Spilling the T on Trans-Misogyny and Microaggressions: An Intersectional Oppression and Social Process Among Trans Women

ABSTRACT

Minority stress frameworks seek to explain how stress impacts the health of minorities. Examining the social location of trans women in society is critical to understand the unique forms of oppression that engender stress and microaggression for trans women. This article uses intersectionality to examine the lived experiences of young trans women and develop new theoretical concepts to understand the social process of trans-misogyny. We use grounded theory to analyze semistructured, in-depth interviews conducted with 38 young trans women ages 16–24 in Los Angeles and Chicago. Our findings describe key concepts: trans-misogyny, cis-sexism, the passing complex, and transition work. We describe how trans-misogyny acts as an intersectional, interlocking structure of oppression, fueling the passing complex, and, as a result, how trans women experience overt and covert forms of discrimination.

KEYWORDS:

• Transgender
• oppression
• intersectionality
• minority stress
• microaggression

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all participants in this study as well as the resilient, diverse trans communities in Los Angeles and Chicago.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. This work has not been published elsewhere, and it has not been submitted simultaneously for publication elsewhere.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development under grant U01HD40533. Support for the lead author was provided in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Institutes of Health or the Foundation.