A long time ago, in my later teens, in my first week of college - I remember half of my class went to the pub one lunch time. I don't remember the exact topic of conversation, but I remember sat around a large table of people, responding with "I'm a feminist".
Everybody laughed at me. All the guys and the girls. I didn't understand. Then someone said "You can't be because you're a man", laughing once again. ...But I still didn't understand.
I was an un-diagnosed autistic at the time, but it makes sense now why that conversation went around in my head for months, trying to make sense of it. Every cycle ended the same way - That I just could not see why a man believing in the fundamental equal rights of woman was something worthy of ridicule.
Of course a lot changed as the years went by, and my standpoint became more socially acceptable. But, 25 years later, I find myself in the exact same situation, as a 'cis' man laughed at for believing in trans equal rights.
But now I know that the only way they could find that ridiculous and comical is if they see everything only from the very narrow perspective of their own existence and sense of self.
Nobody needs to be trans, gay, etc etc, to understand that we are all conscious beings having unique experiences, with the fundamental right to exist. But when you do understand this, you know that we are all experiencing this existence together and need to look out for one another.
Shye Strange
![German poster for International Women's Day, March 8, 1914.[a] This poster was banned in the German Empire. It depicts a woman waving a long banner. By Karl Maria Stadler (1888 – nach 1943) - Scan from an old book, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6372383](https://kolektiva.social/system/media_attachments/files/114/127/784/950/726/856/original/2522b6448fc0bd43.jpg "German poster for International Women's Day, March 8, 1914.[a] This poster was banned in the German Empire. It depicts a woman waving a long banner. By Karl Maria Stadler (1888 – nach 1943) - Scan from an old book, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6372383")
