Sex, Recognition, and Harm
Large surveys show high rates of sexual assault among transmen. But numbers alone do not explain how that violence happens, why certain risks cluster, or why survivors may struggle to make sense of what happened to them. My research asks how sexual violence against transmen becomes knowable, believable, and institutionally recognisable
Why talk about sex?
Sex is analytically important because vulnerability is not shaped by identity alone. Many transmen move through the world across several social positions over the life course: as gender-nonconforming girls, masculine women, lesbians, same-sex-attracted females, transmasculine people, male-passing people, or some combination of these. Gender identity helps explain how transmen seek recognition and how they may be socially read. But sexed embodiment and female social location may still shape exposure to violence, family control, economic dependence, reproductive vulnerability, housing insecurity, and institutional response. In my work, sex is not the whole explanation, and it does not replace gender identity. It names one material dimension of vulnerability that can be lost when harm is interpreted only through identity.
Sex remains a central structuring axis of oppression; gender operates as a mechanism through which that structure is articulated, enforced, and made meaningful.
Does this erase transmen’s identities?
No. Recognition matters. Transmen should not have to give up recognition of their identities in order to have sexual violence taken seriously. But recognition alone is not always enough. Institutions may recognise a transman’s identity while still missing the sexed, social, bodily, or economic conditions that shaped the harm. A sex-based analysis does not have to replace gender identity. It can strengthen recognition by making the structure of vulnerability easier to see.
What does female masculinity add?
Halberstam’s concept of female masculinity provides the conceptual bridge I need for this analysis. It allows gender identity and sex to be held together without collapsing one into the other. In this framework, transmen’s masculine identities, expressions, and social recognition can be taken seriously, while sexed embodiment and female social location remain analytically visible. This matters for life-course analysis because many transmen’s histories do not begin at transition. They may include childhood gender nonconformity, masculine presentation, lesbian or same-sex social worlds, transmasculine identity, and male passing at different points in time. Female masculinity helps trace that continuity without reducing transmen either to gender identity alone or to sex alone.
Why do categories matter?
The categories we use shape what institutions can see. Sexual violence against transmen may be interpreted as anti-trans violence, male violence, sex-based vulnerability, punishment of gender nonconformity, individual trauma, or some combination of these. Each frame may reveal something, but each can also miss something. This matters in research, law, policy, healthcare, shelters, sexual-assault services, and public discourse. If the categories are too broad or too narrow, the harm can become harder to recognise and harder to respond to.
What is the goal of this work?
My goal is to make transmen’s experiences of sexual violence more intelligible without forcing them into the wrong categories. Better interpretation matters because it can lead to better research, better services, clearer policy, and forms of recognition that do not erase the conditions that shape vulnerability.
This work asks institutions to hold two things together: transmen’s gendered recognition and the sexed patterns of vulnerability that may shape their lives. The aim is not to reduce transmen to sex, or to treat gender identity as irrelevant. It is to build a framework that can recognize transmen accurately while explaining why certain harms occur, how they are narrated, and why they are so often misunderstood.
“Female masculinities have held very different meanings in different eras.” — Jack Halberstam