It’s Not Always Easy to “Just Say No” to Men
Rejecting them could put you in serious danger.
Last week, I published a piece about an experience I had a couple of months ago. Basically, a creepy older man who lived down the hall kept asking me to hang out alone with him in his apartment. Even though this guy terrified me, I had a hard time directly telling him no. I would always give some vague answer to get him to leave me alone.
Fortunately, he eventually seemed to get the hint and give up. I haven’t even seen him in over a month now.
The point of my writing that story was less about detailing the interactions between the creepy man and me, and more about the way his attention made me feel.
You see, I was assigned female at birth, but I identify as nonbinary. Although I haven’t undergone any surgeries or hormone treatments to make myself look or sound more masculine, I feel closer to the masculine end of the gender spectrum than to the feminine one.
I wrote that story as a way of dealing with the intense gender dysphoria that man gave me. He saw me as a woman, even though I am definitely not a woman.
He mentioned that he’d seen me at the grocery store before. I realized that because my face had been covered by a mask, he’d recognized me by other features of my body. Features that make me look more feminine than I actually am.
Getting unwanted attention from a strange man is bad enough for anyone, but it’s hard to put into words the disconnect between the way he sees me and the way I see myself. He was interested in a version of me that doesn’t actually exist.
That’s why I wrote that piece. I wanted to talk about how attention from creepy men adds a whole other layer of awfulness when you’re transmasculine (trans folks who were assigned female at birth).
While I received supportive comments from other LGBTQ+ folks, I also got one that said this:
Since he finally got the hint that you had no interest in him, he might have left you alone after the first encounter if you just told him no to begin with. Instead you strung him along by making it seem like you were busy at the moment, but left the future open ended. Humans can’t read your mind, so you have to be explicit with your words.
From what I could gather, this commenter is a man. So, it doesn’t really surprise me that he placed the blame for this whole situation on the victim.
I understand that yes, no one can read another person’s mind. Some people are incapable of taking hints and they need to explicitly be told something in order for it to sink in. I get it. Honestly, I’m like that myself sometimes.
But saying no to a man, especially in a situation where you feel threatened, isn’t always as easy as it seems.
For instance, I personally have a hard time being rude to people. Maybe it’s because I’ve lived in Texas for most of my life, where “Southern hospitality” is a real thing. Maybe it’s because I spent years working in retail and I still instinctively act polite for fear of getting in some kind of trouble.
I also have generalized anxiety disorder. It often manifests in the form of fear of what other people think of me. For instance, a perfect stranger, whom I will never see again, could see me stumble in a grocery store and I will spend the rest of the day being paranoid that that person thinks I’m cringy. I know it’s not logical, but if my anxiety made sense, then it wouldn’t be a disorder.
As a result, I never want anyone to think I’m rude or mean. I know that telling an entitled straight man “no” usually doesn’t end with him thinking positively about me.
At best, he thinks I’m being a bitch. At worst, my life could be in actual danger.
Pretty much anyone who was raised as a woman in this world knows how dangerous it can be to reject a man. In many cases, he is dead-set on doing whatever he wants to you and will stop at nothing to accomplish what he set out to do.
Obviously, I have to point out that #NotAllMen are like this. But enough are. Enough that dangerous behaviors like stalking and physical assault are common. Especially among trans women, women of color, and sex workers.
Some people believe that men respond aggressively to rejection due to so-called “masculine honor beliefs” that they have internalized. According to these societal codes, a man must “do something” when rejected. Merely walking away and moving on from the rejection is not considered masculine enough.
I think part of it also has to do with the vast amount of privilege that cisgender, heterosexual men are awarded in our society. From a young age, we teach them that they are entitled to women they’re interested in. We teach them that if she says no, he shouldn’t give up, but rather keep trying until he wears her down.
We also teach men that a woman is only off-limits if she “belongs” to another man.
For example, I’ve rejected men before by letting them know that I’m a lesbian. Instead of stopping their advances like I’d hoped it would, it usually made them push harder. Like I was challenging them.
They’d say truly awful things like, “I bet my dick could be the one to change your mind.”
That kind of response is problematic even without the transphobia. (Guess what? Some women have dicks!) These men still try to hit on me even when I have explicitly told them that I don’t date men at all.
In fact, the only time that men quit bothering me is when I pretend that I have a boyfriend. Because then, hitting on me would be poaching another man’s “property.” They respect a man they haven’t met more than they respect my repeated, direct wishes that they leave me alone.
This kind of entitlement leads to a lot of men becoming violent or even murderous when they’re rejected.
That’s why it’s hard to “just say no” to these men. If we don’t let them down gently enough, it could literally mean the difference between life and death.
