How many times has a man tried to tell me who I really am and how I should feel? How many times have they lost it when I rejected their bullshit and showed them my boundaries? Often enough to make me a fucking expert on the subject.

I’m intimately familiar with claims that when I say no it’s abuse, and when I refuse to back down to their aggression, I’m victimizing them. That withholding my support and validation is destroying their lives. Typically these claims are shouted from close range, with balled fists and red faces.

That’s why I have this weird deja vu about some of the men who identify as women. Actually I don’t care how they identify. But wait — not caring is not an option. I have to loudly admire their choice, or I’m being abusive. I have to center their needs in my feminism, or I’m victimizing them. That’s a problem.

My other problem is when men who identify as women start defining for me what a woman is: a feeling, fancy clothes, and a set of sexy stereotypes, apparently. And if I reject that bullshit in favour of the lessons of my own lived experience, I get dogpiled by a bunch of screaming angry “victims.”

I’ve been threatened with murder for saying that women are the ones who give birth. I’ve been excluded from conferences and coalitions because they claim I am a “Trans-Excluding Radical Feminist” – even though I’ve never excluded a transperson from anything.

Whiny faux-victimization, narcissistic rage over my refusal to submit, constant demands for validation, gaslighting – these are the hallmarks of male entitlement.