Here is what I don't think transmisogyny is: semantics. But everybody loves acting like it is. The problem with transfeminists on tumblr, twitter, bsky is that they all think they can win the way feminism already lost: by convincing people to use the right words with the right definitions. If only people understood that transmisogyny is a type of misogyny, and not a fancy word for "problems trans women might have but I don't really believe in," then the world would be more welcoming to us. If only people understood that transmisogyny as misogyny seeks to specifically eradicate trans women and transfems, and isn't just "misogyny when you are trans," then our issues would be taken seriously. If only we could make this clear and get people to use the right words the right way, then the world would be in order.
The semantics games ignore that even if someone does think that transmisogyny is misogyny they might still believe it to be an overblown non-issue that people are simply hysteric about. Of course, if we can get them to admit this, we have won, because that's just classic misogyny! Ha!
What is really won here? A symbolic battle about the use of words on social media, and even that only if the people engaging with the discourse agree on the misogyny in the act of being dismissive online. Don't get me wrong, I don't believe in mass appeal, but I also don't believe in semantics. When some random online trans guy confidently declares that trans men and trans women have the same problem, being villainized for their connection to manhead, what will harping on the definition of transmisogyny as misogyny achieve? The correct and orthodox use of language won't change the worldview of someone who never even considered the absurdity of lecturing trans women that queer communities and the public are rejecting us on the basis of our manhead, when we know firsthand the difference between being seen as cis men and as trans women in those spaces. It's depressing. People believe the world operates based on rules, and queer people are no exception, so if we can just correct the way they formulate and talk about the rules, we will change their minds. But we won't. The point isn't the language, or even just the rules they propose govern our world, it's feeling like you are right about it all. And they do feel like they couldn't be wrong, which is why they cling to it, and which is also why people cling to semantics.
"Trans women are women" was ineffective and obviously a liberal respectibility trap, so twitter trans women have decided to move on to "trans women change their sex to become women," which is obviously just a plain fact and not at all a respectability trap that requires just as much goodwill as "trans women are women." Gone are the times when only the right kind of trans woman was afforded respect on transfeminist tumblr, that's the standpoint epistemology of yesteryear, in which everyone was right on their own terms, now only hard facts count, like how I can publicly say whatever I want about p*dophilia because I'm the only person who was ever victimized and thus have the last word on it. And bsky transfeminism has finally solved the problem of cisfeminist bioessentialism by discovering that trans women are women because we are uniquely rape-able, which constructs the gendered body in new and interesting ways that nobody has ever considered before and is not at all predicated on the penis as the rape-organ. Not that I have particularly positive feelings about penises, but like come on.
Such tactics may work in a philosophy paper, but they are just a more crass and less honest version of what they have defined themselves in opposition to. People who don't believe trans women to be women rationalizing their transphobia away don't have a language problem in response to which transfeminism has to cycle through different definitions of what a real woman is (a biological woman, an experiencer of social prejudice, of medical prejudice, of sexual violence - which are all bad anyway) to set on the one that finally proves that trans women are women, they just don't believe trans women are women. The wrong kind of trans women won't be protected from transmisogyny by pretending all speech is acceptable as long as it comes from the right person. Standpoint epistemology may or may not be a real problem, but insisting on your standpoint because you're objectively disadvantaged is not a rejection of it. It's its embrace. And finally, if you can't see the problem with the idea that being victimized makes one a woman you may be beyond help. I won't lie and say that this last rhetoric was never and is never appealing to me when everyone is hell bent on denying trans women both even the possibility of being women and victimization, but again, come on. That's just gender critical misogyny, among other misogynies.
All of it is just so fucking bleak, everyone wants to get rid of us and all trans women online can come up with is really aggressive semantics that postures as radicalism but only chases a reactionary feeling of safety. Idk I'm not gonna say that transfeminists are just like terfs, because at the end of the day there is simply a factual difference in the damage done by like these two vague groups, and for what it's worth there is more potential for solidarity in whatever it is ppl think transfeminism is, but that's also just semantics. All these rationalizations do is prepare us for the last charge down the cliff with the rest of the herd. Is it called a herd with lemmings? I'm not googling. Don't get me wrong, though, I do value even those annoying trans women on a fundamental level, I just uh hate them and wouldn't want to be in a room with them. But don't worry about it. I hate the rest of the world more. Give or take.
