Violence against trans individuals, transwomen of color in particular, has been an ongoing epidemic within the LGBTQ community. Within recent years, LGBTQ allies and trans people have developed a louder voice in the media, but the level of hatred that continues to persist is indubitable. Since men commit many of the violent acts against transwomen, the relationship between masculinity and violence is something that requires crucial examination. It is important to note that not all men are committing these crimes, and the goal in what follows is to illustrate the differences between men who perpetrate violence against transwomen of color and those who do not. In order to paint the full picture of why these hate crimes occur, the devaluation of women needs to be addressed as well as the importance of intersectionality, gender inequality, transgender history, hegemonic and therefore toxic masculinity.
In order to examine the relationship between masculinity and violence against transwomen of color, a few concepts need to be broken down, and a good place to start seems to be the historical devaluation of women of color within Western society. In Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the new Racism, Patricia Hill Collins provides an historical background of the brutal and degrading treatment of African American women that has remained a theme over the centuries, presenting itself with a powerful force even in today’s society. How the institution of slavery was ever thought to be a good idea has been a burning question, and how it survived as long as it did is even more baffling. The obvious answer here is racism; but what lies beneath the surface of that answer? Collins states that the sexual exploitation of women is the basic ingredient of racism (87). An essential aspect to give lengthy explanation of here is how anyone could come to justify sexual exploitation, especially enough to form an entire institution out this agreed upon social action. An idea of black sexuality was created in Westernized culture due to Western science, medicine, law, pop culture, etc., at the time of slavery’s peak. By reducing the aesthetic of African Americans, in particular that of the body, sensuality, spirituality, and expressiveness, Western culture derived the concept of black promiscuity (98); this notion of promiscuity is what justified their racism. This portion of black history is often overlooked. People tend to minimize the effect that this callous history has on African American women today. Because it happened so long ago, they are perceived to have the same rights as any other United States citizen, and seem to be expected to simply get over it. The centuries of abuse that have been embedded into the core of their identities are ignored and/or deemed irrelevant. That, or those historical beliefs are perpetuated by white men and women around the country, forcing African American women to confront the hatred that weighs them down on a daily basis.
There are many other histories of struggle that have been overlooked, ignored, or justified by Westernized culture. In her article entitled Maid in L.A., Pierrette Hondagreu-Sotelo conducts interviews with Latina women in Los Angeles, California regarding their experience with as well as their opinions on domestic housework; this work consists of live-in nannies, live-out nannies, and providing cleaning services to a multitude of households. Hondagreu-Sotelo states that less than 10% of women reported having worked in others’ homes in their countries of origin (219), posing the need for explanation of why they are so overrepresented in this area of work in America. She focuses particularly on Salvadoran and Guatemalan women, since they make up such a heavy concentration of the population in L.A., and states that many immigrant women from Central America remained undocumented for nearly 20 years (231). They often migrated alone, leaving their families behind; thus, the resources available to them were scarce. Many of the live-in nannies made negative claims in their interviews about their treatment, such that they were underpaid, had extreme lack of privacy and access to food in the house, and that they were fearful of losing their jobs due to things they could not control, such as an accident happening with a child under their care. This is another example of exploitation of women of color, for upper class suburban families have every window to take advantage of their vulnerabilities and lack of resources. When focusing on the struggles of women of color, it is essential to bring the notion of intersectionality into the equation.
To enable us to fully grasp why the devaluation of women continues to occur despite the quasi-progression made over the last century, an understanding of intersectionality is required. Intersectionality is a key feature for conceptualizing the various levels of abuse that women of color are suffering from daily. Kimberle Crenshaw considers within her article Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color how the experiences of women of color are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism, so the violent acts so often committed against women of color are shaped by multiple dimensions of their identities (1243), and Kylan Mattias de Vries analyzes intersected identity frames, defining this as “the ways that race, social class, gender, and sexuality all intersect to create specific background identities that others attribute to individuals to frame their interaction” (50). Many people, paying special attention to white women, ignore or do not understand the significant impact that racism has on the lives of women of color, and often place the struggles of every woman on equal grounds. This is a phenomenon known as White Feminism. The practice of White Feminism is paradoxical, for it fails to recognize that by white women framing their struggles in the same light as those of women of color, white women are comprising a power relation against them, in turn oppressing them further. To use the words of sociologist Michael Kimmel from a recent lecture, “privilege is invisible to those who have it.” In fact, African American women have been and still are so incredibly underprivileged that they have been historically denied occupation of a spot in womanhood. A passage that exemplifies this is from the article White Women, Listen! by Hazel V. Carby and is as follows: “That man over there says women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches…. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, and lifted over ditches…and ain’t I a woman?” (214). This heartbreaking anecdote sets on display the lapse in differentiating between the struggles of a woman and the struggles of a woman of color, for as Crenshaw puts it, “Because of their intersectional identity as both women and women of color within discourses that are shaped to respond to one or the other, women of color are marginalized within both” (1244).
It would be nearly impossible to discuss violence against transwomen of color without first discussing the historical devaluation of women of color; the same goes for intersectionality. Without the initial introduction of these concepts, understanding the experiences and history of transwomen of color would be a lost cause. Crenshaw’s quote about the dual marginalization faced by women of color is especially essential to keep in mind here. In 1966, trans people and Drag Queens became fed up with the abuse they had been suffering and rioted against the San Francisco police, fighting for their rights at what was supposed to be an all-night cafeteria in Compton (Screaming Queens, 0:12). Though many pinned what happened at the Compton Cafeteria as merely a “cat fight,” it was actually a riot that kick started a new movement for human rights (Screaming Queens, 1:40). Although this movement opened the gateway for trans individuals to begin speaking freely about their experiences, this only made a dent in the barrier that has been built up between trans people, particularly transwomen of color, and a life comprised of equal rights and opportunities. Even within gay culture, trans men and women fought for recognition. Susan Stryker, in an article called Transgender History, Homonormativity, and Disciplinarity, discusses the notion of homonormativity, which refers to the previously talked about double sense of marginalization and displacement experienced within political and cultural activism in the 1990’s (145). Because homosexuality is based on gender construction and the gender binary, trans people were further oppressed within the LBGTQ community for pushing against the binary norms. It is important to note that despite Compton’s massively influential riot, marginalization continues to occur in a very similar sense today. Though this oppression was and still is unimaginably difficult for all trans individuals, only the struggles of transwomen of color will be focused on from this point.
To start narrowing in the focus on violence against transwomen of color, it is necessary to identify what seems to be the root of the problem; this root is known as hegemonic masculinity. Hegemonic masculinity refers to a dominant type of masculinity of those men who hold power, one that fuels a patriarchal society. This can be seen as best captured by Michael Kimmel, in his article entitled Masculinity as Homophobia; he writes, “…the masculinity that defines white, middle class, early middleaged, heterosexual men is the masculinity that sets the standards for other men, against which other men are measured and, more often than not, found wanting” (61). But why are other men found wanting to reach this standard? Masculinities can be viewed in terms of power relations. Kimmel sheds more light on how hegemony works by defining it as manhood in power, a man with power, and a man of power (61). According to him, men are making consistent attempts at proving their masculinity in front of their colleagues, friends, and almost any other man who holds the same standard of masculinity that they interact with in day-to-day life. Definitions are created within culture of what it means to be a man, and these definitions are set in contrast with a set of “others,” which consist of racial minorities, sexual minorities, and above all, women (58). Men are so consistently trying to prove masculinity because if they come to be associated with an “other,” their manhood in the eyes of their male peers will take a detrimental hit; they will be considered weak and/or unworthy. This fear that the majority of men hold really sheds light on how men see women. We are viewed as the inferior gender; being compared to a woman is one of the worst outcomes to a man that embodies hegemonic masculinity. Hence, when a man constantly fighting for his dominant place in society gets accused of sharing womanly traits, he fights back against this accusation by exemplifying what he has been socialized to believe are characteristics that women lack. These characteristics are, in both his eyes and in the eyes of his male peers, obviously superior to any personality trait of a woman.
Masculinity, overall, is a flight from femininity, as well as a flight from the “others,” as deemed by Kimmel. As examined earlier, women of color have a historical systematic devaluation process that has continually worked against them for centuries — so not only is femininity feared and regarded as inferior, it is also important to keep in mind that a woman of color is facing double the marginalization by these men, for she falls into the category of the feminine as well as the racial minority category, both of which warrant disrespect and hatred, too often resulting in violence. As stated prior, sexual minorities also comprise a category to be avoided, for straightness is another key factor in distinguishing what constitutes hegemony. Emily W. Kane conducted a study that targeted how parents respond to gender nonconformity in their children. Heterosexual, white fathers were often found discouraging behavior that they deemed too “girly,” such as playing with Barbie dolls or even crying at an injury (161). The characteristics discussed before that men attempt to exemplify to prove their level of masculinity can consist of, but are not limited to, aggression, independence, strength, competitiveness, and rationality. Because being a “real man” is associated with having superior personality traits, having an effeminate son (one that does not have/refuses to demonstrate these traits or take part in dominant masculinity) seems like a failure on behalf of these fathers for their inability to mold the ideal, powerful, superior man.
Many fathers do succeed, however, in creating and molding sons that grow up embodying hegemonic masculinity. These men are taught to suppress any emotion that resembles, even remotely, emotions that are societally attributed to females, resulting in the expression only of anger and aggression when faced with a challenge. One of these challenges is when a man is confronted with the question of his own sexuality, and consequently his manhood, as mentioned prior. Encountering a transwoman is an example of one of these challenges. A possible scenario that is too often reality and depicts why violence is so prominent among transwomen of color is when a man finds himself physically and sexually attracted to a transwoman that he meets. He may try to initiate conversation, buy her a drink, or some other various form of engagement. However, at the realization that she is trans, he is forced to confront his sexuality due to the small box he has lived in his entire life. He now feels as though he is less of a man for being attracted to someone who used to be a man (or that he may feel is still technically is a man.) The need for proof of masculinity that is discussed prior comes into play here, but since men are taught and socialized only to express themselves in terms of aggression, this does not very well equip him for handling the situation in a non-violent fashion. His hegemony is a catalyst for both racism and sexism, and he acts accordingly. Violence against transwomen of color is occurring so rampantly because of the systematized devaluation of women of color and homophobia perpetrated by hegemonic masculinity. As stated previously, transwomen of color suffer marginalization from being a woman and being a person of color, but they are arguably even more vulnerable in this sense because they have defied the gender binary construction that Western society is built on.
This is not to say that every man feels the need to assert his dominant masculinity to his peers or women he encounters. Kimmel, in his description of hegemonic masculinity, acknowledges that this is only one version of masculinity. Though he does not go into much detail about the other possible versions of manhood, he does paint a decent picture of what this alternate version would appear as. He makes it clear that hegemony is about domination and power, so most men in positions of power that embody the traits shown that Kimmel listed earlier, truly believe they are superior to women, the poor, people of color, and other marginalized groups, and are more likely to commit acts of violence against people within these communities. Hence, the men that are least likely to react violently to a situation involving those who are disenfranchised, particularly transwomen of color, are going to be the men that do not feel the need to constantly prove they are men. They may hold powerful positions, but this does not necessitate violence. What makes violence against transwomen of color almost inevitable is holding a belief that a difference in race, gender, sexuality, class, etc. devalues a human being.
Paul Kivel, in his book Boys Will be Men, addresses some precautionary steps that parents can take to minimize the superiority complex that often goes along with growing up as a heterosexual white male. He addresses racism, advocating that children are bombarded with stereotypes from a very young age and that in order to stop them from being racists, it is necessary for parents to teach their sons to embrace racial differences; the process can be started early by assessing home and family environments for evidence of racism (63). Kivel also makes the claim that we should raise boys who can express a wide variety of emotions as well as boys who understand the issues within our social, political, and economic systems (1). If this becomes the case, boys will grow into men who care to make positive change for those who have spent their lives being systematically oppressed, as well as participate in the struggle to end violence against transwomen of color.
