Dear Men,

I’m sorry, I have to leave you.

Image from “Don’t judge a woman’s worth by her clothes” ad campaign by Swiss human rights group Terre Des Femmes

I’m leaving, and I wanted to take a moment to apologize.

I know this has been difficult. You deserve an explanation. You never asked to be put in this position. You have done nothing wrong. It is, you are absolutely right, not fair.

I want to apologize and explain my behavior. I have avoided you. I have chosen not to speak to you. I have not trusted you. I have, at the worst of times, rejected what you say simply because it is coming from a man.

And now I come to you and say, in timid, halting whispers, that I can’t see you anymore.

I know this must be hard.

Please let me say this: “I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me.”

No…wait…that’s not true at all. It is you. It is definitely you.

And, while I’m at it, why in Hella’s presence am I, yet again, apologizing?

See? This is the problem. I’m conditioned to apologize. To ask permission. to move out of your way. To lessen the space I take up in the world so that you can have all the space you rightly deserve.

I’m done. I’m not apologizing anymore.

And yes, the problem is you…it is 100% you.

I will, however, explain. (Don’t worry, I know you won’t listen. It’s not for you, it’s for me.)

Here’s the thing: I just can’t trust men. Any men.

Believe me, I’ve tried. I really have.

I did all the things I was supposed to do. I walked the way I was told to walk, I talked the way I was told to talk. I expressed all the right opinions and recited all the memorized trivia about sports or cars or tools or whatever to prove that I knew what I was talking about. I wore the right clothes. I listened to the right music. I nodded my head the right way on the street. I left an empty seat between us to prove to anyone who might show a bizarre interest in our physical proximity that we are emphatically not a couple. (Except for those times when it was very important to not leave an empty seat between us to prove to anyone who might show a bizarre interest in our lack of physical proximity that we are emphatically not concerned whether other people might think we are a couple.)

I studied, I practiced, I watched and made sure that I behaved properly in every situation. I hid and beat down and destroyed any part of myself that disobeyed the standards and expectations set before me in The Sacred Rules of Man.

But that was never enough. I knew I walked on the cliff. I knew that any single mistep of the rules could lead to me to fall off–very possibly to my death.

One mistake of wearing the wrong color clothing, or the wrong size of clothing, or the wrong cut of clothing. Any suggestion that I like a certain singer, or a certain game, or a certain color. Any accidental mention of my thoughts on flowers or butterflies or cooking or shoes. No matter how hard I worked, how diligently I studied, I knew that any infraction could result in punishment.

And believe me, I know what it is like to disobey The Sacred Rules of Man and be punished.

How many of you have had your hands bound and have been beaten unconscious and dumped behind a building for an infraction as minor as wearing the wrong clothing, or having the wrong length of hair on your legs?

You see? I have.

But here’s to the nice guys! The good guys. The ones who would not dream of beating me unconscious and dumping my body behind a building. Thank you for defending me. Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for spending every day denouncing The Sacred Rules of Man in daily speech because you know they are dangerous and wrong.

Oh…wait…nevermind. You didn’t, did you?

You let it go. You pretended it was okay. Boys will be boys. You even supported it (I mean, the wrong clothes is just too far over the line.) As long as you, specifically, don’t beat someone unconscious for the wrong leg hair length, your hands are clean, aren’t they?

Growing up as me meant a lifetime threatened with emotional, mental, and physical violence. This is why I have never trusted men. I have never felt comfortable around men. I have felt safe around men. Because I have always known that I, at any moment, for any minor infraction, might suddenly become unsafe. I have always known that retribution for disobeying The Sacred Rules of Man is swift and will come from even your closest friend.

I do not trust men because that is the only way I could survive. And here’s the hardest part:

This is how I learned to survive when I was living as a man.

But, I’m not a man. I never was a man. My consciousness has never been that of a man. I just happen to have a body that is shaped like a man and was therefore bound by The Sacred Rules of Man. Expected to wear the proper uniform, to walk with an approved gait, to hold my wrist a specific angle. Taught with violence that any expression of femininity was blasphemy, that judgement and punishment was swift and harsh.

It could even, I knew, be deadly.

Finally I gained the strength and courage to renounce The Sacred Rules of Man. I began to believe that the shape of my body did not define my consciousness. I gained (with incredible support of those women who came before me) the strength to become on the outside the woman I always was on the inside.

This is the most deadly sin of manhood.

We, all of us, know that any woman can find herself bound and unconscious behind a building for no greater infraction than having the wrong length of hair on her legs. At least half of The Sacred Rules of Man pertains to women, perhaps more than half. Heels too high, heels too low, skirt to high, skirt to low, hair too long or hair too short, too much makeup or not enough. Any infraction is grounds for assault, or rape, or murder.

But no sin is worse than someone, perceived as a man, choosing to embrace their own femininity. Femininity is disgusting. Femininity is weakness. Femininity is less, and subordinate, and questioned, and criticized, and rightly denounced. Full chapters in The Sacred Rules of Man are dedicated to destroying femininity and removing it entirely from the face of the Earth.

Those of us who embrace our femininity willingly are nothing less than demons. Because if one of us embraces our femininity, what is stopping others? What is stopping us from the greatest, unspeakable hell of accepting femininity itself as — shudder the thought — an equal?

Dear Men,

I’m sorry, I have to leave you. All of you.

You see, I cannot stay. It’s not me, it’s you. You’re dangerous. I can’t trust you. True, a few of you will work to earn my trust. You may even work almost as hard as any woman on Earth works surviving according to The Sacred Rules of Man. But, I cannot, for my own safety and survival, assume you are safe without substantial proof. (Trans men, you have a much lower burden of proof, but, sorry, you’re still men.) A few of you others may, eventually, gain my trust, but it’ll take work.

By and large, I’m just going to avoid you.

I thought I might explain that this is why many of us avoid you. Because you can’t be trusted. Especially by many of us who are shaped wrong. Who are too fat, or too skinny, or too tall, or too short, or too dark, or were born with the wrong hormonal balance.

We know we’re not safe around you.

This is why I stopped returning your calls. I just never really need to see you again. It seems harsh, I know. You think you’ve done nothing wrong. But try to look at it from my side: Just one time in my life, I want to walk in down the street in sunlight and know that my body will not be found behind a building simply for wearing a cute skirt.

So goodbye. And thank you for understanding…

Actually, I don’t care whether you understand.

I don’t, it turns out, have to care about you at all.