Transmisogyny
The specific hostility aimed at trans women, where transphobia and misogyny compound.
Transmisogyny is the particular hostility directed at trans women and transfeminine people, where transphobia and misogyny do not simply add up but reinforce each other. The term was coined by Julia Serano in Whipping Girl in 2007.
Its distinguishing feature is that femininity itself is treated as the offence. A trans woman is punished for being trans and punished again for having chosen, as it is framed, to move toward womanhood, which is read as a downgrade nobody would make sincerely.
It shows up in specific places: in who gets called a predator, in which bathrooms become a news story, in which trans people appear in press coverage, and in the assumption that a trans woman's presentation is a performance staged for men.
Naming it separately is not a claim that trans women have it worse than everyone. It is a claim that the mechanism is different, and that a word covering all transphobia equally misses how this particular one operates.
Transmisogyny is not a ranking
Naming a specific mechanism is regularly read as claiming a top position in a hierarchy of suffering, and the conversation stops there.
The point is descriptive. Transphobia aimed at a trans man and transphobia aimed at a trans woman do not work the same way or come from the same place, and a single word for both makes that difference invisible.
Saying it well
Say this
- That is transmisogyny, not general transphobia.
- Coined by Julia Serano in 2007.
- The mechanism punishes the femininity specifically.
- Transmisogyny and transandrophobia are different mechanisms.
Not this
- It is all just transphobia
- Trans women have it worst, full stop
- This is a way of ranking oppression
- Transmisogyny is not a real word
Questions people actually ask
What is transmisogyny?
The specific hostility aimed at trans women and transfeminine people, where transphobia and misogyny reinforce each other.
Who coined the term?
Julia Serano, in her 2007 book Whipping Girl.
How is it different from transphobia?
Transphobia is the general term. Transmisogyny names the form where femininity itself is treated as the offence.
Is there an equivalent term for trans men?
Transandrophobia, which names a different mechanism rather than a lesser or greater one.