Safe and Heard-a Woman's perspective:
I Just Want to Be Safe — And Heard
I wrote a whole paragraph about this yesterday and deleted it. Why? Because it hasn’t been safe for me to speak. As a woman — and especially as a disabled woman and survivor — every time I speak up, I get trolled, abused, mislabelled. I’ve had to block people constantly just to breathe.
I reject the term “CIS.” I always have. And I shouldn’t need to defend that. It wasn’t coined in kindness — do your research — and it doesn’t speak to my experience. I am a woman. That should be enough.
I have trans friends. I support trans rights. But the friends I have who are trans don’t want to erase the language we use for women — they want to work alongside us. That’s how we build something safer for everyone.
But what about safeguarding? What about uncomfortable truths?
I'm a sexual assault survivor. I’ve never been raped by a woman. I know what it means to feel vulnerable — to be vulnerable — and I should be able to say I want spaces where there’s no room for opportunists, where I feel safe. That’s not hate. That’s trauma-informed self-protection.
I’ve received death threats from people in the trans community simply for expressing concerns, for trying to find common ground. I’ve had discussions about safe spaces, suggested solutions like using disabled toilets as gender-neutral safe havens — only to be attacked again. How is that productive? How is that safety for anyone?
I’m not here to generalise. I despise generalisation. Not all trans people are abusers. Not all women are safe, either. But the facts are out there, and ignoring them doesn’t make anyone safer — it just delays the damage.
We need better systems. Prisons need an overhaul. Sports need fair solutions. Children need protection. Survivors need to feel heard without being dogpiled or erased. And the world needs to stop pretending that calling out abuse and demanding safeguards is somehow a threat to inclusion. It’s not.
I’m AuADHD. I’m literal. And I’m exhausted from being misunderstood — not because I hate anyone, but because I care deeply. I want trans people to thrive in their own right. I want women and girls to be protected in ours. We don’t need to cancel each other. We need to problem solve.
Abuse, threats, manipulation — from anyone — is not progress. We need to be honest, even when it’s messy. Especially then. We don’t fix anything by pretending the world is safer than it is. I was abducted by sex traffickers. I’ve seen what danger really looks like. So forgive me for refusing to play pretend when it comes to safety.
We need solutions, not slogans.
You don’t have to agree with me. But you don’t get to threaten me for speaking.
If we want a better world, we have to make space for real conversations — the uncomfortable ones, the nuanced ones, the ones that hurt because they matter.
Hate solves nothing. But neither does silence.
Sarah ❤️
