TME is not who are you but what you do

If transmisogyny affects everyone then why are people so quick to say it shouldn't affect them?

What is TME/TMA?

Many transfeminists have adopted the identifiers TME and TMA, short for "Transmisogny Exempt" and "Transmisogyny Affected." Most people engaging with these terms in good faith will admit there is some merit to them. Most people agree that trans women are the primary targets of trans misogyny. Most people agree that trans women face explicit forms of transmisogyny that others do not, such as V-Coding. Yet these terms are also hotly debated and anyone using them is accused of being a TERF, dividing the community, saying trans men don't experience oppression. It's all pancakes and waffles.

Most of the issue people have is with the word "exempt," it's argued that "transmisogyny affects everyone, no one is exempt." Sometimes this can be done in good faith to discuss the truth of how yes, transmisogyny does affect everyone (as evidenced by cis women being harassed in bathrooms), but often it's used as a cudgel to silence trans woman or decenter us from discussing the issues that most impact us (like how no one cares when we are harassed in bathrooms.) Another criticism of the terms is that they are bioessentialist and rooted in sex assigned at birth. Critics will say "How do you decide who is TMA and TME, isn't this just a genital check?" I want to dive deeper into how this tension plays out, try to explore who is TME and who is TMA and investigate the usefulness of the terms in different situations. I understand the criticisms of them, but I struggle to give them up for my own analysis because I am constantly reminded of their usefulness. Rather than ask, "Who is TMA?" (insert 'what is a trans woman' joke here) I think it's much more useful to ask, "Who gets to to be TME?" "When," and "How?"

Who gets to be TME?

Who gets to be TME, well anyone who's not TMA. Cool, essay done, thanks for reading everyone. Actually, it's not that simple, and we will delve into that a bit later, but really, who gets to be TME? Something I've consistently noticed is the despite trans women getting accused of being bioessentialist for creating these terms, the overwhelming majority of TME people will let you know they are TME, they just won't use that word. It's much less about trans women trying to sort people into boxes, than it is about trans women describing the various ways people will consistently distance themselves from us, put us in a box, and to loudly declare their own exemption from that box.

The most prominent recent example of this was Olympic boxer Imane Khelif who was the center of a transphobic panic spearheaded by she who should not be named. (JK, Joanne Rowling should always be named and shamed) The backlash against this panic and support for Imane Khelif was vast, and much of it was done by self proclaimed trans allies in defense of trans women. Yet, most of their "allyship" revolved around Khelif being an unacceptable target of transmisogyny, screams of "this is proof transmisogyny affects cis(TME) women" a long side "she isn't even trans(TMA), she's a biological(real) woman!" So Khelif was simultaneously affected by transmisogyny, yet nearly all of her support was outrage over how she should be exempt. So, is it trans women and trans feminists sorting people into TME/TMA boxes, or are they merely describing the way everyone else is so quick to do that on their own. We also have to remember that in all this uproar about Khelif, there was dead silence from "allies" about the many trans women banned from the Olympics and not given Khelif's same opportunity, or level of support. With the light shining on the disparity, is it really that unfathomable to say Khelif is TME? At the end up the day, she was ultimately exempt from the bans that affected trans women athletes.

“Recall, once more, the most common defenses of Imane Khelif. Instead of challenging the transmisogynistic precepts that would declare a trans woman’s participation illegitimate or as a threat to “actual women”, the majority of Khelif’s defenders opted to engage in _identitarian distancing_, with the appeal that she did not deserve the transmisogynistic invalidation that a hypothetical transfeminine athlete would never be granted exemption from. Yes, it is entirely true that the racist degendering and harassment Khelif experienced could highlight points of solidarity between two similarly oppressed classes of women, but that wasn't what happened. Instead, trans women's vilification was declared as misplaced and tragic when it spilled over to others, resulting in appeals to minimize the collateral damage."

Talia Bhatt

Who is affected by transmisogyny?

I find it interesting and painful how transmisogyny rots the brain so quickly that we forget basic feminism. The absurdity of the Imane Khelif situation becomes apparent if we use a cis feminism allegory. Imagine the young man who gets told he "runs like a girl," the most common defense he and anyone defending him uses will be "no I'm/he's not a girl!" but anyone with the slightest of feminist leanings is going to realize how misogynistic that defense is. It's the same little trick, we've got the misogynistic attack that he's like a girl, and girls are bad; followed by the misogynistic defense that YES girls are bad, but he's NOT one of THEM. We all should recognize this, but it goes out the window when trans women are involved. The correct response here isn't to say "I'm not a girl!/I'm not a tslur!" The correct response is to say "So what? Girls are cool and just as good at running as anyone else!/So what if I do [have a dick]? My fans don't care and neither do I."

And this is why Lady Gaga is TMA, she didn't immediately resort to distancing herself from trans women. She didn't immediately reinforce the idea that being compared to a trans woman was a bad thing.

Why even argue on their grounds? If you respond with "but I'm cis!" one of two things happens. 1) the person doesn't care and is still going to third gender you. Something trans women deal with every day. 2) It works, the person leaves you alone, but now you've just reinforced that this treatment would have been acceptable if you actually were a tslur.

Congrats, you've just accepted and defended transphobia. A true ally does not view being compared to a trans woman as a bad thing, and if they truly believe that transmisogyny affects everyone they won't reinforce it when they fight against it.

But (trans)misogyny does affect everyone

It's true, misogyny does affect everyone, men are constantly ridiculed with threats of womanhood. However, talk to anyone who's experienced mens rights movements and you'll see how quickly this can become a Trojan horse and dog whistle to move feminism away from discussing those most impacted by misogyny. When people criticize the usage of TME/TMA a very similar thing happens. Suddenly, the discussion of transmisogyny is no longer about trans women, but about how it affects everyone else who's less impacted by it.

Cis feminism has an easy answer to this. It asserts that misogyny is primarily a "womens issue" it asserts that there are issues "women" face that "men" simply do not, notably issues around reproductive rights. I'm using quotes around "men" and "women" because for all its valid observations of patriarchy and the oppression of women it doesn't account for how trans and intersex people fit into things.

So here's where I'm stuck. Cis feminism acknowledges "misogyny affects everyone" while also acknowledging "men are exempt from the majority of misogyny and we need to focus on women who are most affected." It essentially has misogyny exempt and misogyny affected indicators. Are these necessary? Are they useful tools for trans feminism or are they restrictions that keep us chained? I'm also very wary of trying to define who is TME, and who is TMA, but like I said, most people will exempt themselves. I see being TME less as a concrete factor of identity, and more as a function of transmisogyny itself. The Sizhen System has a great essay about third gendering, how a third gendered fail state is a requirement of gender based oppression. In this way, many TME people operate as what Sizhen calls the "not-power" class. They are arguably oppressed and kept from power via transmisogyny, but they are also encouraged to distance themselves from trans women thereby reinforcing their own oppression. The legibility of this second class gender requires transmisogyny to establish itself. Without transmisogyny, your gender is not legible and you become third gendered.

Can trans women be TME?

Kinda, sorta, but not really? Trans women are not immune to claiming exemption either, it arguably just doesn't work for us. You see this with AGP/HSTS discourse, self proclaimed HSTS trans women calling to an idea of being "the acceptable kind of trans woman" to distance themselves from the ones they think deserve trans misogyny. This gambit arguably never works for trans women.

You could also argue that a trans woman who passes is TME (as many have done). In some sense, yes, but let's look look at an example. The classic bathroom example, is a trans woman who passes really TME? Even when no one is wiser, she still faces the constant threat of prosecution with V-Coding as a punishment. The threat of transmisogyny hangs heavier over the stealth trans woman than someone else who is mistaken for her. When she is harassed in a bathroom we won't see major support from news outlets defend her. She probably won't even report it. Reporting it carries a risk that no TME person is subject to, an admission of being TMA, an admission that signals to people that what happened to you was acceptable.

The infamous comic by Allison Bechdel at the top of this essay is often interpreted to be in support of trans women, but what is it actually trying to say? The punchline “I stopped having a problem once my ‘nobody knows I'm a transsexual short wore out” essentially argues the trans woman became TME the moment she passed. This isn't the case though, because we also see her being targeted by transmisogyny in the first panel by the GNC character the comic centers. The comic tries to make a point about how “transmisogyny affects everyone,” but in classic fashion it's far more interested in how it affects a self proclaimed TME person than an actual trans woman. Who is really in more danger in that comic?

Another area that a trans woman can never be TME is medical care. No matter how many surgeries she's had, how well she passes, how long she's lived stealth, she is still subject to medical gatekeeping and restrictions on gender affirming care. Just like a cis woman can never truly exempt herself from misogyny, a trans woman can never truly exempt herself from transmisogyny.

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I'm not completely sure how to end this essay, but I’d like to segue into something emotional to drive home the impact these things have. If you continue, TW for transmisogynstic street violence.

Why do we tolerate transmisogynistic violence?

This video, AMERICAN REFLEXXX is a performance art piece by a cis woman in which she wears revealing clothing and walks around a crowded street at night with a reflective mask covering her face.

There's a lot that can be said about this, the mask reflects her attackers, feminity provoking harassment and being viewed as an invitation, but I want to focus on something else.

The nature of her harassment is explicitly trans misogynistic, many people call her a man, question her gender, and use trans misogynistic slurs. It's also really disturbing how many of the people who are most violent towards her are women. There's a common refrain that trans women are seen as "women who it's acceptable to abuse" and that cis women will often treat trans women the way that men treat them.

In this video she's TMA, she never denied being trans, and it seems like most of her attackers genuinely believe her to be trans or don't care enough to question it. Onlookers and bystanders likely believe this too, or at least they do not believe in her humanity. She's beaten and sexually assaulted in front of large crowds as people looking on do nothing or cheer. The only crime she is guilty of is existing as the wrong woman. She's also TME, it's contextual, when this art piece is over she gets to take her mask off and go home.

Would she have gotten the same treatment if she said she were cis? It's hard to say, I guess it depends on if she's to be believed. Would the art piece be as evocative if she were trans? Absolutely not, many viewers would see her harassment as justified. The piece relies on the empathetic viewer seeing her as someone who is supposed to be protected from this violence. Would she have gotten the same treatment without the mask? The mask is what allows everyone to dehumanize her, to pretend it's not a woman they are hurting. The mask is what marks her as other and strips her of her womanhood, her humanity, it's what reduces her to purely an object and acceptable site of violence, no longer offered the tenuous safety and protection of being a woman. Trans women wear our skin everyday.

If I had to define TMA and TME it would be this:

TMA: Is someone who consistently and persistently targeted by transmisogyny and is never allowed the opportunity to escape it.

TME: Is someone who has exempted themselves from transmisogyny, has been exempted from transmisogyny by someone else, or is otherwise declared an unacceptable target of transmisogyny based on a vector not allowed to those who are TMA.

With this definition we avoid genital inspections, we avoid assigning labels to people and categorizing them. Instead we draw attention to the oppressive systems that cause someone to be affected by or exempt from trans misogyny. It focus less on being TME as a concrete state of identity, and more an accurate description of the present social structure someone finds themselves in.

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Everyone is affected by transmisogyny, but some people are never allowed to be exempt.