If we are no longer allowed to critique and call out people who we conceive of as men because they might actually not be men, what the hell are we supposed to talk about?

If someone who looks like a man says “catcalling is a compliment, what’s the big deal?” then yeah, drive that argument into the fucking ground. Doesn’t matter if they’re secretly trans. They’re wrong and they don’t get it. Their experience has limited their perspective on this issue.

When that identity becomes a lazy excuse for de facto dismissal from saying a thing about gender at all—which it absolutely does—then yeah, there are absolutely other options.

When someone who looks like a guy says “maybe don’t use ‘neckbeard’ as a derogatory term because it’s problematic to mock people for their appearance, especially things like body hair over which they have limited control, and bumps up against racism, classism, and transphobia,” it’s bad faith and lazy as fuck to pretend you think that’s a stock Dude Argument or that the identity of the person bringing it up should be used as the sole or primary reason to dismiss it.

You aren’t being silenced just to have to sometimes take seriously someone who looks like a group of people you hate.