In 2015 I was told “You’re not a man”. I’m now going through all my evidence of abuse and after listening to the recording of that, I started to ponder.
If I had said “You’re not a woman”, then I imagine the response would a confused look, an assumption that I was unsuccessfully trying to be abusive and insulting, but also an angry request to clarify what I meant. Did I mean that she does not have female genitals? Did I mean that she is not conforming to the gender stereotype of a woman? Do I mean that she’s an uncaring person or maybe that she’s a bad mother? It wouldn’t necessarily be obvious what I was trying to say. – Even so, a seemingly reasonable and useful response might be “Oh, I didn’t know that. How would I be different if I was a woman?”
But she said “You’re not a man” and my clarifying questions at the time weren’t answered enough for me to have much of an idea what she meant. She seemed to be very confident that she was right and had said similar things many times in the past.
So here I am introducing myself to the world.
I am Knot Aman, I live in Queensland, Australia, and I’m here to tell my story.
