Something stupid and little happened last Thursday evening. Only it wasn’t stupid and little, it was actually really violent and continues to plague my mind.

I was at a sporting event, playing a sport at which I re-define the word “terrible.” My team was on defense and I was safely tucked away in a position where I could do little harm to anyone. A member of the opposite team, a close acquaintance of sorts, had just struck out and proceeded to unleash a chain of prolific and inventive swearing.

Partly in jest, I informed him that there were ladies present, to which two of my teammates standing across the pitch from each other, and loud enough so the entire playing field could hear, returned with something approximating, “Yeah, there’s ladies and then there’s Natalie.”

At the time I said nothing, even though it bothered me immensely. I let it stew the rest of the night before I obliquely wrote one of the gentlemen a message informing him of my displeasure. As I write this, the violence of demolishing my femininity as a joke, as something for the boys to laugh at, just because I happen to not fit those familiar tropes of what an immature and imbecilic 22-year-old would consider to be “feminine,” just makes me want to … hell, I don’t even know anymore.

I am used to having my being challenged on the grounds of race: I have impressive and tested mechanisms that deal with the casual cruelty of that behavior: but this? I thought my society, at least the society I choose to associate myself with, was past this type of behavior. I am not blonde and pretty with legs up to my chin. I am opinionated, reasonably intelligent and assertive, and I will never regard my life as incomplete if I don’t end up with that bullshit version of “happily ever after” that always seems to involve a prince but never seems to include a rewarding career that contributes meaningfully to the world and incredible life-long friendships.

And yet I am a woman, all 5’3″ of me, and despite all of those personality traits I hold (and visual ones I don’t), that men are wont to appropriate as “natural” for their own gender expression and as “abnormal” for mine, I remain a woman. And yet, two gentlemen, one of whom in his own words has professed to “respecting me” on more than one occasion, saw fit to filet my being wide open in public with the casual violence of a sociopath.

I wish I had said something right then, something equally cruel, equally cutting, equally violent, and then left. I wish I could never associate with those boys (and that is what they are) nor anyone on that team who was amused at that particular brand of humor, but I guess one of the great tragedies of this world is that we don’t have that choice, most of growing up is learning to function with people who will never see you as equal or good enough and learning not to make yourself crazy by chasing their unreachable expectations.

That said, men, just because you don’t want to fuck her doesn’t mean she is automatically not a female, just as someone being black doesn’t automatically exempt them from being human (well, at least to most people). Humor that attacks or annihilates facets of another’s inherent self is not funny, it is brutal, sadistic, abominable and heartless and it has the power to seriously and permanently damage people.

However, if that’s the person you want to be, I suggest you keep your distance from me because I will not be caught by surprise again and you will receive your own treatment times 10. The time for “turning the other cheek” has passed. I will no longer passively accept the damage of my person any longer with a smile and a shrug. And you fellow students should cease putting up with that behavior in your own lives. If you know an individual that resembles the two toxic gentlemen I described above, jettison those cretins and go on about your life. Always choose quality over quantity and substance over appearance.