I'm Afraid of Men.

by Vivek Shraya

As important as it is to make these incidents visible by reporting them, sensationalizing and digesting these stories is also a form of social control, a reminder that I need to be afraid and to try to be as invisible as possible.

I realized only after I began transitioning that my lifetime of independence and self-reliance had been largely a result of male privilege. 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 might be cruising can also be contempt.

What would my body look like if I didn’t want affection from gay men and protection from straight men? 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?

Trans people aren’t afforded the luxury of relaxing or being unguarded.

FALLING IN LOVE WITH another human is terrifying. As our language insists, romantic love is always preceded by a fall, the necessity of losing control and potentially hurting yourself in the process of connecting with another.

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?