This country has fallen victim to progressivism on many levels, many vehicles are used to drive this agenda, and one that I have become closely involved with is the transgender movement. It seems on the surface to be about acceptance, or the right to use the bathroom, but as I have delved deeper into these types of issues, it has become clear that it is fundamentally something more.

I am what the transgender community calls “cisgender,” meaning my brain connects with my biological sex. I just call myself a woman.

I am also a lead in a group called Keep Locker Rooms Safe and we are working to repeal an ambiguous rule that was pushed onto the state by a group of unelected bureaucrats without consulting the public. This rule allows anyone to use the restroom of their choice. It prevents anyone from saying anything if a man is in the women’s locker room or bathroom. It restricts speech, and endangers the vulnerable. As open opponents of this rule, we are constantly subjected to threats, hate mail, attempts to discredit us, name calling, bullying, outright slander and accusations of hate toward trans people.

Desiring to cross lines, I spent an afternoon having coffee with two trans individuals who had asked to meet with folks who oppose this rule. I looked forward to hearing their concerns and fears and vice versa. The invite seemed sincere, a true desire to hear the other side, to perhaps come to some understanding of one another.

It wasn’t.

Demands were made of me. I was told that I need to renounce my support of legislators who have worked to repeal the rule (I won’t), I was told that I need to publicly say that transwomen are really women (they aren’t). If these demands were not met, this person insisted that it meant that I hate trans people. (I don’t).

I was told that I do not get to decide on the rights of a minority group (I am African American, ironically), I was told that the rights of the minority supersede the majority.

I was called paranoid, bigoted and transphobic (funny, there I sat with two trans people … pretty phobic, I suppose). I was told my safety does not matter, because, per some statistics a transgender person is supposed to be at greater risk of harm than I. I was told that they are at greater risk of harm than little girls who may be caught unawares in a locker room face to face with a grown man.

I was told that I am hateful because I do not want my child or sisters exposed to the genitals of the opposite sex. How dare I make choices for what I want my Child to be exposed to, and when?

The demands that I validate their reality, their “womanness” made me wonder about why they needed my validation. Is it because they know they are not, nor never can, truly be women?

This experience showed me the crushing narcissism of the trans movement, the dictatorial attitude of the trans agenda. It has nothing to do with going to the bathroom or locker room. It has everything to do with forcing EVERYONE to agree with how someone lives their life, up to and including subjugating my beliefs and comfort level and safety. I was now victim of the ultimate bullying; “if you don’t do or think or say this or agree with me, than you hate me and want to hurt me, so now I can justify hating and hurting you.”

It reaffirmed for me that progressive thought does not allow for freedom or growth or liberty. It is the bullying and hammering of one side demanding that everyone agree with them, their subjective reality, under point of gun. If I do not believe that a man who takes hormones and lives like a woman, is suddenly a woman, I am a bigot. Why must I bend to their will or be damned? Why should I pander to subjective reality? I’m done being bullied.

My position is that you live your life as you please, but if you infringe upon my safety or the safety of others, I draw the line. Where are we, as a country, going to draw the line?

Autumn Bennett,

Bremerton.