Discrimination against transgender men
Discrimination against transgender men and transmasculine individuals is sometimes referred to as anti-transmasculinity, transandrophobia, or transmisandry.
Terminology
The discrimination experienced by transgender men has been described using various words, but none have seen widespread use. Terms used include anti-transmasculinity and transandrophobia. The rare term transmisandry is also used, though much less frequently than the equivalent term for prejudice against trans women, transmisogyny.Julia Serano, who coined transmisogyny in 2007, commented in 2021 that "misogyny may intersect with transphobia in different ways" for transgender men as opposed to transgender women, which "doesn't necessarily make transmisogyny 'wrong'; it may simply mean that we need additional language."
Instances
Lack of visibility
Transgender men historically did not enjoy much visibility due to lack of awareness that female-to-male transition existed. Historian Susan Stryker notes that though Reed Erickson, a wealthy trans man, funded much of the inchoate, "often-confusing maze" of medical providers in the United States treating trans people, they tended not to be focused on the needs of trans men in practice. In 1968, Mario Martino founded Labyrinth, the first counselling organization exclusively concerned with the care of trans men, to help other trans men navigate the process of medical and social transition through these providers.Sexual violence
Transgender men and transmasculine people are at a high risk for sexual assault, sexual violence and rape. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that 51% of trans men reported being sexually assaulted at least once in their lives. Despite transgender men and transmasculine people's high rates of sexual assault, many rape and sexual assault crisis centres are not open to men, cis or trans, leading to transmasculine people being put at risk of not having any resources after a sexually motivated crime. In 2023, the ARC Readiness Assessment of providers in New Zealand found that only 29% of those surveyed knew of safe sexual assault recovery/family violence services to refer trans men to, whereas 37% knew safe sources for trans women and 44% knew safe sources for non-binary people. The ARC Readiness report also stated that this knowledge of safe services was "not based on training or knowledge about safety ofservices for transgender or intersex people."
In 2019, Counting Ourselves, an anonymous Aotearoan health survey designed for the transgender and non-binary of all ages, reported that 16% of transgender male participants have been verbally harassed in public bathrooms. 29% of trans men and boys have been told or asked if they were using the wrong bathroom, which includes 42% of younger trans men. 49% have avoided using public bathrooms. Since the age of thirteen, 50% of surveyed trans men have experienced attempted rape, and 33% were made to have sex against their wills.
In 2025, the same survey found that 56% of transgender men and boys have been told or asked if they were using the wrong bathroom. 53% were found to have avoided going to the bathroom because of fear of having problems stemming from their trans identities. 40% have been forced, or have experienced an attempt into being forced, to have sexual intercourse when they did not want to.
Misgendering
Transgender men's experience of misgendering—being referred to or categorised with a gender they do not identify with—may vary from receiving verbal insults to experiencing physical assault. Increased rates of misgendering are positively associated with psychological distress among transgender people, including gender dysphoria and anxiety. A 2009 study of transgender men in the San Francisco Bay Area interviewed nineteen trans men on their experiences post-transition. The study reported that nearly all interviewees "claimed that their fear of violence or harassment stemmed from the worry that other men would react violently if they judged the interviewees' masculine practices as effeminate or not appropriately masculine". Even when others generally read them as male, trans men interviewed reported a need to defend their masculinity or carefully avoid conflict to prevent violence from male peers after transition.In relation to racism
Trans men and transmasculine people of colour face a unique discrimination as a result of their race, gender and transgender status intersecting. An interviewee for the project To Survive on this Shore discusses racism against black trans men:Citing Krell, Martino and Omercajic explain that "'racialized transmisandry' helps to explain the policing around Black masculinity for Black transmasculine persons have been effaced in a white-centric and classed framing of cisgenderism and cissexism."
In feminist and lesbian circles
Bradbury-Rance and scholars such as Jack Halberstam connect transphobic hostility towards trans men in feminist and lesbian circles with their repudiation of butch lesbians. Some trans men were formerly involved in lesbian communities; in the 1970s, growing suspicion towards butch-femme identity from radical feminist circles contributed to a perception of butch identities as "patriarchal gender" which marginalized those with masculine presentations.Butch flight
Transgender men may be accused of "butch-flight", which claims that butch lesbians who later come out as transgender men are in some way being tricked into transitioning instead of remaining as butch lesbians. As the name "butch flight" implies, transgender men who formerly identified as butch lesbians are viewed as having left the lesbian community en masse. Notably, this perception of transgender men became more visible starting in the 1970s, and peaking in the 1990s, when transgender issues in general were becoming more visible. Transgender men were enabled to come out, leading to a perception that there was a "flight" from the butch lesbian community as increasing amounts of transgender men felt able to pursue transition. S. Bear Bergman, an American transgender man and author, touched on "butch flight" in his 2006 book Butch is a Noun:"I hear from butches that they are saddened by what they think of as Butch Flight, that people who once might have lived as butches are now living as men, and it makes them sad. They want back the visibly queer phalanx of butches, and they want the kickass women butches sometimes embodied. Feminism, they insist, is not being helped by the fact of women with masculine qualities decamping from Women's Space to the Old Boys Network".
Gender essentialism
According to Mimi Marinucci, gender essentialism and sex essentialism are radical feminist views on gender. She argues that gender essentialism in radical feminism demonizes masculinity and maleness as a whole, targeting trans women for their assigned sex at birth and targeting trans men for their transition into manhood. Masculinizing procedures are sometimes called "mutilating surgery" by radical feminists.Medical marginalization
Transgender men and transmasculine people face discrimination in certain medical contexts. This may include difficulty in accessing cervical smears where transmasculine individuals are subjected to misgendering that cisgender women do not generally experience, due to transgender men having gender identities that are often considered incongruent with the gendered medical care they require. Alongside misgendering, transgender men may experience transphobia as a result of not being read as men in a medical setting. The pap smear test is more likely to be inadequate in detecting cervical cancer in transgender men who use masculinizing hormone therapy.Trans men and transmasculine people are frequently the subjects of medical marginalization, with 42% of surveyed trans men in the U.S. reporting negative experiences with healthcare providers. There is a lack of credible research about how to provide adequate healthcare to transgender men undergoing medical transition, notably with doctors having difficulty diagnosing breast cancer in people who have undergone top surgery. Transmasculine people are also at an increased risk for experiencing discrimination in medicine that may impact their access to healthcare. This can include transmasculine people with cervixes not being invited for life-saving cervical screenings because their gender is legally listed as male or being denied screenings for ovarian cancer for the same reason.
Impacted trans men and transmasculine people are sometimes omitted from discussions about reproductive rights, menstruation, and bodily autonomy because they are seen exclusively as "women's issues". This includes healthcare professionals neglecting to discuss contraception to prevent unwanted transgender pregnancy.
Transmasculine people with uteruses, who choose to retain them, may be able to become pregnant, but may also face additional barriers to abortion services. In 2018, proposed legislation to legalize abortion in Ireland only mentioned women in the context of obtaining abortion. Campaign groups feared for the potential implications for transgender men, believing and stating that "the proposed legislation for termination of pregnancy in Ireland will only allow women to access abortion" and "thus, trans men in Ireland will be denied abortion access".
Transmasculine people who willingly seek out pregnancy may regardless experience misgendering within the medical industry, and— even if visually passing— are unable to completely go stealth. Some transgender men are forced to pause or reverse their transitions for the course of their pregnancies for the sake of their safeties, and possibly experience gender dysphoria because of this.
Between 2009 and 2014, trans men accounted for 11% of HIV-positive transgender individuals in the U.S. with 60% of them being virally suppressed for at least one year. This study conducted by the American Public Health Association states that "transgender men who have sex with men are at increased risk for HIV acquisition and constitute 15.4% of the newly diagnosed HIV cases among transgender persons. Transgender men are an understudied population lacking evidence-based HIV interventions to address their needs." The majority of PrEP medications such as Descovy that are meant to prevent contraction of HIV have not been tested for people who were assigned female at birth. 47% of HIV-positive trans men in the U.S. between 2009 and 2014 and 40% of HIV-positive trans men in the U.S. in 2018 were black. Omission from medical research leaves trans men vulnerable to illnesses, STDs, and malpractice.