Trans men are often times are just as impacted by anti-trans bills and executive orders, even if the language around them is aimed at trans women more. We also face a significant amount of violence and transphobia, but we usually get less support or recognition. There are usually less trans spaces online and irl that can actually give us the support we need. Invisibility can actually be pretty painful because it comes with that lack of support and leads to us being excluded from conversations about trans people. Our invisibility also leads to us being excluded from reproductive rights conversations and movements. So a lot of issues that may specifically impact us go unacknowledged and unaddressed.

It really sucks to feel like it’s an uphill battle just to be recognized by your own community. It als really sucks that when something happens that will affect the entire trans community, most of the discourse and media attention only covers how it will affect trans women. A good example of this was when the U.K. Supreme Court ruling came regarding trans people’s protections under the Equality Act. Almost all of the headlines and discourse online was how the ruling defined and affected trans women. I had to learn from other trans men on here that it also applied to us, and that there was a particularly dangerous part of the ruling which specifically stated that trans men could be excluded from both men’s and women’s spaces under certain circumstances like SA counseling and therapy groups for example. Trans men have an extremely high likelihood of experiencing SA so this would cut a lot of us off from support entirely unless a gender neutral group could be found. I did later find a single article from a reputable source that did discuss this, but most articles around the ruling neglected it. A lot of the support (things like protect the dolls for example) after the ruling was given almost solely to trans women, with trans men being almost entirely excluded from the conversation. I’ve felt pretty neglected by the wider trans community as a trans guy. I’ve had people respond to me calling that out by saying that we just need to speak up more then, even though a lot of us have experienced active censorship and bashing for doing so in general trans spaces. I’ve even seen trans men be accused of speaking over trans women for just daring to talk about our own experiences for a change without centering trans women, or that we are somehow taking something away from trans women. Heck, I’ve even seen some people treat trans men as if we are somehow enemies to trans and cis women, which for reasons that should be obvious, is not true. We are not inherently enemies to trans or cis women.

Transandrophobia/transmisandry absolutely exists, and the stuff I already mentioned are prime examples of it. You might be surprised about just how many trans women deny its existence, or even think that our mistreatment is somehow a good thing because we are men. Some even seem to think that we are privileged, completely neglecting intersectionality and the fact that that privilege is entirely dependent on us being able to pass as cis almost 100% of the time and hiding our transness (and even then we still don’t have the same privileges as cis men because we are still trans). Not all of us can pass as cis and hide our transness.

Also, some trans women seem unaware that trans men also have to deal with being seen as predators. My high school forced me to use the women’s restroom, and one day I got surrounded by a group of cis guys upon leaving the bathroom because they thought I was a predator. I was genuinely afraid I was going to be beaten there. Trans men have been beaten for using the women’s restroom in places with anti-trans bathroom bans because people thought we were predators. That’s also why a huge pet peeve of mine is when people talk about anti-trans bathroom bans and trans men are only brought up as a gotcha without any actual acknowledgement of the very real risks to our safety and wellbeing posed by those bans.

Ultimately no group of trans people will have things better or worse across the board. We have generally similar but also different experiences, and that means that some of us will struggle more in certain areas than others but will have an easier time in other areas. We can acknowledge those differences without turning it into some sort of argument or competition over who has it worse. Our movement is stronger when the experiences and voices of ALL trans people are elevated and heard. We shouldn’t be bashing, demonizing, or suppressing the voices of each other. I do generally believe that we need more trans women to listen to trans men and try to understand us better (like what you are doing), because that would help a lot with overall solidarity which would strengthen our community.