Transphobia: irrational or unfounded fear and sometimes hatred of trans (transvestite / transgender / transsexual) people and issues.
Davina Anne Gabriel claims to have coined the term transphobia in 1989 in her publication TransSisters: the Journal of Transsexual Feminism. The definition I state above is modeled on the common dictionary definition of other terms with the root phobia, which means "an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation; intolerance or aversion." (Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition.)
I know transphobia exists. I have seen and experienced the change that comes over people when they find out I am transsexual. It's a different reaction than I see when people label me as lesbian, and different again from what I get when labeled as both queer and trans.
Those people who continue to admit that I exist do get over their initial fear and stop treating me like an exhibit in a freak show. Still, there is usually a noticeable permanent shift in behavior that indicates I have been assigned to a category of "other" and am not to be included in certain kinds of conversations and interactions.
The phobic part of this behavior is that people will not break the taboo against questioning sex or gender and talk to me about my experiences. Many people have read my words or heard me speak, but only once has a (non-trans) person sat down and talked with me one-on-one about my being trans.
Most people are caught in an impossible double-bind. They can't believe that a person can truly "change sex" nor can they believe that someone could "pretend" to do so without being noticed. So the reaction is like that of learning how stage magic is done, or how Sherlock Holmes reasoned from clue to conclusion, "Ah, of course, now I see the trick!" There must be a trick because transsexuals cannot be real and gender cannot be fluid.
So transphobia may be irrational (without reasoned thought), but "unfounded" is too strong an indictment of people who suddenly feel the bedrock of their culture and identity shift or turn to quicksand. Although well informed adults know there are trans (and queer and intersexed) people in the world, coming face to face with one who they believed to be "just another person" in their life is usually a visceral shock.
But that does not excuse the more reasoned political form of transphobia found within the GL community, such as is practiced by the so-called Human Rights Campaign, the Michigan Womyn-born-womyn Music Festival, gender fundamentalists such as Janice Raymond, and religious fundamentalists who believe that only heterosexual men and women should legally exist. One could further make a case that much of the world is transphobic in its cradle-to-grave obsession with gender prescription and differentiation.
I'm not certain how valid it is to try to pick apart transphobia into separate components, but here are some thoughts.
sexism: It goes without saying that the use of sex and gender to mandate and enforce social roles is the root cause of transphobia. Chromosomes, hormones, brain structure, and genitals are largely invisible. It's being uppity and not behaving as one should that gets folks in trouble.
homophobia: As Suzanne Pharr has pointed out in Homophobia: A Weapon of Sexism, the two are used hand in hand to control people. Stereotypes of gay men and lesbian women have little to do with sexual relations and much to do with transgressing gender norms of behavior, dress, manner, speech, occupation, and so on. Genderevolution is the primary threat to the patriarchal status quo (which is used as much to control men as women).
homo-transphobia: Homosexual people were noticed and labeled in the late 19th and early 20th century because of their gender variant behavior. Any homosexual who wants to be accepted today as "just like everyone else except for what we do in the privacy of our own bedrooms" does not want to be associated with any form of genderevolution. Some of the most vitriolic attacks against trans people have come not from the religious right, but from gay men and lesbian women.
trans-transphobia: Within the trans spectrum itself there is a ridiculous amount of stratification and labeling and rejection.
Some mtf transsexual people adopt the stance that a medical sex change cures their gender dysphoria and leaves them real women, no longer transsexual, and so free of any taint of homosexuality or masculinity.
Men who style themselves heterosexual male crossdressers usually want to avoid contamination with homosexuality or transsexuality, taking the tack that cross-dressing is a normal and healthy activity consistent with being a happily married man living (most of the time) in a male social role.
Transmen generally have quite a different take on things than do transwomen, both because they have very different histories and because of the very different medical realities of an ftm transformation.
Then there are mtf and ftm non-ops, partial-ops, and who cares about ops who identify as bi, lesbian, gay, pan, or omni sexual. And a bunch of people simply trying to survive somehow in a world that labels them as sick, depraved gender trash deserving of death, or worse. Shame and self-loathing, and of course suicide, is endemic.
normal folks: Few people are completely secure in or satisfied with the gender role they perform. Any mention of these topics reminds people of the deviant thoughts, feelings, desires, or actions that have occurred throughout their lives. A common reaction is to violently deny that any such thing has ever taken place, "Hey, I've never even looked at a guy, and I'll pound your ass if you suggest I have!"
Check out the adds in any "life style" magazine to see the cultural emphasis on gender conformity. It's much easier for "straight" people to have their bodies cosmetically altered than it is for any trans person to do so!
religious fundamentalism: I don't know that religious fundamentalists are in fact more phobic than anyone else, they simply try to show that whatever god created all these people really didn't want them to feel and behave as they so often do. The Jewish / Christian / Islam / Baha'i line of faiths seem particularly strict when it comes to gender and sexuality, which may have been an important way to differentiate their doctrines from existing ones that drew less rigid lines. Threats of eternal damnation and torture notwithstanding, history is replete with stories of gender and sexual deviance at all levels of all religious organizations that have ever existed.
Obviously there is much mental contortion going on as people rationalize their own feelings and experiences of difference from the supposed norms of civilization. Humans are gendered, and are sexual, but all the details are subject to unending argument!
Transphobia is a complex topic, perhaps because it reaches the roots of human identity. For my part I wonder how it feels to be surprised that gender identity and sexuality is not a simple unchanging either/or. Do people truly believe that? We'd all do well to engage in a lot more communication.
You absolutely must read Transgender Equality: A Handbook for Activists and Policymakers. 2000. Paisley Currah, Shannon Minter & Jamison Green. NGLTF. Available online as a PDF file.
The Human Rights Campaign (www.hrc.org) long resisted enlarging its scope beyond 'gay and lesbian.'
The Michigan Womens Music Festival (founded in 1975) has a policy of 'womyn born womyn' gender fundamentalism; they don't want either MTF or FTM transsexual persons on The Land, though they let each individual decide in which category they belong.
Janice Raymond's book, The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She-Male, 1979, goes beyond phobia to vitriolic hate.
That's what I think, here in East Lansing at the bottom of 2001.