Transgender women face harsher levels of discrimination than other transgender people. It has been suggested that this section be merged into Trans woman#Discrimination. Butler states that trans women have relinquished masculinity, showing that it is possible to do so. Gender theorist Judith Butler echoes this assumption, stating that the murder of transgender women by men is 'the most toxic form that masculinity can take', a way for the killer to assert power over the victim in the instant, in response to the idea of the intrinsic nature of his power (ie, his masculinity) being threatened. In Whipping Girl, Julia Serano writes that the existence of trans women is seen as a threat to a 'male-centered gender hierarchy'. Transmisogyny stems from both these concepts. The former is the idea that 'maleness and masculinity are superior to femaleness and femininity', while the latter holds male and female as 'rigid, mutually exclusive categories'.
The concept of transmisogyny hinges on two other concepts first described by Serano: traditional sexism and oppositional sexism.
