1/ I’m an ordinary wee Glesga granny. I’m not a radical feminist. I’m not an academic or an intellectual. I’m not a lesbian. I’m not an activist. I don’t hate trans people. I don’t hate homosexuals. I don’t hate men. In fact, I don’t hate anyone.What I DO hate is the fact that

2/ from the ages of 5 or 6, to around 45 I was sexually harassed, assaulted and raped by men. Only men.I hate the fact that I can still remember many of my attackers faces and how they made me feel, especially, when I was a very young child.I hate the fact that I accepted many of

3/ my assaults as “just guys”.I hate the fact that, in my youth, there was no point reporting what happened to me because I’d be reporting to other men who’d say it was “just guys” as well.I hate the fact that so much of my youth was wasted on being afraid and on avoiding sexual

4/ assault.I hate the fact that I had to think EVERY SINGLE DAY about what I wore and how men would react to that.I hate the fact that I was still raped, despite being a “nice” girl who didn’t tease, provoke, “ask for it” or any of the other things men use as an excuse for rape

5/ and sexual assault.I hate the fact that I still have to plan my safest routes home, scan the faces on the bus before I choose where to sit, have my house keys in my hand before I get near my front door.I hate the fact that I’m now seeing pictures of men carrying barbed wire

6/ wrapped baseball bats, rainbow coloured axes, wearing Tshirts saying “kill a Terf” – threatening violence to women and insisting they’re NOT men, but women.I hate that these men are making me doubt the admiration and affinity I’ve always had for transwomen who had to go

7/ through so much in their commitment to being female.I hate that these men, simply by saying, “I want”, can claim the SAME rights as those women, both natal and trans, who have gone through violence and vilification, objectification and abuse I hate that I face losing the very

8/ few steps towards safety that have taken women 100 + years to achieve (like the recognition of sexual harassment, like women only spaces, like level playing fields in sports, like positive affirmation in work, politics ,education, like the recording of data by sex and not

9/ gender)I hate that men can STILL take stuff away from me just by saying “I want”.I hate you telling me I’m cisgender, or a TERF, or a Transphobe. Those are made up words, designed to insult and other and silence me.And I hate that when I say to you “I’m afraid”, you use those

10/ words to tell me and other worried women to STFU. You still haven’t shown me anything that calms my fears.I hate and grieve that I couldn’t protect my daughter from all the things that men have done, and still do, to women and I hate that I’m now terrified that I’m not going

11/ to be able to protect my granddaughter either.I hate that I hate, but you’re pushing me in to a corner I can only get out of by fighting.

Thanks to all of you who have left such lovely messages. I genuinely didn't think anyone would read this far less respond and I'm no Twitter expert so, kind of building the aeroplane while learning to fly. But I need to say, that I don't feel like a victim or a survivor.

I think there are many women who experienced much worse things than me and most of us just let it be absorbed in to our lives and carry on day by day. We DON'T talk about it and that silence is taken to mean that it didn't happen or that it doesn't matter.

Maybe we ALL need to start telling our stories. I'll happily bet the grandweans' inheritance that most, if not all, of the women around you have experiences they've never shared, somethimes (often?) because they haven't even recognised they've been abused.

Maybe then people will accept we're afraid. Not hateful