But realizing, acknowledging, and fully understanding this reality is essential for deconstructing internalized patriarchy and toxic masculinity, for developing emotional maturity, for interacting empathetically with comrades. Essential to try and be part of a solution rather than part of the problem.

It's very difficult for a lot of men to truly understand and internalize the experience of being femme in a patriarchal society, especially wrt constant underlying threat of SA or pest behavior. Like every interaction with a man is filtered, consciously or subconsciously, by the fact that he has been conditioned by a society that accepts this shit as normal, that no matter how nice or cool he is you don't truly know what's going on inside his head, and he could be the next one to victimize you.

There's no signifier that truly represents safety. Political opinion, physical presentation, niceness, none of these preclude the possibility of future abuse. A lot of us have been victimized by people we thought we could trust.

So like, it all fucking sucks. It sucks for people who feel ostracized because of something outside of their control, it sucks for people who have to live with this constant stressor and tension on every potential interaction with a masc person, it sucks that there's yet another divisive intersection undermining potential solidarity. But we do still form connections. Solidarity is the only path forward, and we can achieve it despite these inhibitory factors with better understanding of everyone's experiences, with active self-crit.

But the onus is on men to acknowledge this reality and deconstruct the insecurity they feel at being perceived this way. Their comfort can't be maintained at the cost of denying or minimizing the lived experiences of femme people.