Hi there, I'm a cis lesbian, been following your blog for a little while and it has been very educational for me in learning about transmisogyny, how it works, and how I might better understand what the trans women around me go through each day. It has also made me think deeply about an experience I had which I think was definitely an example of transmisogyny, and thought I might share it in case it is useful somehow (feel free to not answer if not however).
Back when I was in university, I joined a 'Feminist Self-Defence Workshop'. It comprised of several weekly sessions featuring very basic martial arts-type manoeuvres, use of improvised weapons, awareness of surroundings etc, and focussed mainly on giving women knowledge of how to protect themselves should they be attacked by a man.
During this workshop, a trans woman joined the group. She only attended maybe a couple of sessions at most before not coming back. For purposes of anonymity, I will call her Jess.
Being honest, my own interactions with Jess were pretty limited. We maybe awkwardly did a few 'breaking restraint' moves together perhaps, and an exercise in using breathing techniques to stay calm when receiving unwanted/unexpected bodily contact so as to prepare for defence better or something. But I can't say that she behaved in any way abnormally to me personally, I certainly wasn't made to feel uncomfortable.
At the end of the workshop, the tutor invited everyone still in attendance to have a celebratory dinner. During this dinner, one of the (cis) women in the group started complaining about how Jess had been 'too rough' with her, and implied that it was because she wasn't a cis girl. I was still new to a lot of LGBT+ discussion at the time, but this immediately made me feel a little uneasy; had this woman actually told Jess that she was being too rough? I got the impression that she probably hadn't. Wouldn't it be kinder and better all-round if she had just said 'ow, can you go a bit gentler, please?' rather than keeping this information to complain about to everyone else behind Jess's back at a group dinner?
The woman doing the complaining also kept misgendering Jess; I tried to correct her, but then the conversation moved on to the potential 'issues' with having trans women in the group (these 'issues' being 'what if cis women are not comfortable?' and also 'nothing wrong with being trans, but trans women are stronger because they're men, what if they hurt weaker cis women' etc), and how to re-name the workshop so that it may be inclusive of non-binary people, but not cis, straight men...and maybe not trans women either (they didn't say that last part out loud, but I felt this might be the preferred outcome).
But the real kicker of this? It wasn't just women in this group. A cis gay man joined for a brief period. Maybe because he was gay, everyone presumed that he wouldn't be a threat to women (but the trans woman was a threat regardless of sexual orientation?).
The tutor, and tutor's assistant, were also both cis men. Several times, while performing grappling or pinning techniques on the other women, I caught myself thinking 'he's getting a great view here, isn't he?' about the tutor...when he was taking photos for future demonstration purposes, I wondered briefly if those photos were slightly titillating for him to look at. I'm sure I probably wasn't the only woman there who secretly thought this. But I ultimately brushed those thoughts away at the time, because he's a nice guy who just wants to protect women, you can't think of him as a pervert just because he's a man, right? But yet, those men had more power in this scenario than the singular trans woman did, yet were given more benefit of the doubt.
This is where I realise now how the transmisogyny was more than just not seeing the trans woman as a woman. Sure, the other women did not treat Jess as a fellow woman, but they also didn't give her the same grace as they did the men, either. Despite being supposedly 'stronger' in the same way as Jess supposedly was, the men were understood to be capable of being good guys, and so they were wholly accepted into this female-oriented space, even allowed to lead it; whereas Jess was immediately a potential threat that needed to be discussed. The men were presumed to be capable of being gentle around women despite their greater power; the trans woman was perceived as being incapable, despite being presumed to have the same bodily 'strength' as the men. Everyone wanted to assume the best about the men's intentions. No-one wanted to assume the best about the trans woman's.
Looking back, I wish I had spoken up more. I was much younger then, less knowledgeable, not particularly mentally-healthy and far too terrified of being seen as rude or mean; this does not excuse the fact that I should have taken a firmer stand, but it did mean that sometimes I didn't speak up when I should have done, and this was one of those times. I wish in particular I had pointed out that it was a crying shame that trans women were not made welcome at a 'feminist' self-defence group, since women like Jess perhaps need to know how to protect themselves against the world more than anyone. I hope that now I have better confidence, knowledge and vocabulary, I can be a better support these days to the trans women in my life; and I thank you for running your blog, so that I can continue to learn.
