I am tired of seeing women blamed for the crimes of men.

When I came out, I was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school. I was miserable, terrified, and incredibly vulnerable. Who responded to that vulnerability with contempt, harassment, and threats? Men did. Men screamed strings of slurs at me while I walked home from school. Men left death threats for me to find in my locker and on my desk. Men told me I was “asking for it” and that I “deserved whatever I got.” My male friends abandoned me. My own father wouldn’t even look at me.

On the flip side, who embraced me, protected me, and supported me? Women did. Women were there for me when I needed to vent about all of the terrible things that I was dealing with. Women offered their help with the more superficial things that I viewed as being important steps in my transition at the time. Women gave me love and acceptance at a time when I desperately needed it. My female friends told me that they had always known, and that they would support me no matter what. My mother, though she was apprehensive at first, came around and got me the treatment I needed. My grandmother told me how proud of me she was. My guidance counselor advocated on my behalf to the school administration when I could no longer deal with my peers. Women saved my life one hundred times over.

This is a theme that you will see reflected in the stories of trans women again and again and again. So when you yell at women, threaten women, tell women that they are the reason that trans women are murdered, you look ridiculous. You look hateful and delusional. Women are not the people harassing us, assaulting us, raping us, or murdering us. Men are. Women are not the people with the societal power necessary to oppress us. Men are. Women are not the people you should be directing your anger at. Men are. Stop attacking women for things that they have not done, and start holding men accountable for the violence and oppression that they have inflicted and continue to inflict on us.

No progress is going to be made unless we correctly identify our enemy, and our enemy is men. Men and male supremacy are at the root of all of the social adversity that we face, and it’s time for trans women to recognize that and start doing something about it.