It saddens me that a fair amount of people who insist transandrophobia is real think that when feminists denounce transandrophobia, we are saying that trans men never experience oppression ever. Of course you do; you experience bigotry on the level of being trans, and you experience misogyny when people deny your gender identity and use the patriarchy to harm you. You do not, however, experience transmisogyny on the level that trans women do, which is the intersection of bigotry against trans people and bigotry against women. It’s not just “transphobia but for girls”, it’s a conversation around how both transphobia and misogyny are heightened when aimed towards trans women. The key fact is that trans women occupy BOTH spheres. While trans men sometimes unfortunately face misogyny, they do not face transmisogyny.
The reason people push so hard against the concept of transandrophobia is because it fundamentally requires one to believe in misandry. For it to exist as a separate concept from regular transphobia, analogous to transmisogyny, you would have to experience oppression both on the axis of being transgender and being a man. You do not experience oppression BECAUSE you are a man. You may face transphobia and misogyny from people who deny that you are a man, and you still deserve to talk about these experiences! But when you insist that transandrophobia is the correct word to describe this oppression, because you think that trans men need their “own” word for their oppression (the word transphobia already exists. hello), you are cheapening the conversation around transmisogyny. We don’t need “transphobia but for boys” and if you think we do, you need to do some serious reading into transfeminism.
I want to add that there is no deconstructing the concept in a way that doesn't end up validating the concept of misandry. Partly because that requires such theoretical/mental workarounds to sound plausible that they will inevitably be lost to most people.
When any of this is brought outside spaces that have even less of an understanding of feminism, far too many people end up nodding along with the term transmisandry/transandrophobia because they reason "ah, yeah so that's the combination of transphobia and misandry, I see."
This isn't a hypothetical, I have literally seen this happen in places where a large portion of the men (cis and trans, for clarity's sake) will then throw a fit claiming that misandry is a thing. I think many people who are trying to validate transandrophobia really underestimate how readily people on average will accept (or already believe in) the idea that misandry is a thing.
I think it would be valuable how Men's Studies (a sub-field of gender studies*; compare with the outdated term "Women's Studies") manages to analyse and study men and manhood and effects of sexism without undermining feminism and diluting the concept of misogyny.
a large portion of the men will then throw a fit claiming that misandry is a thing
yeah absolutely. reminds me of the response from the moderators of r/traa2 when cholerascum was banned for addressing the shitty 'not all men' behaviours of men.
it is a pretty vile and hateful transmisogynist thread. but it once again shows that even in progressive spaces there are still men willing to argue that misandry exists. iirc this moderator was arguing based on "it is incredibly pervasive, but is not systemic", which seems to be an almost unaminous belief there. further blurring the term, and enabling men to once again argue that misandry exist, just with an asterisk attached.
you (not prev) cannot cede any ground to this terminology or it will immediately enable some of the worst men to come and argue how they are 'oppressed for being men'. if you want to describe a hatred of men, just say a hatred of men. if you use any variant of misandry or androphobia, you will immediately find yourself surrounded by misogynists, if you aren't already.
