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Women (Including Trans Women) Have the Right to Dick-less Spaces

Trans women are also raped and also need to feel safe

Shefali O'Hara
3 min readApr 1, 2022
Photo by Jorge Saavedra on Unsplash

The first time I realized that the woman washing her hands next to me in a public bathroom was a trans person was over a decade ago. I am sure I had shared spaces with trans people prior to that, but I’d never noticed.

On that particular occasion, when I did notice, the only reason I could tell she was a trans person — she had an Adam’s apple. When she saw me look at it, she froze and looked scared.

So I smiled at her and made the normal female chit chat and she relaxed, smiled back, and made a little small talk before we both went on our merry way. She was frankly quite pretty, tall, elegant, and well dressed.

Since then, I’ve shared bathrooms with several trans women. It’s never been an issue.

Prior to the pandemic, I voluntarily taught art classes to at risk students at a local high school. Many of my students were trans. Some shared with me how they’d been bullied. I tried to speak up for them when I could and made sure my classes offered them a safe place.

As a classic liberal, I believe in the rights of all people. This includes trans people.

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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