You need to understand that having a bigot "mistake you for a trans woman/fem" is fundamentally not the same experience as if you had actually been a transfem (or analogous/adjacent) person in that same situation. This should be obvious, but the key difference is in the word 'mistake'.
A mistake can be corrected
A mistake can be apologized for
To further emphasize this point, the difference is that it *isn't* a mistake when that hate gets directed at a trans woman.
You also need to understand that transmisogyny is more than just isolated instances of interpersonal bigotry. It's systemic.
I was reading a post earlier that brought up Imane Khelif and how she was, the poster claimed, "at the very least, *affected* by transmisogyny"
But... that isn't accurate.
I've seen plenty of other trans women by now make the obvious point that Imane Khelif would have been treated worse and been proffered less support if she had actually been a trans woman. That's an assessment that I generally agree with, but with one crucial caveat.
Because the thing is that if Imane Khelif *were* actually a trans woman, she wouldn't have been allowed to compete in the 2024 olympics in the first place.
Roughly 5300 female athletes competed in the 2024 summer olympics and a grand total of 0 of them were trans women. *That* is transmisogyny.
Imane Khelif is an incredible athlete who has been subjected to a cruel onslaught of misogynoir and intersexism, and while both of those oppressions have certain features in common with transmisogyny, they are not the same thing.
Understanding these distinctions is important if you want to effectively stand in solidarity with trans women to combat transmisogyny (and misogynoir and intersexism).
If you don't, then you will continue to miss the ways that trans women are actually being oppressed.
