As the fallout from multiple accusations of sexual assault against Harvey Weinstein reverberates throughout Hollywood and beyond, and more powerful men of all industries are exposed as harassers and rapists, the social media call #metoo continues to spread awareness of the extent and degree of cisgender women’s experiences of toxic masculinity. Yet as the movement to bring powerful men to justice continues to grow, we must also reckon with #metoo’s limitations, chiefly that the centering of cisgender women’s experiences of harassment and assault excludes and arguably erases the lived realities of those whose gender identity and expression leave them at their most vulnerable — trans and gender-nonbinary people.

A number of trans writers have already commented on the difficulties trans folks have in joining the #metoo conversation. Sarah McBride writes about the hardships of publicly disclosing her sexual assault as a trans woman, and Raquel Willis advocates for extending the resonance of #metoo to trans and GNC people. But for both McBride and Willis, there exists an assumption that cisgender women should rightfully reside at the center of the assault and harassment discussion, which does not account for how such a centering oppresses trans and GNC people in ways that are reminiscent of how cis men marginalize cis women.

If we operate under the principle that numbers or political power shouldn’t matter, that our priority should be to center the experience of the most vulnerable people in relation to an issue, then it’s clear that #metoo uses its own centers of power — mainly the sheer number of cis women and the fact that the current discussion involves famous people — to prioritize the needs of cisgender women over trans and GNC folks. There have been many calls for cisgender men who’ve been victims of harassment and assault to yield to the experiences of more oppressed cisgender women, which is necessary and vital work. Yet, if cis women are operating under the principle that those who experience the greatest oppression must be centered, then they might consider yielding to trans and GNC people, because that demographic experiences the greatest oppression because of gender.

There have been numerous examples of the heinous ways that trans and GNC people — especially though not exclusively trans women and nonbinary femmes of color — experience assault and harassment. Islan Nettles, for example, was murdered because a man who made sexual advances on her realized she was transgender; Mercedes Williamson was dating a man and was killed because he didn’t want his friends to know he was dating a trans woman; Victoria Carmen White was shot and killed because her killer discovered she was transgender after meeting her at a club and coming home with her.

Trans and GNC folks are so much more vulnerable than cis women: We not only experience unwanted sexual advances and provocations, but we are also at risk of being physically assaulted or murdered when those who approach us are unable to deal with their own attractions. Transmasculine people are at risk of assault themselves when they’re seen as “less than” men, or if they threaten the superiority of cis men. But because their hardships aren’t connected to powerful men, and because society considers them less important than cisgender women (especially ones who are famous and white), it’s not their plight that sparks news or widespread social media attention.

It’s also vital to note that an often-overlooked thread uniting LGBTQ+ victims of gender-based violence is the way they are often victimized for existing between genders. Though people across the spectrum of LGBTQ+ identity have experienced gender-based violence, what comes into play in dangerous situations is typically not how victims themselves identify, but the fact that the people who attack them see them as not belonging to a binary gender, or subscribing to binary gender norms. This is true whether it’s femme gay men, trans women, or nonbinary transfemmes, or even transmasculine people who are seen as threats to cis men. Any dynamic that casts binary women as the most vulnerable victims of gender-based violence at a structural level ignores how those who fall outside of the binary are even more vulnerable to pervasive and severe attack.