WaywardsisterKallel

If you call yourself a “trans woman,” here’s what I know about you: You’re a man. I don’t know what your motivations are, I don’t know if you’re harmless, I don’t know if you “sincerely feel like a woman.” I just know you are a man. And I know that, as a man, you possess things like larger arm length, grip strength, muscle mass, lung capacity and airway size than I do. I know all of those things mean that you are faster, stronger, and physiologically more powerful than me. I know those things mean that if we competed in just about any sport, you’d win. I also know those things mean 95% of men (even on cross sex hormones) are physiologically capable of killing 90% of women USING ONLY THEIR BARE HANDS. I don’t know if you are the type of man who would do something like that. But I do know that AS A MAN, you have a statistically higher risk of harming me or my daughter than a woman does. And that we have a lower chance of being able to defend ourselves, if you decide to. I know that trans identifying men have the same—or higher—statistical crime rates and patterns as other men. I know that there is NO EMPIRICAL DIAGNOSTIC TEST beyond “trust me bro” that can clinically demonstrate that you’re different or safer than any other man. You might be a lovely person. You might never hurt a fly. You might be a totally awesome human being. Lots of men are. But I can’t know those things any more than I can know if you’re a predator, unless we know each other for a while. And, as A WOMAN, I have had to grow up mentally gauging the threat level of EVERY MAN in my vicinity. Being aware. Being careful. Being tuned into my instincts. Not because I’m paranoid. Not because I’m a “bigot” or “sexist.” But because there’s a 1 in 4 chance that I’ve been raped. There’s a 1 in 3 chance I’ve been physically assaulted by an intimate partner. There’s a 1 in 2 chance that I’ve been physically assaulted by ANY MAN over my lifetime. You know what those statistics (and the fact that you, as a “trans woman,” hold exactly the same statistical criminality patterns as other men) mean? I don’t have the LUXURY of assuming you’re different. And you haven’t done ANYTHING to prove that you are. You want to live in a world where women don’t treat you as a possible threat? Where you don’t feel that wariness from us? Then maybe you should care about all that, respect the boundaries set up for our physical safety and fairness, and take action to make this world safer for women and girls—instead of dismantling every safeguard that's keeping those statistics from being even higher. In other words, you should try to PROTECT women. Because you want to know the easiest way to tell good men from bad ones? Good men do EXACTLY that.