I’d like the extremes of the movement simply to recognise me as a distinct, autonomous being.
For them to ask me to accept they TWAW in order to accommodate trans people’s perception of themselves is to ask me to redefine myself as something I neither understand nor share - a gender identity.
For them to ask me to accept that TWAW to accommodate trans people’s perception of themselves is to ask me to accept my political, social & cultural recategorisation - and thereby give up certain rights that were contingent on my prior categorisation, designed to mitigate the disadvantages presented by my biology.
And to ask me to accept TW in female-only spaces is to ask me to perceive each & every TW in the image in which he perceives - or simply chooses to describe - himself; to replace my own perception of reality with his (the use of the male pronoun is important here in order to make this point).
Please think about this. If anything is negating a person’s autonomy in this whole, agonising debate, it’s this. Because this isn’t just a matter of courtesy. If it were, it’s still a huge ask - but it’s not. It’s asking women to disregard natural instinct & objective knowledge - that he’s far stronger than me; that he has the capacity to kill me - simply on an individual male’s say-so: “I say I’m a woman, therefore it’s ok.”
The last time I got into a lift with a strange man alone, I told myself I was silly to worry. He spent the journey deliberately intimidating me. Body language only, subtle… but unambiguous. Throughout that interminable period, he made sure that I knew, quite simply, that whatever happened to me next was up to him. Yes, I could try various things - struggle, try to get to the emergency stop behind him, yell. But, really, what chance would I have? He knew, & I knew, that if he, this total stranger, whose mind I couldn’t read, whose motives I could never know, wanted to hurt me - he could. If he wanted to do worse - he could. It was that simple. Up to him. Not a matter of 50:50 or even 70:30; not a case of I’d give as good as I got. He had all the power, I had, effectively, none.
Every single time that a woman enters an enclosed space with an unknown male, this is an act of faith on her part, in which she plays the odds that he won’t choose to hurt her, or worse.
And the odds may be very good, but the stakes? The stakes are bloody high.
I’ve never got into a lift alone with a man since. I live abroad, go out at night, walk home alone - I’m confident, I don’t limit myself. But why take this extra, unnecessary risk?
More than anything else, I want men in general to understand this. Most of us don’t live our lives in fear, but women must live with this unceasing, necessary awareness of our own vulnerability.
To those who say, But men are more often the victims of violence!: They’re also more likely to instigate it, & more able to resist. Women’s experience of male aggression is as prospective prey as opposed to prospective rival (however ill-matched). It’s different.
To those who say, you’re exaggerating: Look at Everyone’s Invited, & rape & femicide stats. Ask yourself how we can possibly know when a man may escalate or not.
To those who say, I couldn’t live in fear like you do: I truly don’t! I think a good analogy for this is the hazard perception test for drivers. I’ve driven across a continent & loved it, all the while continually, subconsciously alert to the parked car, the running kid, the red light. Similarly, I live my life well, but women do, instinctually, register (click!) the lone man, the (click!) dark underpass, the (3 points!) rustling bush to a degree that, I suspect, anecdotally, at least, would be unrecognisable to many men.
To those who say I’m reducing women to their biology, making victims of them, or - what was it? - fetishising female weakness?!: I don’t believe that acknowledging & accommodating the realities of biological difference is an admission of weakness or inferiority, or equivalent to defining women by their bodies. I in fact wonder if assumptions that it us say more about the preconceptions of the person interpreting it that way.
In summary - I exist, too.