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96 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 2018
"I’M AFRAID OF MEN not because of any singular encounter with a man. I’m afraid of men because of the cumulative damage caused by the everyday experiences I’ve recounted here, and by those untold, and by those I continue to face."
Why is my humanity only seen or cared about when I share the ways in which I have been victimized and violated?"
" I have come to realize that the ugly common thread linking my experiences with men is misogyny."
" I’m afraid that the most prevalent response these stories will elicit is pity. Even worse, I’m afraid of the necessity of eliciting pity in order to generate concern or to galvanize change"
"I’m afraid of women who, when I share my experiences of being trans, try to console me by announcing “welcome to being a woman,” refusing to recognize the ways in which our experiences fundamentally differ."
"Being a girl has required me to retrain myself to think of depending on others or asking for assistance not as weakness or even as pathetic, but rather as a necessity."
"What would my body look and feel like if I didn’t have to mould it into both a shield and an ornament?
How do I love a body that was never fully my own?"
"How many sexual desires and fantasies are formed out of potential or actual male violence? Or rather, to what extent is sexuality shaped and constrained by childhood experiences of male violence? What might desire feel like if the construction of sexuality didn’t take place in tandem with childhood experiences of violence from men."
"Why is being touched by strangers—strangers who refuse to identify themselves—a form of flattery."
"Why is this different or more acceptable than violence enacted by straight men?
This gay permissiveness also generously extends beyond the body"
" If we want masculinity to be different, we must confront and tackle the baseline instead of longing for exceptions."
"I also regret all the times in our relationship that I told him he was a good man. I regret this not because he isn’t a good man but because good is a nebulous standard, and our desire for something that can’t really be measured outside of religious teachings and morality only sets us up for disappointment, and sets up every gender for failure."🤌🏼
“Sexist comments, intimidation, groping, violating boundaries, and aggression are merely seen as ‘typical’ for men. But ‘typical’ is dangerously interchangeable with ‘acceptable’. ‘Boys will be boys’, after all.”
I'm afraid of men because it was men who taught me fear.
I'm afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the word girl by turning it into a weapon they used to hurt me. I'm afraid of men because it was men who taught me to hate and eventually destroy my femininity. I'm afraid of men because it was men who taught me to fear the extraordinary parts of myself.
• On the heirarchy of harassment, staring is the least violent consequence for my gender nonconformity that I could hope for.
• In this particular relationship, the process of exposure is especially protracted by how jarring it feels to see my (brown) skin against your pale skin, the skin of the oppressor.
• Whether it's through an emphasis on being large and muscular, or asserting dominance by an extended or intimidating stride on sidewalks, being loud in bars, manspreading on public transit, or enacting harm or violence on others, taking up space is a form of misogyny because so often the space that men try to seize and dominate belongs to women and gender-nonconforming people.
Out of this fear comes a desire not only to reimagine masculinity but to blur gendered boundaries altogether and celebrate gender creativity. It's not enough to let go of the misplaced hope for a good or a better man. It's not enough to honour femininity. Both of these options might offer a momentary respite from the dangers of masculinity, but in the end they only perpetuate a binary and the pressure that bears down when we live at different ends of the spectrum.