The Warm Knife in Your Chest, Valley Deadsh!ts and the Ghosts of Schoolboys Past.
Getting assaulted in the street? "Welcome to being a woman", I guess?
I shocked a friend the other day when I offhandedly mentioned that the boisterous, boys-will-be-boys violence that young men do to each other is just a dress rehearsal for the way they are encouraged to exercise dominance over women. It’s so clear to me having lived both as a man and as a woman.
The ways in which young men will strike, grapple and restrain each other in physical defense of their place in the pecking order is just practice. Practice for the entitlement they are taught they have to force others into a position of submission and then laugh it off as though it isn’t serious, or terrifying, or just downright wrong.
That isn’t to say that all men… but enough of them.
[I’m giving this statement its own line, not only so it won’t be missed and I avoid getting inundated with a whole bunch of “WeLl AcTuAlLy” messages. But to let those sweet, soft and kind boys I surround myself with that they are standouts, and to remind people it is possible to NOT be like this.]
Having lived as a man, been schooled to grow into a man, I’ve been witness to the way in which young men casually do violence to each other. When I say “witness” I mean that I’ve had the view from the floor of polished school shoes coming in for the swift kick to your foetal-huddled body. It was a great time for everyone involved. It wasn’t serious, it wasn’t terrifying and there was nothing wrong about it… Except for me as I was the one on the ground being kicked of course. It was all those things for me as they all laughed and had a great time of it. Of course, I’d found myself trying to laugh along too. “Very funny guys!” Knowing they would kick even harder if I raised any protest to them exerting their will to be above me, over me, in control of me.
How many women have told me about having to deal with men in public spaces who catcall, who accost, who grab and grope? How many of them have told me that you tell these men to “fuck off” and it makes it worse? How when you tell them politely to leave you alone it makes it worse. You can’t do anything other than pretend it’s okay or else they WILL make it worse.
Now that I’m finally living as a woman, and having similar experiences to other women, I see the shadow of those boys I went to school with everywhere. I sometimes wonder about them. I wonder about their lives. Are they married? Do they have kids? I wonder if they ever think about the time they held a queer kid on the ground and lined up kicks to their ribs, their face, their groin. I wonder if the memory bubbles up from beneath the surface, like some unexploded ordinance left over from a war in themselves, a time long forgotten in their life. Do they feel that ticking dread? Is that internal war even truly over? Do they look at their own kids and see a shadow of that teenager they so carelessly and effortlessly brutalised? Probably not. They probably don’t even remember it happening. “The axe forgets” etc etc.
But I remember.
I see it in the way men have interacted with me, exerted their will over me, and yeah… assaulted me. I suppose that’s what happened the other day… an assault? Look, don’t suddenly get worried. I’m fine, I’m unhurt, unbothered and not at all upset about it. I find myself wanting to say “it wasn’t a particularly bad assault” which is a fucking ghoulish statement that my brain is concocting because this sort of violence was never treated as a big deal for me when living as a teenage boy.
But anyway. A man hit me in the street. There I said it.
Some deadshit in the Valley (I mean isn’t it always a deadshit in the Valley?) saw me walking towards him, clocked my trans-ness and then veered towards me, elbow out. He connected with my shoulder, shoving me hard in the direction of the road, trying to push me into traffic, trying to knock me to the ground. When he didn’t succeed, he laughed and jeered me. Practically went “nah na na nah na” like a schoolboy.
I kept walking.
‘Cause as far as assaults go it was quite mild. This Valley deadshit didn’t really consider that it’s quite hard to knock a 95kg muscular transwoman to the ground using only your elbow.
I wasn’t afraid, I wasn’t hurt or in a panic. I was annoyed more than anything. The sheer audacity of this guy coming into my space. The entitlement he had to throw an elbow into a stranger walking past. I kept an eye over my shoulder in case he came back. He didn’t, and I got on with my night.
The only thing that has really stuck with me about the whole incident is the moment he clocked me. I saw it happen. I saw that cock of his head; saw the creaking gears of his mind turn and realise who he was looking at... what he was looking at. He saw my size, my height, my breadth. He saw my gait; he saw my shoulders and my arms and in his mind he saw a man dressed as a woman. He saw a target and he acted. It only took a few seconds and he lashed out. But it occurs to me that the things that clued him onto the nature of my gender are also the things that kept me safe and on my feet.
I didn’t feel physically threatened BECAUSE of my size. I’m not a fighter in any way but I sure as hell would make it as hard as possible for someone to hurt me. It’s both a blessing and a curse, like a warm knife in the chest. There is a comfort, a warmth to the hurt of a man failing to hurt you because of the same features that mark you as a target.
It’s like that with a lot of things but also somehow the opposite?
I’ve thrown the phrase “welcome to being a woman” around a fair bit. Usually in connection to the various difficulties of trying to exist as a woman in the modern world. The common garden variety indignities like not finding clothes that fit? Welcome to being a woman! And if you do there are no pockets? Welcome to being a woman! When the first advice out of a doctor’s mouth is that you should try losing some weight? Welcome to being a woman! Or, when a man talks over you and takes credit for your work? Welcome to being a woman!
There’s a sad comfort in all these moments. An affirmation of identity? Sure. I’m “suffering” the way a woman “suffers” and that gives me comfort? Again I feel like my mind is throwing up some ghoulish fucking logic born out of a white, christian upbringing to seek comfort in what is essentially a shit-show of a situation. All these warm knives sliding into me, painful yes, but also a reassurance that I am who I say I am. But that is a dangerous game to play with your own feelings. Those brief glimmers, those silver linings, those warm moments of validation where you take solace from your own suffering… that paves the way for much, much worst things.
It can’t be healthy.
It can’t be good for you to think there is anything positive or beneficial to being assaulted or harassed in the street. It can’t be good to seek out a way to mentally contort yourself into thinking that it’s good that you were gendered correctly while you were abused. Finding comfort from the warmth of that metaphoric knife driven into your chest misses an important detail about it all… you still have a fucking knife in your chest.
–S