, however small or however large, are treated as justifiable. Because they are a tiny minority of women with significantly different lives and history to most women, they are often forgotten — and therefore rendered invisible — even by well-meaning feminists. Even the most well-meaning cis feminist allies typically treat trans women’s participation in feminism as “inclusion” — trans women are perpetual guests, whose ability to participate relies on maintaining the good graces of the cissexual feminists who (are presumed to) own the movement.^viii

This denial of legibility extends far beyond the intellectual level. Trans women who are surviving abuse or homelessness are often denied resources available to other women, such as access to women’s shelters. Denying trans women this access is a favorite pet project of some anti-trans activists, such as J.K. Rowling. In Viviane Namaste’s 2000 study, published in her book Invisible Lives, she found that several shelters outright refused to admit trans women, and others only admitted trans women that had undergone genital reconstruction surgery or had certain paperwork from doctors.^ix Genital reconstruction surgery is very expensive, as is any kind of transition care — trans women who are homeless are unlikely to have the financial resources needed to access this medical care. Preventing trans women from accessing women’s shelters keeps them trapped in dangerous and abusive situations, and perpetuates the cycle of physical and sexual violence. Thus, anyone who advocates for trans women’s exclusion from women’s shelters is undeniably a rape apologist.

When trans women are recognized as women, it is sometimes done in such a way to erase their experiences by positioning them as identical to other (cissexual) women. Trans women do share similar experiences with many groups of cissexual women — like Black women, they are often denied the right to womanhood, and like intersex women, they often have bodies that do not conform to the conventional understanding of femaleness. However, blithe comparisons between these groups and trans women erase the distinct and specific experiences of trans women — and, even more egregiously — erase the experiences of Black trans women and intersex trans women, who simultaneously navigate several intersecting axes of oppression. Careless comparisons between “trans women and Black women” recollect a long history of racist white feminists making careless comparisons between “women and Blacks”, forgetting that half of “Blacks” are women.

As long as transsexual women remain at the bottom of the gender hierarchy, cis women have the luxury of having a group even worse-off than them. This is why trans-misogyny is so appealing to (cis) feminists in the short term, and why it will always doom feminism to reactionary bigotry in the long term. This is not to suggest that all, or even most, trans-misogyny is strategically and intellectually guided — mostly, it is motivated by an intuitive disgust reaction. However, by positioning trans women as the enemy, cis women can (to some extent) keep the target off their backs. In its most extreme form, this can even cause extreme right-wing groups to selectively partner with anti-trans feminists.

However, any concession to trans-misogyny will always hurt feminist movement. As long as trans-misogyny exists, there exists a hierarchy of gendered oppression that will ensure that women are not on top. Because trans-misogyny arises as a direct result of misogyny, misogyny cannot be dismantled while simultaneously reifying trans-misogyny. Transphobia is a tool that a patriarchal system uses to preserve the illusion that the two sex classes are distinct and immutable, and such an illusion is necessary for misogyny to feel natural. Transphobia is anathema to feminism, and transphobic feminists cannot eliminate sex oppression.

In this world constructed around trans-misogyny, a trans woman’s life (or more specifically, her experience with transition) can be divided into three phases. Not all trans women experience the second or third phase. (A visual depiction of the three phases, within the context of the gender hierarchy, is found in the figure at the start of this article.)

The first phase is self-denial. The trans woman, born in a male body, is told that she is male, a boy, or a man. Many trans women believe this. Some do not — some trans women assert their identity as girls as young as three or four years old. Theoretically, existing as a man, the trans woman occupies a privileged position within a patriarchal system. Occassionally, this is true — but many trans women experience intense misogynistic harassment well before the transition, on account of their natural feminine presentation.^x In its extreme, this can include rape. As long as a trans woman is willing to deny herself, she is able to enjoy the benefits of being male in a patriarchal system. Men are treated better, paid better, and raped less. If a trans woman is able to affect a successful masculine persona, she can enjoy these benefits — but they come at the cost of her life. As long as the trans-woman denies who she is, as long as the glowing TV continues to buzz, she cannot establish a happy and successful life. She can live a decent life, but she cannot live a life of her own.

Do trans women in Phase 1 experience the material benefits of being perceived as male — “male privilege”? Such a topic is difficult to discuss — on the one hand, it seems undeniable that being perceived as male carry certain benefits. On the other hand, being perceived as male is a source of tremendous mental agony for most trans women. Furthermore, accusations that trans women “benefit from male privilege” are frequently used by anti-trans feminists to discredit trans women’s experiences.^xi

Many young trans women or girls naturally present feminine from a young age, and cannot affect a successful masculine persona. Often, this feminine presentation marks them as targets for bullying or sexual violence. (Janet Mock, a trans woman who presented feminine throughout her childhood, documents such abuse in her memoir.^xii) Although it is broadly true that boys are treated better than girls, feminine boys are generally punished more for gender nonconformity than masculine girls.^xiii Thus, for these trans women who are bullied and abused for their femininity, being perceived as “male” cannot in any way be called advantageous: it is the perceived incongruence between male sex and feminine presentation that directly inspires abuse. The notion that this violent “male socialization” inspires trans women to be confident and assertive is a myth used to justify child abuse and stigmatize trans women.

Conversely, those trans women who are able to affect a successful masculine persona can experience many of the interpersonal material benefits associated with being male. These women can benefit from male privilege on a tangible level, enjoying preferential treatment and better job access. However, this privilege comes at a severe personal cost — the psychological toll of self-denial is significant. The severity of this cost varies from woman to woman. For some trans women, the gender dysphoria associated with occupying a male identity is fairly mild; for most it is severe, and the consequences are severe, up to and including suicide. Thus, although these trans women may have benefited from male privilege, it should not be understood as an unvarnished positive. Most trans women would have easier lives if they were cis women.

Even for those trans women who do experience a form of male privilege, it is highly conditional — they are forced into such a role against their will, and any attempts to step outside the role is tightly regulated with sexual violence. There are a small number of trans women who do not experience significant dysphoria that comes along with being perceived as male. For these trans women, Phase 1 may be a time of relative privilege. However, many more trans women find a male identity a source of constant torment and agony. Being perceived as male may allow a trans woman greater access to certain opportunities — but when such opportunities, at the cost of self-hatred, terror, and depression, can the overall state of being really be called a “privilege”?

Furthermore, whatever male privileges a trans woman may have prior to transition, she loses all of these privileges as soon as she enters Phase 2. A trans woman who begins social and medical transition will, when perceived as trans, be treated far worse than a cissexual woman. The notion that trans women carry any form of “male privilege” with them into their post-transition lives is abject nonsense. Furthermore, most trans women would have far easier lives if they were assigned female at birth — and thus, experiencing the world as male is, on the whole, a burden rather than a privilege.

A framework that treats “male privilege” as the only form of gender privilege is oversimplistic. Although male privilege is significant, cissexual privilege is much more significant. In general, those people who are visibly gender non-conforming are treated much worse than either men or women who conform to stereotypical heterosexual roles.

Different trans-feminists have answered the “male privilege” question in different ways. Kate Bornstein engages in a rather baffling and misguided analysis that need not be explained in full.^xiv Emi Koyama calls trans-feminists to provide a more complicated account of male privilege than simply denying that they have benefited from it — although Koyama’s suggestion that trans women are more assertive than cis women is incredibly dubious.^xv Julia Serano introduces the concept of multiple forms of gender privilege, which I have used above.^xvi Nuanced discussion of the privileges that trans women do — and do not — experience are valuable. However, any assumption that trans women are, in any way more privileged than cis women, is deeply misguided. Such assumptions arise only from a deep-seated trans-misogyny.

Some trans women never make it out of this first phase. Progressing past self-denial requires a great deal of introspection — the trans woman must realize that she wants to be a woman — and a great deal of bravery — the trans woman must overcome an intensely trans-misogynistic society to assert her identity as a woman. Some historical figures — Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Cobain — can be and have been speculated to be trans women trapped in an endless phase of self-denial. It is unknown how many more women stay in this phase, remaining silent.

The second phase is monstrosity. The trans woman enters this phase as soon as she asserts her identity as a trans woman. She does this by admitting it to other people, changing her presentation, or seeking medical care. Until she reaches this phase, she is not legible as a trans woman. (She may, before this, be legible as a feminine man or boy. Many trans women are perceived as gay men/boys pre-transition.^xvii) By marking herself as a trans woman, she marks herself as a monster, and opens herself up to sexual harassment, discrimination, and violence. In order to abate the intense hatred associated with being a monster, the trans woman may regress to Phase 1, sometimes temporarily, sometimes permanently.

While navigating medical care, the trans woman will likely have to navigate a draconian and demanding system that expects and requires her to perform femininity. In recent years and in many countries, these requirements have been significantly relaxed, allowing trans women to have a significantly easier time accessing medical transition. However, access to medical transition is still highly dependent on the trans woman’s ability to access healthcare in general, which can be significantly interrupted by financial difficulties, homelessness, basic transphobia, or any other number of forms of discrimination. Medical care will help the trans woman feel more comfortable in her own body, and is also likely to nudge her towards Phase 3, by allowing her to be more reliably read as female.

The third phase is passing. Not all trans women reach this phase, and even for those who do, there is always the possibility of regressing into the second phase if one’s trans status is discovered. Passing is accomplished when a trans woman is consistently read as a (cis) woman by other people. Typically, this requires extensive voice training, access to medical care, access to the time and money required to style herself, and often, a good deal of genetic luck. All of this can be complicated if the woman is racialized — women of color are significantly more likely to be read as “others” or “monsters” in a white supremacist society. Furthermore, in order to pass, the trans woman must often adopt a specific presentation of womanhood, irrespective of her desires — meek, beautiful, submissive. Trans women who fail to perform this hyper-feminized caricature are often accused of being misogynists; those who do perform it are often accused of being misogynists. There is no winning.

Most trans women will spend the majority of their post-transition lives hovering on the borders of phases two and three. It is difficult to pass all of the time, and to do so also requires a denial of one’s trans past. For a trans woman to live totally stealth — that is, to be perceived as an (implicitly cis) woman 24/7 — she must engage in a different form of self-denial where she denies the circumstances of her birth, upbringing, and medical history. In the 20th century, this was expected of trans women. However, many trans women nowadays are open about their trans past, following a “posttranssexual” model established by Sandy Stone in the 1980s.^xviii Neither option is especially beneficial — full stealth requires constant dishonesty, while being open about one’s trans status allows a trans woman to be marked as monstrous. Many trans women engage in a mixture of the two approaches, being openly trans when safe and possible, and passing comfortably when their trans status is not relevant or when jeopardize their well-being. Ability to pass makes trans women significantly safer and less subject to harassment and violence.

A full ability to pass typically requires genital surgery. This is not necessarily needed — in the vast majority of settings, genitals are concealed beneath clothing, and various techniques are available to conceal the trans woman’s penis under her pants or underwear. However, many trans women pursue genital surgery for the sake of alleviating their own dysphoria, with the added benefit of being able to pass in settings that require nudity, such as sexual intercourse or locker rooms. These surgeries do carry significant risk, but typically, those who receive them are very satisfied with the result. Negative press that these surgeries receive is primarily the result of transhobic fearmongering. Other than genital surgery, many trans women choose to pursue other surgeries, such as facial feminization or breast enhancements. Often, it is these surgeries that are much more closely related to passing than genital surgery. All of these surgeries are very expensive — making them inaccessible — and all carry the general societal stigma associated with plastic surgery.

Upon resting in Phase 3, a trans woman firmly occupies a similar social role to that of cis women. What, then, of the woman who passes, who achieves all that she is meant to achieve, who, after an intense regimen of surgery, hormones, and training, is able to be consistently read as a woman? What of the trans woman who finally gets to stop being a monster and start being a woman?

She has the privilege of assuming what is woman’s lot under patriarchy: be fucked, reproduce. When she is found unable to fulfill the second dictum, it is replaced with one much more brutal:

Die.

Trans men under patriarchy^xix

“Maybe trans men are in a fairly unique position: The only group of men who spend some part of their lives being mistaken for cis women, and who are violently pressured to identify as cis women. That doesn’t make us women. That makes us trans. The challenge is not to come up with some next-level theory that explains away the discrepancy, it’s to come to terms with what we already know.”

— Jude Doyle^xx

In a patriarchal society, men are granted much greater humanity and autonomy than women — but there is still a hierarchy. Male bonding rituals and social habits often center around punishing the man who is the “weakest”, whether he is effeminate, gay, Black, poor, disabled — or trans. Trans men, permanently associated with the worst thing a man can be — female — and often lacking a penis (unless they have access to expensive surgery) will have a difficult time being the men that a patriarchal society wants them to be.

In a patriarchal world, man is synonymous with human. Mankind, all men are created equal, where no man has gone before — person means man, and women don’t count. Although this has begun to change, the yoke of thousands of years of oppression — clung to desperately by men and women alike — is difficult to buck.

I examined the erasure and subsequent invisibility of trans men was examined at length in Chapter 7 of Feminism’s Monster. This has primarily taken the form of passive erasure (silence), in addition to some active erasure (misinformation). There are far, far fewer negative stereotypes about trans men than women.

Trans men, no less so than trans women, have a rocky relationship with feminism. Whereas trans women have been slandered as “invaders”, trans men have been treated instead as “defectors”. It is (mistakenly) assumed that trans men transition solely in order to access male privilege, and thus, betray their sisters in the fight for feminist liberation. To the transphobic feminist, “trans-sexually operated men could potentially have been women-identified women, and are thus lost to feminism.”^xxi When feminists do attempt to appeal to trans men, it is sometimes done with nefarious intentions. Detransitioned women (i.e., women who lived as trans men for some period of time) like Max Robinson^xxii and Ky Schevers^xxiii have used feminist rhetoric to persuade trans men to detransition (Schevers has since dramatically changed her tune).

Even trans-inclusive feminists often have a difficult time making sense of trans men. Trans men are men, yes, but they are men who have, can, and do experience misogynistic oppression. Cissexual men — especially effeminate and gay men — can also experience misogyny, but rarely so intensely or for such a long period of time as do trans men. Trans men, among men, have the unique experience of being perceived as women for significant portions of their lives. Furthermore, because trans men are often seen as “gender non-conforming women”, they are typically punished even more harshly than women who stay within the lines. Trans men experience devastatingly high rates of sexual abuse.

Additionally, trans men are born with female bodies (I borrow this particular wording from Green; some trans men may dislike it), typically with vulvas and uteri. I say typically because these matters are complicated by the existence of intersex people. Thus, they can be subject to gynecological and reproductive injustice in the same way as cis women. Furthermore, their presentation as trans can add additional layers of discrimination — someone who is perceived as being a man can often experience difficulty, or be treated very poorly, when receiving “women’s” healthcare. This is — despite the vocal and myopic opposition of anti-trans activists — why gender-neutral language and treatment is essential in gynecological and reproductive health care.

It is worth being cautious, however, in discussing the misogyny experienced by trans men. Often, discussions of this misogyny inadvertently reinforce bioessentialist notions of sex. If this misogyny is framed as a result of trans men being “AFAB” or “female”, it is based on the implicit presumption that trans women are unable to be subject to misogyny. Discussions of “the oppression faced by AFAB people” directly reproduce the theory of sex-based oppression (an inaccurate theory of misogyny perpetuated by TERFs) and participate in the active erasure of trans women, as discussed in the previous section. It is not only cissexuals that render trans women illegible — often, it is trans men.

Furthermore, the oppression that trans men face is sometimes misinterpreted, understood as a result of systemic bias against masculinity — as seen in the theory of transandrophobia, which I debunk in Chapter 7 of my book. Although it is true that masculinity can be punished in people perceived as being female, this is a simple case of oppositional sexism, not a bias against masculinity. Trans men who are particularly masculine — that is, who pass as men and perform hegemonically-approved manhood — tend to be treated better than trans men who are effeminate. Any attempt to pretend that misandry as an extant societal force must be understood for what it is: the height of masculine solipsism.

Beyond being feminist subjects, trans men often have a difficult and complicated experience as feminists. Many trans men are straightforward misogynists, and are opposed to feminism on these grounds.^xxiv It is surprising to many people that significant numbers of trans men are misogynists — their time spent “living as women” is presumed to raise feminist consciousness — but it should not be. Trans men have the same incentives as any other men to be misogynists. Manhood is hierarchical, and the way to rise in the hierarchy is to prove one’s manhood — and the way to prove one’s manhood is to dominate women. Men, including trans men, are socially incentivized to be misogynistic. It takes active effort to combat this. Conversely — equally incorrect, and perhaps more harmful — it is sometimes assumed that all trans men are misogynistic, on the mistaken assumption that trans men are “self-hating women”. Not only is this highly incorrect, it is also ignorant of the way that gender transition often makes trans men painfully aware of the reality of misogyny. Presentation as a woman, a “deviant woman”, and a man, all lead to significantly different results, and many trans men are vividly aware of this. Furthermore, many trans men participate in feminist spaces or movements prior to their transition — this was especially true in the 20th century, when Second Wave feminism created a (relatively) safe space for lesbians and gender nonconforming women. Many of these trans men continue to actively participate as feminists, often with new insights based on their post-transition lives. Aaron Devor, in his study FTM, concluded that trans men were “generally sympathetic to the goals of feminism” — much more so than most men. But it is equally apparent from Devor’s report that many trans men, as men, believed some form of antifeminist rhetoric.^xxv

Trans men thus have a particularly complex relationship to feminism, not directly comparable to any other group. Trans men, as men, often hold antifeminist beliefs; simultaneously trans men, as men who experience significant amounts of misogynistic oppression, confound typical feminist categories of “victim” and “oppressor”. More work must be done to understand trans men through a feminist framework, and all trans men should be earnest feminists, passionate about both the liberation of women and an end to hierarchies of dominance.

Race matters. The experience of racism — or whiteness — structures the way in which trans men experience discrimination, violence, and oppression. Trans men of color — especially Native American trans men — face incredibly high rates of sexual violence, and are vulnerable populations for abuse.

In a white supremacist society like the United States, white trans men are treated as lost white women — that is, lost breeding vessels. Irreversible Damage — whose cover depicts a young white girl with her womb and midsection excised — is the rallying cry of a reactionary natalist panic concerned with the preservation of the white race. It is no accident that anti-trans fearmongering about trans men fits so well alongside openly neo-Nazi rhetoric about the elimination of white breeding vessels. Nationalism must be heavily invested in preventing the reproduction of “undesirables” (people of color, disabled people, etc.) and encouraging the reproduction of “desirables” (able-bodied white people). The attack on trans men’s rights is — next to restrictions on abortion — one piece of the attempts to regulate the reproductive capacity of women — or people perceived as women — in an attempt to reduce all females to wombs. Be fucked, reproduce — by transitioning, living as men, and sometimes sterilizing themselves, trans men buck the mandate placed on all people perceived female, and are punished harshly for it.

Trans men of color do not have the privilege of being victims. The white nationalist state has no need for non-white babies. Thus, trans men of color are reduced to monsters, and are violently punished by the patriarchal state. Trans men of color are more likely to be perceived as monstrous, dangerous, or violent — and these false, racist perceptions can kill. Trans men of color who “pass” as male can be subject to the negative stigma associated with Black men, Latino men, or other men of color.

In regards to white trans men’s relationship to racism and antiracism, the same dynamics as described for white trans women apply. Some white trans men are antiracist; far too many are not. Particularly insidious is the way that certain white trans men invoke the existence of racialized trans men in order to win arguments with trans women — instrumentalizing those racialized trans men and raising the experiences of racialized trans women.

As with trans women, trans men’s lives (or more specifically, transitions) can be divided into three phases. Because of the differences between men and women, these phases manifest differently than for trans women.

The first phase is self-denial. The trans man is assigned female at birth: the doctor gleefully declares that “it’s” a girl. The trans man is told that he is a girl, that he is female — as he matures, he will be told that he is a woman. Some trans men have a clear sense of male identity from a young age. They may assert their identities as boys, socialize with other boys, and be readily accepted. Often, this becomes much more difficult with the onset of puberty, which marks the young boy as distinctly “female” and can induce severe dysphoria. Not all trans men have such a clear sense of their identity. For some, the discomfort may be quiet or difficult to understand, and may not become clearly legible until later in their lives.

As long as trans men are treated as women and occupy the social position of women, their lot is not good — no woman’s is. Trans men must deal with misogyny just as any woman does, which can be intensified if the trans man presents in an explicitly masculine way. Some trans men are granted leeway to live as “masculine girls” — “the grudging admiration felt for the tomboy” is a direct symptom of a patriarchal society’s general unwillingness to condemn masculinity.^xxvi However, trans men’s behavior is often tightly regulated. Especially as adolescence and puberty progress, the trans man is often required to present feminine, to make himself into a proper “lady”.

Shame can keep the trans man trapped in self-denial for far too long. He is told that women must be feminine, that he must be feminine, that he must prepare himself to be a man’s wife someday. If he spends time in feminist spaces, he may be told that women who transition to men are traitors, that all men are pigs, that men can’t be feminists. Some trans men never escape this first phase. There are historical figures, such as Louisa May Alcott and Radclyffe Hall, who, based on their writings, have been posited to be trans men. However, it is unknown how many trans men live and die in a permanent state of self-denial.

Of course, being female is not a privilege in a male supremacist world — but being cissexual is. So long as trans men are able to be perceived as cissexual, they may be able to access incredibly limited forms of cissexual privilege. This manifests in largely the same way as trans women’s (very limited) access to male privilege, and thus does not need to be explained at length.

The second phase is deviance. The trans man progresses to this stage when he articulates an identity as a man, or begins to present masculine. In doing so, he is marked as a “deviant woman” which, in a woman-heating society, is the worst thing a person can be. Punishment of the deviant usually focuses on “correction”. (Punishment of the monster, the trans women, usually focuses on elimination.) The assault and rape of the trans man are violence tools intended to “correct” him, to return him to the subjugated position of woman. These violent acts are both deeply misogynistic and deeply transphobic — the two cannot be separated.

However, the line between correction and elimination is not absolute; the two forms of punishment overlap. Trans men are certainly at risk of being targeted for elimination on account of their trans status, such as Brandon Teena, murdered in 1993. Trans men of color, in particular, are likely to be rendered disposable — the same way that any man of color is treated as disposable by a white supremacist state, and amplified by their trans status. Trans men of color are more likely to be subject to police, prison, and state violence. Correction is brutal, elimination is worse, and the first can quickly become the second.

Not all trans men reach the second phase. Those who do may return to the first phase, temporarily or permanently. They may do so out of shame, or they may be violently forced to return to the first phase by a patriarchal world.

In order to live as a man, and to alleviate his gender dysphoria, the trans man will typically pursue medical transition, including hormones and surgery. This can be difficult to access, both because of the specifically anti-trans nature of the medical establishment, and the broader problems with the inaccessibility of healthcare. Trans men who are homeless, working-class, or undocumented immigrants, may have specific difficulties accessing health care. Throughout the 20th century, when transition care required intense diagnosis, transition care was exceptionally difficult to receive. Nowadays, transition care is often provided through an informed consent model, which makes care easier — but not necessarily easy — to access.

The third phase is passing. The trans man achieves this stage when he begins to be perceived by the world as a man. Not all trans men reach this stage, and those who do, do not reach it permanently — they always risk violence and discrimination if they are outed as transsexual. Most trans men spend their post-transition lives hovering between Phases 2 and 3. It is typically easier for trans men to pass then trans women,^xxvii but that does not mean that it is easy. Most trans men require hormones or surgery to pass — in particular, trans men with large breasts will likely require top surgery (i.e. mastectomy) to pass as male. The majority of trans men do not receive genital reconstruction surgery, largely due to its expense and the limitations of the results it provides — meaning that the vast majority of trans men are visibly transsexual when unclothed. Thus, passing is never a sure thing.

When the trans man begins to pass, he will be awarded some level of male privilege. He will generally be treated better by strangers, and is less likely to be sexually harassed or assaulted. This is, of course, not an absolute. Many passing trans men are read as young or effeminate, and are thus subject to homophobic violence.^xxviii Many passing trans men are assaulted by partners who know their trans status. Especially for trans men of color, passing as male can bring an increased sense of being perceived as “dangerous”.

To a patriarchal world, the measure of a man is in his pants. This, of course, presents a problem to trans men. As long as a trans man has a vulva, he is at risk of being raped or assaulted if it is discovered. Furthermore, his access to gynecological care will likely be hindered by his presentation as male — the medical system is largely unprepared to handle a man with a vulva and a uterus.

Some decades ago, trans men were expected to receive hysterectomies as part of their transition. Nowadays, this is not expected or required, though many trans men still choose to receive hysterectomies. Receiving such a procedure may not be easy in a world very eager to force (white) women (or people perceived as women) to maintain their reproductive capacity. Trans men who have a uterus may experience unwanted pregnancies. An unwanted pregnancy is a difficult situation for anyone, but especially for a trans man. Along with the typical difficulties may come intense gender dysphoria, increased harassment as his pregnancy makes him visibly transsexual, and discrimination from the medical establishment. It is also worth noting that many trans men choose to become pregnant and give birth. These men — and the men who become pregnant against their will — need comprehensive, compassionate, and accessible medical care, including the right to pursue abortions. Assaults on the reproductive rights of women are also assaults on the reproductive rights of trans men.

It is certainly not easy for trans women to access genital reconstruction surgery, but for trans men, it is typically even more difficult. Genital surgeries for trans men tend to be much more expensive, and phalloplasties generally require two or three stages, spanning months or years. Sometimes, these surgeries produce results that are not visibly identical to a natal penis — although the surgeries have improved in recent years. Metoidioplasty, a surgery in which the clitoris is re-constructed into a penis, is another option. Thus, the trans man may never be able to receive the penis that he wants, or the penis that society expects men to have. For some trans men, this causes significant anguish; others make do as men without penises. A lack of a penis can particularly cause difficulties in public restrooms and in situations in which nudity is required (sex, locker rooms, etc.).^xxix Many trans men use devices known as packers to simulate the appearance of a penis underneath clothes. These devices, of course, do not work in situations involving nudity. However, many trans men do use artificial penises (sometimes known as dildoes or strap-ons) for sexual intercourse.

A full commitment to passing often requires a different form of self-denial than that of the first stage. Throughout the 20th century, it was expected that trans men would, post-transition, be “stealth”, that they would live as men and keep their transsexuals status secret. In recent years, this has changed significantly — many more trans men are openly transsexual. Many trans men who have the ability to pass as men choose to be openly transsexual in some situations, in coordination with their comfort and safety. Being openly transsexual always makes a man subject to harassment, violence, and discrimination. Furthermore, even those men who pass as male in all day-to-day interactions cannot usually pass as a man 100% of the time. There will always be some situations in which transsexual status must be disclosed.

When the trans man begins to live as a man, he enters into that ritual competition that is the patriarchal lot of all men. Manhood is hierarchical: in order to “be a man”, the man must prove it. He must be strong, stoic, independent. He must dominate women, he must lead those lesser than him (women, children). This is a harsh role, and it is not one that all trans men want to play. Trans men who are especially conscious about feminism, or who are naturally shy or effeminate, may feel particularly apprehensive about the things that patriarchy demands of men. However, it must be said that for all the challenges of being a man, men are awarded a much greater range of acceptable presentations and emotions than women, and being a man is, in general, more advantageous than being a woman.

Trans men’s issues are numerous and complex, and they manifest in ways unexpected and often surprising to a cissexual world. The intersection and conflict between presentation as male and perception as female leads to a harsh and complicated intersection of transphobia and misogyny. Although a wide variety of terms have been proposed to describe patterns of violence against trans men, perhaps the best term is transemasculation: violence against a trans man is meant to strip him of manhood and make him a woman.^xxx

If a trans man is able to live successfully as a man, if hormones, surgery and good luck allow him to pass, if he is able to navigate the world as male, if he is able to avoid the violence and rape and murder that lie in wait to tear down all trans men, he may be granted that which is afforded to most men and few women in a patriarchal system: manhood.

That is, humanity.

Non-binary people under patriarchy

Non-binary people really are non-binary. Unfortunately for them, a patriarchal world must be strictly binary, must maintain a clear divide between man and woman, oppressor and oppressed, human and fuckdoll. Although non-binary people’s gender identity is legitimate, there is no “non-binary” gender class. The process of gender assignment is something in which everyone participates, involuntarily. In this very real sense, an entire world collaborates to deny non-binary people legibility.^xxxi

The term non-binary encompasses a wide variety of gender identities and modes of embodiment. Thus, non-binary people cannot be collectively analyzed in such a clear-cut way as trans women and trans men can.

Some non-binary people, broadly referred to as trans-feminine, have similar experiences to trans women. They are assigned male at birth, but undergo a process of social and/or medical transition to embody a feminine or female-aligned gender identity. Even if these people do not identify as women, they go through similar phases of transition to trans women. One famous example of such a person is Kate Bornstein, who transitioned from male to female, then decided that her gender identity existed beyond the categories of man and woman.

Some non-binary people, broadly referred to as trans-masculine, have similar experiences to trans men. They are assigned female at birth, but undergo a process of social and/or medical transition to embody a masculine or male-aligned gender identity. Even if these people do not identify as men, they go through similar phases of transition to trans men. One famous example such a person is Leslie Feinberg, who transitioned from female to male, then stop the process of medical transition, and lived the rest of hir life without adopting a specific gender identity.

Other non-binary people may have a wide variety of different experiences. They may embrace a firmly androgynous identity, or may embrace a style of presentation aligning with their assigned gender at birth. They may or may not medically transition, or may only pursue medical transition for a limited period of time. Additionally, many people who may not specifically identify with the term non-binary have gender identities outside of the male/female binary. These may include people who identify with the terms agender, genderfluid, genderqueer, Two-Spirit, or a variety of other terms.

Who are you?

Transgender women are women; transgender men are men. Understanding this is crucial to understanding how society treats them. Transgender women face typical misogynistic objectification and sexualization, and they must be understood as women in order to properly analyze this oppression. Transgender men may perhaps be a more complicated case, given that they face a level of misogyny not typically experienced by cis men — but even still, the fact that transgender men are generally taken more seriously than women is a testament to the fact that a patriarchal society does really treat trans women and men as women and men, respectively.

Some prefer to understand the oppression faced by these respective groups in the context of their birth sex. When transgender women are smeared as predators, this happens in context of their perceived maleness — but on the other hand, cisgender lesbian women have often been the targets of similar fearmongering, such as the Second Wave’s lavender scare. Transgender women are queer women. Transgender men’s struggles with sexual violence and misogyny are often contextualized against their birth sex — they are often perceived as female — but they can also be understood in relation to the sexual violence and stigmatization that cis gay men, especially “effeminate” men, face. Homophobic violence often has much more to do with deviant gender presentation (punishing effeminate men) than a literal punishment of homosexual behavior.^xxxii Transgender men are queer men.

Although transsexual women and men are, in fact, women and men, they do not have the exact same experiences as other (i.e. cissexual) women and men. That transsexual people have unique experiences should not preclude them from being understood as members of the sex as which they live, nor from receiving appropriate assistance and support in the problems that they face. Kimberlé Crenshaw, building on the work of Catharine MacKinnon, writes:

Why should women’s difference make a difference in what she is able to wrangle out of antidiscrimination law? ... Why must Black women be like white women or Black men to win the protection that Black men or white women received under antidiscrimination law?^xxxiii

Crenshaw’s arguments can be extended to transsexual women and men. Regardless of the distinct experiences that transsexual women and men have, both are groups that are obviously subject to significant amounts of gender-based harassment, discrimination, and violence. These differences should not preclude understandings of transsexual women and men that respect them as members of their lived sexes, nor should it prevent trans women and men from being beneficiaries of feminist activism and outreach.

The experiences of transgender women and transgender men are complex. Not all trans women share a common experience, nor do all trans men. There are some parallels between the experiences of trans women and trans men, but some differences. Understanding the experiences of both trans women and trans men through a feminist lens can clarify the ways in which male dominance is manifested and enforced. An end to male dominance is necessary for the liberation of all transgender people.

Want more? Buy a copy of Feminism Needs Trans Women.

i Beyond my own experiences and my interviews with trans women, this section draws heavily on the work of Julia Serano and Talia Bhatt.

ii Talia Bhatt, Brown/Trans/Les (Self-published, 2026), 52.

iii Andrea Dworkin, Right-Wing Women, First Picador paperback edition (Picador, 2025), 46.

iv Although some trans women may be able to fulfill the biologically male role in sexual reproduction, no trans woman is able to become pregnant. Thus, I referred to trans women as barren.

v This is made most explicit in Robin Morgan’s infamous speech.

vi Zain Murdock, How ‘V-Coding’ Demonstrates The Violence Of Rape And Prison Culture, February 29, 2024, www.pushblack.us/news/how-v-coding-demonstrates-violence-rape-and-prison-culture.

vii Elías Cosenza Krell, “Is Transmisogyny Killing Trans Women of Color?,” TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly 4, no. 2 (2017): 237, https://doi.org/10.1215/23289252-3815033.

viii Jude Doyle, DILF: Did I Leave Feminism? (Melville House, 2025), xvi.

ix Viviane K. Namaste, Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgendered People (University of Chicago Press, 2000), 177–178.

x Doyle, DILF, 55.

xi Janice G. Raymond, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male (1979; Teachers College Press, 1994), 103; Julia Serano, “Why Are AMAB Trans People Denied the Closet?,” Medium, February 28, 2022, https://archive.is/j8vIY.

xii Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & so Much More, First Atria paperback edition (Atria paperback, 2014), 45–50.

xiii Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, 288.

xiv Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us (1994; Revised and updated edition, Vintage Books, 2016), 140–143.

xv Emi Koyama, “The Transfeminist Manifesto,” Eminism, June 26, 2001, 3–4, https://eminism.org/readings/pdf-rdg/tfmanifesto.pdf.

xvi Julia Serano, Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007; 2nd ed., Seal Press, 2016), 307–313.

xvii My testimonials confirm this: a friend assured me recently that she thought I was “super gay growing up”.

xviii Sandy Stone, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto,” in The Transgender Studies Reader (1987, 2006), 232.

xix Beyond my interviews with trans men, this section draws heavily on the work of Aaron Devor, Jamison Green and Jude Doyle.

xx Jude Ellison S. Doyle, “Trans Masc Misogyny and the Red Six of Spades,” Medium, November 6, 2023, https://judedoyle.medium.com/trans-masc-misogyny-and-the-red-six-of-spades-f8c167387dc3.

xxi Carol Riddell, “Divided Sisterhood: A Critical Review of Janice Raymond’s The Transsexual Empire,” in The Transgender Studies Reader (Routledge, 2006), 146.

xxii Max Robinson, Detransition: Beyond before and After (Spinifex Press, 2021).

xxiii Doyle, DILF, 140.

xxiv Aaron H. Devor, FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (Indiana University Press, 2016), 541, 546.

xxv Devor, FTM, 547–550.

xxvi Radicalesbians, “The Woman-Identified Woman,” in The Portable Feminist Reader (Penguin Books, 2025), 267.

xxvii Namaste, Invisible Lives, 145.

xxviii Namaste, Invisible Lives, 146.

xxix The information about this paragraph is primarily based on Aaron Devor’s study, which admittedly was conducted 20 years ago. Surely there is more recent research available somewhere, but I am not sure where. See Devor, FTM.

xxx Talia Bhatt, Trans/Rad/Fem (Self-published, 2025), 76.

xxxi See Susan Stryker, “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix: Performing Transgender Rage,” in The Transgender Studies Reader (1994; Routledge, 2006).

xxxii Namaste, Invisible Lives, 135–136.

xxxiii Kimberle Crenshaw, “Close Encounters of Three Kinds: On Teaching Dominance Feminism and Intersectionality Feminism and Intersectionality,” Tulsa Law Review 46, no. 1 (2010): 166, https://digitalcommons.law.utulsa.edu/tlr/vol46/iss1/13.