I started reading The Logic of Misogyny by Kate Manne in March. Early in the book, she mentioned she wouldn’t be covering transmisogyny as she felt it would best be left to others. That, in turn, got me thinking more seriously about the underlying logic of transmisogyny; it had been in the back of my mind for a while, and Manne’s comments brought it to the fore. I decided that when I finished the book, which I did in mid-July, I’d collect my thoughts on the matter and write about it. This is that piece.

I think it should be obvious, but I’m issuing this explicit warning regardless: This article will contain transphobic, homophobic and sexist content. It also discusses colonialism, racism, classism, and ableism. A notable absence is nonbinary people, as in the logic of a transmisogynist, we do not exist.

Every time I say a transmisogynist “believes” something, I don’t think it’s true in all cases. I think there will be some cases where the transmisogynist does not believe what they say. In others, they won’t know nor care. However, for transmisogynists who lie or are indifferent to the truth, they still recognise that the propagation of the lie keeps them in power, so they deliberately do so anyway, the consequences to trans people be damned. 

I want to explicitly state that nothing in this article excuses transmisogyny, transphobia, homophobia, sexism, or any other form of bigotry. An explanation is not an excuse, but it is useful to understand where your enemies are coming from in order to combat them. I myself am pansexual and genderfluid, though relatively privileged in the way I can choose to pass as my assigned gender. Most of my friends are gay and/or trans, so I am intimately familiar with the way this bullshit hurts people. I will never excuse bigotry.

Terminology

For those who do not know what transmisogyny is, here is Jules Gill-Peterson’s definition as it appears in her book, A Short History of Trans Misogyny:

“Transmisogyny refers to the targeted devaluation of transfemininity and people perceived to be transfeminine, regardless of how they understand themselves.”

Importantly, one does not need to actually be a transwoman to be subject to transmisogyny. If someone incorrectly assumes the target of their bile is a transwoman or transfeminine, and targets them because of this, that is still transmisogyny in action.

AFAB and AMAB are acronyms that frequently come up when discussing gender non-conforming people. These stand for “assigned female at birth” and “assigned male at birth” respectively, and reflect the way medical professionals put people in a box at birth. That box may turn out to be the wrong shape as a person grows.

A trans exclusionary radical feminist, or TERF, is a self-proclaimed feminist who refuses to acknowledge the validity of trans and nonbinary identities. They function to legitimise the erasure of trans and nonbinary people, who they believe are a danger to cis women. They often sidle up to fascists and reinforce the gender binary.

Trans panic refers to a legal defence in which someone can get away with murder if the person they murdered was trans, the murderer claims they were unaware they were trans, and were about to have sex with the transwoman in question. It is closely linked to the gay panic defence, which allows men to get away with murdering a gay man who was flirting with them. It represents a fusion of state and interpersonal violence; rather than police enforcing colonial gender norms (as we’ll see in the next section), it is ordinary men doing the killing.

Ahead of the broader discussion, transmisogyny needs to be placed within its original context of empire and imperialism. 

Once again, imperialists ruin fucking everything

There used to be many different ways of being trans or non-binary around the world. As Western imperialism took hold, those other ways of being were flattened and violently stamped out.

In A Short History of Trans Misogyny (which informs much of this section), historian Jules Gill-Peterson traces transmisogyny’s origins to 19th century British-ruled India. Around the same time, and likely independently of each other, American colonisers were taking Two-Spirit people from their families and culture and forcing them to live according to strict colonial gender roles. Prior to this, transmisogyny does not appear in the historical record. 

This means transmisogyny, as a system, is only two centuries old. 

As such, transmisogyny should not be seen as inevitable. Transmisogyny is not normal nor natural. It is recent, it is Western, and it was violently foisted onto the rest of the world by the same colonial forces that separated people from land.

Everywhere they went, colonists violently repressed the people whose lands they stole via any means necessary. This included imposing a gender binary wherever they came across gender non-conforming people, enforced by the police of the new governments they fabricated. They sexualised practices that were not inherently sexual, made up evidence whenever they found nothing, and invoked their god as justification. They would bury evidence from colonial pioneers that noted gender non-conforming practices in people across the world, so they could claim it was unnatural.

Colonial governments turned these tactics on their own people, particularly to enforce racial and class hierarchies. Just like in the colonies outside the West, police at home were the enforcers of state violence against trans people, gay people, poor people, people of colour, disabled people, and anyone else who did not fit their ideal. Never forget that Stonewall was a riot, and it was a Black street queen, Marsha P. Johnson, who threw the first brick.

Even our current idea of sexuality and gender is new. Gender and sexuality became differentiated as a result of NGOs in the 1990s. This means that applying modern labels on the gender non-conforming people of the past is fraught at best. The woman who threw the first brick at Stonewall is a great example. Street queens were not necessarily trans as we know trans people today, which is why I did not describe Johnson as such. They did not have much concern as to whether they were gay or trans as gender affirmation care was unattainable for them regardless. Both homosexuality and crossdressing were illegal, so they would be treated by the police in the same way regardless of their sexuality or gender identity. 

Some modern labels might apply to some people in some circumstances, but I’d hesitate to place them on people who can no longer speak for themselves. You can always, however, take heart when you read about the experiences of people from the past and see your own reflection. I’ve felt this strongly with Leslie Feinberg, though I don’t think zie would have described zirself as genderfluid.

In short, transmisogyny, as a concept, was invented by colonial forces as another dimension they could use to control people in the lands they stole. It was later co-opted by white supremacist and patriarchal governments to enforce gender norms and crush dissent in countries they had established themselves on.

Bear all of this in mind as you read on. Remember that all the bullshit throughout the rest of this piece was made up by those in power to keep us divided and oppressed. Never forget, and be enraged.

Givers and takers

The Logic of Misogyny introduces the concept of givers and takers. Givers are those who are obligated to give love, attention, goods, services, sex and more to the takers, who have the right to claim these things whenever they want and regardless of whether the giver wants to give. As you may have guessed, women are givers, and men are takers. This is just The Way It Is, and no one can shift into the role held by the opposite gender. This extends to, in the eyes of patriarchy, women being the property of the men they belong to.

The five premises:

Gender is a binary. This is pretty straightforward. Transmisogynists believe there are only two genders: male, and female. There is nothing else; nothing outside of those two, nor in-between.

Gender and sex are always the one and the same. This premise holds that one’s gender is the same as the sex assigned at birth. Therefore, anyone claiming otherwise (such as myself) is a liar. Intersex people do not exist in their mind, and are ignored every time they are discussed; everyone mentioning them is making them up to undermine the patriarchal order. When their existence cannot be denied, they must be “corrected” in a violent fashion. 

Gender and sex are immutable. Neither gender nor sex can be changed under any circumstances. People like me who claim our gender changes on a regular basis, others who undergo a single change, and everyone in between, are liars. Even after surgery, hormone replacement therapy or other physical changes, nothing has changed in the eyes of the transmisogynist as this is an impossibility. Those physical changes do nothing to change the inherence of the gender medically assigned to the trans person in question.

Men and masculine traits are superior. In a patriarchal world, women are viewed as inferior to men; there is something, or multiple somethings, innate to men that makes them better than women.

Men are inherently threatening and will do anything to take advantage of women. Transmisogynists assume men are predators, and that it is in a man’s nature to exploit women. 

I would like to note I had originally written in the previous paragraph that “other” men believe men are predators, but (trans)misogynist women hold this view too. It’s why they cosy up to strongmen so much; they believe they need protection from bad men, and only other (good) men can provide it. Misogynist women fail to see that these men view them as just as expendable as the feminists they betray, and get shocked when they inevitably end up passed over or abandoned.

The first four premises are the lies transmisogynists tell themselves, which are reinforced in our patriarchal, white supremacist, cisgender, heterosexual, imperialist, capitalist, bullshit society. The final premise is explanatory; it provides the transmisogynist with a motive for people undertaking the alleged lie of transness.

Transwomen

Because everything masculine is superior to everything feminine, male hormones will always triumph over female hormones. Therefore, HRT for trans women will never truly work in the transmosogynist’s eyes.

Transmisogynists, believing that gender is immutable and the same as sex, cannot comprehend the needs of any trans people to express a different gender. It is, as far as they’re concerned, impossible. They assume there must be an ulterior motive to assertions of transness, and this is why there is so much discourse around transwomen being predators. This is the only way it makes sense to them; it has to be a man disguising themself to better act on their desire to take advantage of women. They also fear property damage (wives, daughters, sisters, mothers, and any other women in their care).

This is why so much is made of transwomen in bathrooms. They believe that transwomen, who they view as men (remember, gender is immutable and always matches biological sex), are looking for an opportunity to attack women whenever they head into bathrooms. This is bullshit, by the way. Trans people are more likely to experience violence themselves.

The next point, I think, is key.

Transwomen represent a huge upending of the male right to take by simply existing. They shift from the patriarchal role of taker to that of giver. This, of course, is not how trans people see it, but it is how transmisogynists will interpret them as they move through the patriarchal system. And this is dangerous to society’s hierarchies. AMAB people transitioning to women, moving from a taker to a giver, lay bare the lie that men are inherently superior takers. A trans woman has claimed to change to become someone who is not inherently violent. This is not supposed to be possible, and definitely not be desirable. Here, we find someone shifting from the dominator to the dominated. This conscious choice to shed manhood, to undermine the patriarchal assertion that men can only take and never give, makes transwomen a tremendous threat to the system that must be stopped.

Trans panic works by tapping into a premise of general misogyny; women are to be blamed for the faults of men. I link it to the giver and taker logic, too. The better a transwoman is able to pass, the more the logic of givers and takers is undermined, as she has more successfully made the shift. This also puts her in more danger, as she would be perceived by the transmisogynist as a better liar and therefore require harsher punishment. 

TERFs view transwomen as dangerous because they view them as men invading women’s spaces. As per point five, TERFs believe transwomen are seeking to harm cis women, purely because they have a penis (while besides the point, this may not even be true if the transwoman in question has undergone bottom surgery). In short, the presence of a penis is seen to be an inherent threat to cis women everywhere.

Gill-Peterson nailed it when she said that in this view, “being a woman is to always be in danger, and being a man is to always be violent”. It implies that women are helpless and incapable, and men are unable to stop themselves from harming others. It’s why the law allows for trans panic defences, as it is considered understandable for a cis man to become homicidally enraged at the sight of the trans penis. Neither of these are true, and it is infantilising to both women and men. Women can be strong, and men can be better than that. It also leaves the door open for a contradiction. Depending on whichever better suits the situation, the transmisogynist could choose to view the transwoman as her chosen gender and use her as a literal or metaphorical punching bag, or view her as her birth-assigned male gender and therefore a threat.

Transmen

Why aren’t transmen discussed anywhere near as much as transwomen?

Fundamentally, it is understandable to the transmisogynist that one would want to move from a giver to a taker, and so transmisogynists turn a blind eye so long as the transman toes the line. I expect he would still be expected to give when it came down to it, and not to take too much, especially if it came at the expense of a cis man. 

No; it is much more important for transmisogynists to go after trans women, who throw masculinity’s power into question by choosing to discard it.

There’s more to it.

In the eyes of the transmisogynist, the trans man is a woman in cosplay. Because he is viewed as a woman and not a man, he is not thought to have that inherent drive to be a predator or take advantage of anyone. He is not a threat. This, combined with the transmisogynist’s belief that men are superior to women, leads to them not caring about transmen in their spaces. They do not believe a transman would try to attack them, and even if he did, they believe they could easily overpower him anyway.

Some TERFs condescendingly view transmen as victims of patriarchy. They believe that transmen are simply women who cannot bear the oppression women face, and so embraced transness as a way to escape it. They may even believe transmen have been groomed by other transgender people and our allies. Both of these arguments serve to undermine the transman’s autonomy. They do not think his decision is actually his, but rather, that trans people with an agenda have brainwashed him.

The transman who transitions later in life has to contend with concerns many cis women face. Specifically, pre-transition, society sees him for his reproductive value. Some conservatives, medical professionals, and society as a whole express concern with the transman losing his femininity and ability to bear children once he transitions. Once he actually starts transitioning, though, he is more likely to have his pain taken seriously. Like the TERF arguments in the previous paragraph, these beliefs strip the transman of his autonomy. It is also condescending, as it assumes he does not know what is best for him. 

Contradictions

I didn’t originally plan to tackle the issue of transmen until a critique from a trans male friend about always being left out prompted me to think more deeply. I had previously commented that because there wasn’t much discourse about transmen I wasn’t sure what to say, forgetting, for some reason, that I can form my own thoughts.

It turns out the government of the United Kingdom doesn’t know what to think about transmen either.

A now-infamous ruling in the United Kingdom in April 2025 banned trans people from using single-sex spaces appropriate to them. Transmen are now forced to use women’s spaces, and transwomen are forced to use men’s spaces.

However, transmen can also be turned away from women’s spaces if their presence is causing the cis women present to be distressed:

13.5.5 For example, a trans man might be excluded from the women-only service if the service provider decides that, because he presents as a man, other service users could reasonably object to his presence, and it is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim to exclude him.

13.5.6 A legitimate aim for excluding a trans person from a separate or single-sex service for their own biological sex might be to prevent alarm or distress for other service users. Whether it is reasonable to think that the presence in that service of the trans person will cause alarm or distress will depend on all the circumstances, including the extent to which the trans person presents as the opposite sex. For this reason, a service provider (including a person providing a service in the exercise of public functions) should only consider doing this on a case-by-case basis.

This is emblematic of transmen always being an afterthought. I and some of my friends have been paying close attention to this issue, and between us, we only heard about this three months after the fact.

It also demonstrates the contradictions that all trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people are expected to operate under. If a transman is turned away from a woman’s bathroom or changing room… what the hell does he do? If a given building lacks gender neutral spaces and also refuses to let a given transman into the women’s ones, they are effectively preventing all transmen from using their buildings. If they are permitted to do this, it could lead to an effective ban on transmen using public facilities. Malicious organisations could claim that transmen are always causing women distress and ban them from using their amenities, erasing their existence from their buildings.

This isn’t just about bathrooms, either. If a building decides to ban transmen from using the women’s changerooms, they could be locked out of that sport, workplace, or anywhere else with a changeroom. In more serious cases, this could extend to homeless shelters, domestic violence refuges, and evacuation shelters. This is already a documented issue (see the links in the previous sentence), and it has just been made worse.

Transmisogynists making a big deal out of transwomen in sports is an extension of this. They are not concerned with the integrity of the sports, only with ostracising transwomen. They never advocate for anything actually useful, like more funding for women’s sports to match that of men’s, or for women to be able to earn a living from their sports. No; their only interest is using women’s sport as a way to enforce gender norms and demonise transwomen.

The purpose of a system is what it does. The UK government has, to my knowledge, made no moves to protect trans people in the light of this ruling. They could if they wanted to, and so I assume that this is the desired outcome and change will not be forthcoming unless the people draw it out of them. Until then, the UK government, as well as several other governments around the world, with their footsoldiers, will continue to try to erase trans people from existence. This has escalated since Trump was elected last year. 

These efforts will fail, as trans people have always existed and always will, but countless people will be killed, denied medical care, work, safety, or have their lives disrupted in a myriad of ways in the meantime.

To help us, donate to queer organisations, show up to protests, lobby your politicians, help your queer friends out with their gardening – whatever you can do to help a queer person somewhere, in whatever way you’re able.

I’ll end with a prayer:

Fuck the patriarchy!

To learn more about queerness, follow some other queer people and read queer writing. Some of my favourites are:

• Mona Eltahawy is my favourite feminist, and her second book, The Seven Necessary Sins of Women and Girls, is what I live by. 
• Omar Sakr is a poet who always makes me think. 
• Feminism For All is a newsletter that regularly puts out long, thoughtful essays. Subscribing supports the author’s anti-rape work.
• Talia Mae Bettcher wrote Beyond Personhood: An Essay in Trans Philosophy which I have yet to read, but sounds excellent.
• Robin Taylor and Robin Cangie just launched Small Robin Press, a new publisher looking to amplify lesser known queer voices. They’ve just released their first book as a publisher, you are enough: a small anthology. Get on it.
• The Future is Disabled is a collection of writings for people of colour about surviving while being disabled and queer. It’s a beautiful book.
• Judith Butler is always good and I’m slowly working my way through their works. Pick a book. Any book. 
• The Sapling Cage is a fictional, adventurous, coming of age sapphic trans fantasy story that I thoroughly enjoyed earlier this year. First of a trilogy. It’s so refreshing to me to have a main character who uses weapons that aren’t just a sword.
• Legends & Lattes is a cute sapphic fantasy book about an orc who settles down to open a coffee shop.

Stick your favourite queer writers, books, films, shows, games, and anything else in the comments.