One Thing at a Time

Transmisogyny, Lesbophobia, and the Uneven Geographies of Safety for Bi Trans Women

When I walk into a lesbian centered queer space, there’s something tense in the air. It’s not the sweaty palmed anxiety of a gay person finding community for the first time, it’s something much deeper. It’s not fear either, it’s more like my body is bracing in anticipation. I’m preparing myself for a level of scrutiny that I don’t usually face anywhere else.

In spaces for gay men or straight spaces (I.E. the entire rest of the world) I already know to expect transmisogyny. You know, constantly wondering if I’m being clocked, the deep long lasting stares that serve both to satisfy a transphobic curiosity and a misogynistic desire to hold power over my feminine body, and the condescension and quiet dismissal of anything I could possibly say or do, THAT transmisogyny. But in lesbian spaces there’s another layer added to the way my identity is constantly interrogated. Not only am I being asked if I’m “really” a woman, I’m also being asked if I’m the right kind of woman.

Lesbophobia, Biphobia, and Transmisogyny; Some Definitions

A lot of people think lesbophobia is just homophobia directed at women, transmisogyny just misogyny directed at trans people, and ironically that biphobia isn’t real. These people are misinformed and it would be impossible to fully understand this piece without understanding these forms of oppression, so I will try to define them here:

Biphobia is discomfort with the binary. It is a way of disciplining fluidity and enforcing a binary that usually results in complete erasure. You like this or you like that. Bi people, especially women, are written off as being confused, greedy, untrustworthy, or entitled. We’re not gay enough, we’re secretly straight, or we don’t realize that we’re actually just lesbians or gay men in denial. In every case, it’s assumed that the person observing us knows more about us than we do about ourselves. For bi women, who are -like all other women- told our whole life that men know better than us, this deeply intersects with misogyny. How could we possibly be right about holding an identity that is seemingly so contradictory? No, it has to be that we’re just confused women.

Lesbophobia is about gendered disobedience and defying a compulsively enforced heterosexuality. It is distinctly more than homophobia because it’s the intersection of homophobia AND misogyny. It doesn’t just punish women for being homosexual, it punishes women for rejecting the male gaze entirely. Patriarchy is men’s ownership of women’s lives and bodies, to be a lesbian is fundamentally to reject existing for men. Therefore lesbophobia specifically attacks a womanhood or a femininity that does not exist for men. Lesbians are called man-haters, portrayed as ugly, or thought about as aggressive and predatory because these things reassert a hierarchy. Women’s value comes from being wanted by men, and there’s nothing less valuable than a woman who doesn’t care if she’s wanted by men. It is a specifically gendered punishment for a woman (or nonbinary person) who chooses to love another woman (or nonbinary person).

Transmisogyny is a deep cultural discomfort with transfeminine people. Julia Serano, who coined the term in her book Whipping Girl (you should read it), defines it as

“the intersection of transphobia and misogyny that is directed specifically at trans women and other transfeminine people, which manifests itself as a unique form of discrimination that targets both their transness and their femininity.”

In patriarchal culture, femininity is seen as weak, it’s devalued and exists firmly under the hierarchical position of masculinity. When someone who society has already coded as male embraces transfemininity or trans womanhood, it calls into question the entire existence of hierarchical positions for masculinity and femininity. Tomboys, transmasculine people, and trans men are not punished in the way transfeminine people and trans women are because it is understandable in the eyes of the patriarchy to want to move “up” in the hierarchy. Masculinity is respected while femininity is devalued so of course trans men exist; but trans women and transfeminine people are traitors to masculinity. We’re throwing away the privilege we were handed in order to be ourselves. For this reason, the stereotypes surrounding trans women seek to explain away our transness by portraying us as only transitioning for predatory reasons like to gain access to women’s spaces, or to trick men. Transfeminine bodies are always seen as shameful, deceitful, tragic, dangerous, or laughable. Violence, which is all too common against us, is written off by claiming we were asking for it or that we tricked someone else. Serial killers or hypersexual characters coded as transfeminine, comedic gags where the entire joke is that trans women are disgusting, the systemic denial of medical care, housing, or employment (or v-coding entirely, see my video about what happens when trans women get arrested) because trans women aren’t real women are all real examples of transmisogyny that every trans woman is intimately familiar with.

Where the Intersections Intersect

To put it plainly, I’m never read as bisexual. Almost nobody is at a glance. I am usually not read as a trans woman at first either, but that changes from time to time based on one thing or another. For this reason I’m always being read through the lens of transmisogyny, never through the lens of biphobia, and sometimes through the lens of lesbophobia. When I’m in lesbian spaces or when people see my transmasculine genderfluid partner and I as a WLW couple I experience the intersection of transmisogyny and lesbophobia, something that for the rest of this essay I will call “transmisogynistic lesbophobia”. These unique forms of oppression fuse into a single lens that magnifies every part of me. Suddenly I’m disturbing multiple boundaries at once, the boundaries of gender and heterosexuality. I’m not just calling into question the existence of the patriarchy by throwing away my male privilege, I’m rejecting the male gaze entirely at the same time. My entire existence is a question mark.
Eyes linger a little bit too long, conversations shift when I join in, I’m talked about rather than with. To everyone else it’s nothing, just me being sensitive, but to me it’s everything. My inclusion is always conditional.

Too feminine, Too masculine, and Never Enough

Femininity for me has always felt revolutionary. I love nothing more than throwing my “male privilege” in the trash, lighting it on fire, and voguing around it. But when I’m viewed through the lens of transmisogynistic lesbophobia that powerful embrace of femininity is seen as a mockery. I’m performing womanhood incorrectly; regardless of whether that standard of correctness comes from cis heterosexual feminine norms or the idea that all femininity only exists for the purpose of subjugation. I have always rejected the idea that femininity is weak and embraced it. That embrace has almost always been seen as a radical act until I started being viewed through the lens of lesbophobia as well. If I’m really a woman who loves another woman, how could I want to perform femininity? Sure femmes exist but how could a trans woman have done the deconstruction of her own womanhood that allows her to arrive there? Shouldn’t I be a little bit more masc? This line of questioning is happening while at the same time I’m being scrutinized for not meeting some impossible standard of softness or stylishness. Transfeminine bodies must be hard and masculine. There’s something deeply male about us and for that reason a lesbian or bi woman could never love us.

Transmisogynistic lesbophobia turns me into a puzzle for other peoples insecurities. It sends people deep diving for a reason to hate me or exclude me. If they can’t find something on the surface they’ll make something up or find something I said 5 years ago that “proves” I’m a deceiver or infiltrator. The permanent double bind of not being woman enough when I don’t try and mocking femininity when I do is cruel and unusual, it denies me my humanness, renders me permanently unreal, and frankly is just overall exhausting.

Let’s not forget about fetishization. So often I hear from newly out trans women that lesbians “love them” and my heart breaks. The transfeminine experience is one of never being desired so existing on that euphoric cloud of others finally finding you attractive is so enticing they don’t realize they’re being fetishized. Our “biological straps” “girl dicks” “princess wands”, yes, transmisogyny exempt lesbians are obsessed with them and that’s not a good thing. When has boiling a woman down to what’s between her legs ever been a good thing? These people want trans women not as people but as a category. They want to “try” us the same way cis men do. We’re experiments for their sexuality or tokens for their collection. That isn’t affection, it’s consumption.

Partial Recognition and False Safety

In straight spaces, I can pass if I have too. I can tuck (lol) parts of myself away into neat little boxes and exist in a space where I’m granted conditional safety. I don’t mention my bisexuality, I don’t bring up my transness, I don’t hold my girlfriend’s hand (except for when it’d be viewed as straight or like we’re just friends) and I definitely don’t argue with men. I let people think I’m like them, that I’m the default. It’s invisibility, not true safety but it’s still SOMETHING. It’s a set of rules I can follow that at least usually lead to an outcome where my partner and I are safe.

In gay male spaces I’m idolized. I’m a doll and I’m put up on a pedestal with all the other dolls. I say something about tea and boots and everybody laughs and someone brings out party favors. Don’t get me wrong I love a good kiki but here parts of me are still invisible. The second I call out transmisogyny or portray myself as someone who isn’t entirely male centered, I’m ripped off that pedestal with a swiftness. I’m adored, tolerated, pedestalized, but never truly respected. At least there’s a relief in knowing the reading is always superficial.

In lesbian and queer spaces, the ones that people tell me should feel like home, I’m inescapably read through the lens of transmisogyny and lesbophobia. Often the lesbophobia is internalized, but what better target to externalize an internalized phobia than a woman who’s more marginalized then you? The exclusion that I feel is deeper, more intimate, and much more violating. There’s a particular kind of pain that comes from being hurt by other women, especially women who know what it means to be excluded from womanhood. Transmisogyny from men is predictable, from lesbians it’s a betrayal. Our potential solidarity is replaced with surveillance.

Therefore I often feel safer in patriarchal spaces rather than explicitly queer or lesbian ones because I’m only being punished for one intersection of identities at a time

That’s Great but can Trans Men Be Lesbians?

I, like most other trans people, hate this question. But I hate it for a very specific reason. This question completely erases and ignores the transfeminine lesbian experience. Why are we talking about trans men being lesbians when you have 0 trans women in your space? Let me guess, every trans woman who tried to join was just uniquely predatory or aggressive or too outspoken? And how do you not see the transmisogyny inherent in that? Have you never heard the idea that liberating the most marginalized of us will liberate all of us? Maybe you have but you don’t see transmisogyny as more oppressive than transphobia and misplaced misogyny? Perhaps you’re someone who believes transmisandry is real? Whatever the case, I simply refuse to answer this question. I will instead say this; more transmasculine people than transfeminine people in any space is an immediate red flag for me, and should be for any trans woman.

I think this question however points to a specific part of transmisogynistic lesbophobia. The part where trans women who love women are denied access to any and every possible safe space. It’s not just that lesbian spaces are inaccessible for us, or that we’re put under a microscope in them, it’s that they are unsafe. The callout post calling a trans woman a predator because she dared express attraction to a cis woman in a public space is life ruining, actually. Maybe cis people and men can bounce back from being “cancelled”, but we can’t, we don’t have the resources too. Trans women objectively have the lowest income and highest rate of unemployment among any other LGBTQIA+ demographic. When we’re not centered or when we’re erased, it is inherently violent and uniquely cruel because our needs are greater than any other queer person of equal other intersecting identities. This applies to every space we’re in, but in no one particular space is this betrayal more cruel or stinging than a lesbian or broadly queer one. You were supposed to understand and support us. Instead you ignored us. You let my sisters die.