Jennifer, I am surprised to read so much vitriol in response to your article. Regardless of how you identify (or how I identify), or how you (or I) were biologically born, what is clear, is that you have suffered. Your experiences of suffering do not deserve to be degraded or belittled because they are not identical to my experiences of suffering as a cis-woman. Yes, I have been bombarded with body-image propaganda from childhood, and yes, I have experienced both covert and overt misogyny in expected and unexpected places. I still do not have a corner on the “suffering” market; far from it. We could discuss “first- world” privileges, and decide that anyone here who has not survived off of pennies earned making mud bricks in India, or sorting through garbage dumps in Guatemala, has never “really” suffered, and should go home to their indoor plumbing in shame. But that would be a deliberate attempt to avoid the fact that real suffering has occurred in this country, and that the people who have suffered here deserve to be treated with genuine compassion and respect. I found your comments on the damage overt misandry did in your life both compelling, and convicting. I too have participated in male-bashing, assuming men deserved to suffer because they have made women suffer. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Even though we can, and should, work for systems to change in this country (for women, for minorities, for all people groups experiencing discrimination), it is still wrong to refuse to acknowledge that our system is made of individuals, and that no individual deserves to be dismissed and degraded by means of a stereotype. I know you covered more than this single issue in your writing, and I know that your intention was not for your words to become a great teaching point, or even public at all, but I am glad I read this. Thank you. PS- for reasons of full disclosure, I want you to know that my identities include labels such as “Christian”, “cis-woman”, “married with children”, “boring and conventional”, and “college-educated in a first-world, Western tradition”…. but even my story has had some very unexpected opportunities for suffering, and learning compassion.