my fiancée recently reblogged a post that says transandrophobia is just misogyny. the op of that post claims that transandrophobia is meant to describe the intersection of transphobia and misandry, and that it was invented as something for trans men to get bitchy about.
of course this makes my anxious brain run wild 😅 i know i need to bring it up to her, but i'm not always good with words, and i'm not confident in my ability to properly convey what transandrophobia actually is.
is there a good link i can send her, or something i can read as a refresher in all things transandrophobia?
That definitely sounds like a stressful situation!
I've recently made two posts (this one which is more chill and which I would start with, and this one in which the person I'm responding to is less chill) that provide basic explanations and further reading, as well as other people to check out who have a lot of useful information on the topic.
I would approach this by focusing on:
The actual origins. This was a good faith attempt to create a space for discussion of real, widespread experiences of violence and discrimination. Even if you disagree with the term itself, the conversation has always been more important. Reference Saint's writing on the term and how he actually defines it. Note if necessary that the definition has never had anything to do trans women or transmisogyny; it is focused on trans men's experiences, not on combatting or accusing trans women of anything.
The data. In the posts above I link to a few resources for information on the material impacts of anti-transmasculinity, both in ancedotes and in large scale surveys and peer reviewed studies, including the largest study of transgender people in the US. There are some areas transmasculine people are particularly affected in; it's worth asking why that is. In particular, this HRW report I've been talking about recently makes a good case for why it is so important to talk about queerphobic anti-masculinity. I have a quote in my pinned post (that has more links) that summarizes this pretty well. It is just undeniable that masculine presenting queer people experience violence and discrimination in ways intimately connected to their masculinity. If we deny this, we make our feminism weaker.
The truth of the backlash. It's vital for people to understand that much of what they've heard about transandrophobia is just straight up misinformation—its not even about agreement or disagreement, people just lie about what is actually being discussed! Tell her about the harassment campaign against the coiner, Saint (which ironically mirrors many transmisogynistic hate campaigns due to the focus on rapejacketing him & demonizing hym for his engagement with certain kinks). I also mention in the posts linked above some trans women who have experienced transmisogynistic harassment, including being accused of lying about being women, due to their use of the term. None of this is meant to imply that people who use the term transandrophobia can't be or have never been transmisogynistic; but it is telling, to me, that the "transandrophobia doesn't exist" continues to lean further and further into cruelty and misinformation. It started with mocking and villainizing trans men. Then the discussion of transandrophobia began to also grapple with the issue of exorsexism (both in how the discussion had contributed to it and more broadly), so they started mocking and villainizing nonbinary people too. And then there was also many intersex people speaking up about intersexism and being hurt by the perisex trans community, and so they started mocking and villainizing intersex people. And then there are trans women who also use the term and have contributed to the discussion, and how it relates to transmisogyny, so naturally they must be mocked and villainized too. There's, simply put, a LOT of different voices in this conversation and it's not perfect or super organized, but it's far from what is presented.
Also, on that note, I can't tell you how many times I've been accused of being an Men's Right's Activist who hates women and doesn't believe in misogyny by one person, and then get called a TERF who believes in female separatism and wants to trans men to detransition by another person. I feel like that should in itself tell you something about what's going on here.
To summarize: talk about the actual origins and purpose of the term, the data and lived experiences that have made it resonate for so many people, and why the backlash against it has warped the conversation. You can put those in whichever order makes the most sense in your conversation.
It's not about making sure she buys into the term immediately, but showing her how we as a community have not even been able to have a real discussion on this because people refuse to actually engage with the actual content of what we are talking about.
I hope everything goes well for y'all <3 If anyone else has further advice feel free to add it on.
