CN: Toxic media, transmisogyny, violence against women, suicide
I first learned about girls like me by watching an episode of Jerry Springer entitled, “My Girlfriend is Really a Man!” I might have been ten-years-old.
I saw the host introduce flamboyant women who the audience immediately booed. I heard the women try to explain themselves, but get interrupted too frequently to communicate anything. I watched in horror as their boyfriends’ reacted with more violence than I had ever witnessed between two real people on television. Never on daytime television had I actually witnessed a man punching and beating another women. But I did that day. And the audience cheered him on.