I Don’t Feel Safe Around Cis Women.
No identity promises safety.
I was walking home one Saturday evening when two women began following and screaming at me.
“HEY! HEY MAN! HEY SIR! HEY MAN!” one of the women yelled, over and over. She ran across the road and closed up the distance between herself and me. “Can I ask you something?” she asked, staring me down hard a few inches from my face.
“Um, sure,” I said with a laugh. Ignoring them had not worked, so I tried being polite. “What’s up?”
“Why do you walk like that?” The first woman asked. She strode a few feet ahead, one arm up, her wrist limp and hips swaying. She cackled at her own homophobic pantomime, while her friend laughed and tugged at her sleeve. I winced at them, and laughed uncomfortably. They were just kids. It stung to see them being so cruel.
“Oh, you’ve got a pretty smile,” the first woman said, returning uncomfortably close to my side. “Look at that, look at his smile. Give me a smile again. Come on, give me a smile.”
My easily-frozen Autistic ass did not have any social scripts prepared for dealing with this. When men harass me, I have always gotten aggressive and fought back. But two young women cornering me, insulting and sexualizing me? I had no game plan for that.
