So you’re a trans woman. A trans woman college student. A trans woman, in college, at UCSB. Just walking down the Arbor pathway en route to your afternoon courses at Phelps Hall. Just trying to mind your own business without feeling like you’re being stared at every minute of the day.

Suddenly, you’re accosted by a strange man standing right in your path. He’s just thrust a clipboard into your face, staring right into your eyes. Actually, he’s been staring at you for the last ten paces but you’ve been avoiding his gaze, hoping he hasn’t been noticing you, noticing him, noticing you. More than that, he’s also dangerously close to that Turning Point USA table. That’s never a good sign. One of their flyers just reads, “So You Want To Be a Sexually Frustrated Misogynist and Take Your Anger Out On the Most Vulnerable Members of Society?” with a link to some convention scheduled at a little known event center in Montecito.

He’s coming up to you now. Oh god, you’re gonna have to come face to face with one of those- “Are you-“

Oh no.

“-an adult female-“

Here it comes.

“-registered to vote in Santa Barbara County and willing to help us divert funding from gambling losses in the state of California to a public fund for impoverished child-“

-petition… jockey? Thank god, I was expecting something much, much wor- “

-ren as well as a 2.5% sales tax on luxury items to fund the trade union of RXSTISUSPDTF Local 628 for the-“

Oh my god he’s still going. He literally hasn’t stopped for even a breath, even though I’m actively averting his eyes AND I have my headphones on. Sometimes I wish it was just a TERF.