🚫 STOP ASKING US TO GET USED TO BEING HARMED

Photo by Kiril Krsteski

People don’t listen to women and children.

Not when we whisper.
Not when we scream.
Not even when we show up with a mountain of evidence, hospital records, text messages, restraining orders, bruises, trauma, or the lifeless eyes of a child who saw too much too young.

And yet you dare to tell us:

“Let them in. Just get to know them.”
“They say they belong here.”
“They just want to be included.”
“It’s not that deep.”
“You’re being paranoid.”
“You need to relax.”

NO.

We’ve relaxed ourselves into the ER.
We’ve relaxed ourselves into trauma-induced silence.
We’ve relaxed ourselves into early graves.

🧱 YOU KEEP BUILDING BARRIERS AND CALLING THEM BRIDGES

You are not creating inclusion when you strip away the rights of women and children to be safe.
You are not being progressive when you remove boundaries that protect those who are most vulnerable.
You are not being kind when you ask survivors to swallow our fear, ignore our instincts, and make room for people who erase us.

This is not growth.
This is grooming.
This is gaslighting.

You are conditioning women and children to ignore our discomfort, override our instincts, and stay silent for the comfort of others.

Sound familiar?
It should. It’s what abusers have done for centuries.

⚠️ DON’T DARE CALL US CRAZY FOR SEEING THE PATTERN

You keep telling women and children we’re overreacting while asking us to:

• Share changing rooms with people who violate our dignity

• Give “benefit of the doubt” to those who disrespect our boundaries

• Prove harm after we’ve already been harmed

• Smile through the fear

• Apologize for existing

We are not crazy.
We are not hysterical.
We are not bigots.
We are survivors. And we are tired.

THIS IS OUR LINE IN THE SAND.

We will not “adjust” to being erased.
We will not “learn to get along” with people who refuse to respect our safety.
We will not “stay open” to harm, to intrusion, to the death of what little protection we have left.

Don’t tell us the world is changing.
We know.
It’s changing into something where the lives of women and children are being negotiated like discounts—
and we are saying NO.

✊ YOU DON’T GET TO HARM US AND THEN DEMAND OUR KINDNESS.

We are not “barriers” to someone else’s identity.
We are not the villain for setting boundaries.
We are not required to sacrifice our safety to make you feel whole.

We are allowed to say:
No. Not here. Not again. Not ever.