I used to be a man and became a woman because I couldn’t stand the humiliation of being shamed over having feelings and my desire to balance kicking ass at something with doing something worthy. As a man, I know how it feels to be in a toxic environment driven by shallow consumerism and media/entertainment. I know what it feels like to have girls/women ignore me and choose asshole guys because they look or act cool-and then cry on my shoulder when the guys treat them like shit or don’t express their feelings, and then after I console them, they stay with the asshole and do it over and over again! I know what it’s like to want to take a gun and fucking kill all of them! And this was before social networking, I can’t imagine how much worse it is now.

But I never did grab that gun. Why not? I had friends. I had music. I became a woman. And at the time there was no hate group online to comfort me. And no president normalizing hate. I had to do these other things. So to what extent can I judge these people if I don’t also judge our culture?

The hate groups and Trump are “friends” to those who don’t have any friends and they are here to stay…they have always been here, but the web has permanently empowered them too because proper decorum didn’t allow TV and radio to be cruel en mass. So what can we do now to help these young men have friends. I’m baffled, until then, I’m staying a woman.