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One of my big problems of the "just be nice" rhetoric from TRAs is that it leads to so much hurt. When I was in fifth grade, there was a boy in my class who was on the autistic spectrum, but had been fully mainstreamed, so regular class all day, no aide, etc.
Now, this kid was weird and annoying and set off my creep radar in a big way, but I was taught to just be nice, especially to those in more "difficult" circumstances. Also, I'm not saying all people with autism are creeps, I have many lovely friends on the spectrum.
What I am saying is that because he had this "issue," despite being fully mainstreamed, he got a pass. What did he get a pass for? This kid groped and grabbed girls' butts, genitals, breasts, hair, etc. Most girls in my class knew to keep an eye on his hands.
I was sat next to him at one point for a few weeks, and to my little 10 year old self, it was a horror. I kept slapping his hands away from my arse and hair, and caught him trying to put his hand down my pants, and his own, a few times. In the middle of class!
I was miserable, and had stomach aches before school every day. I finally told my teacher that he kept "touching me" and she had him write an apology note and that was it. No one asked questions, nothing else was done. The misery only ended with a new seating chart.
And to my knowledge, his groping went on for years, until we were in our teens. Open secret. To my knowledge, if it was reported, nothing was done. Because he had autism, we were expected to suck it up and just be nice.
I didn't know what happened to me was considered a sexual assault until I was 21. I didn't know my federal Title IX rights were violated until I was 23. I didn't receive therapy and process what had become a festering trauma until I was 15. All because I was "nice."
So many of the TRAs weaponize the "poor miserable downtrodden transwoman" thing, and ask us to be nice. This is where just be nice leads. It leads to a young professional woman weeping on a counselor's couch, saying aloud for the first time, "HE HURT ME SO BADLY."
My therapist opined that it hurt especially because I was just starting puberty, just starting to understand what sex meant, as well as learning, through the inaction of my teacher, that so many people just don't care about women's boundaries.
For years, I carried guilt because of the hurt, that I shouldn't blame him for his behavior because of his autism, or that it "wasn't that bad" because it's not like I was raped, right?
TRAs use this same language. The "dysphoria made XYZ act out and search out women to grope" or "it's not happening in front of you, it's not that bad." We know men get off doing things like listening to us pee or whatever. And that HURTS, even when we can't see it.
One part of my story that I left out was that I tried to set boundaries myself, by slapping his hands and hissing NO! It didn't work, obviously, so I appealed to the authority of the teacher and was essentially ignored.
Like so many other girls, who try to speak up the best way they know how, about how they want their own sports or a penis-free locker room. They're just fobbed off, their boundaries continue to be breached, and the hurt builds.
