What Emiliya Said: an open letter to Emiliya Shishkova/Azch
The trend of ‘transvestigating’ cis women like me
Some people are unkind. That’s just a fact of life. If you’re online, you’ll encounter trolls, bullies, and people who will go out of your way to make up miserable. We’re told to shrug it off, so what? But I’m not being silent about it; I’m choosing to speak out about Emiliya Shishkova, or Emily Azch, as she’s alternatively known, and what she did to me today. I did a quick google search, pulled up what I could, to see whether there was some mental health disorder or condition I should be wary of before writing this. A kindness Emiliya, it will shock you to hear, does not extend to her victims. A moment of clarity she didn’t take before she decided to bring up my deepest, most intense fear and most painful childhood memory. So I’m writing this for you, Emiliya. This is for you. I’m writing this so you know what your words did.
What had I done to make you want to hurt me so much, Emiliya?
This is the article I wrote, if you’ve forgotten. It wasn’t controversial: just some standard advice on how to interact with a man you had a crush on if you were a woman. Be yourself, I said. Don’t play games or hard to get. Did that offend you? Why? Perhaps you’re just one of those people who leaves nasty remarks under everything. Maybe you think it doesn’t matter, that people like me should just toughen up. Maybe you enjoy a little fleeting moment of power, knowing you’ve upset someone else. Do you not have power, in your own life? Do you feel frustrated and angry? Is that it? I’m trying to understand, Emiliya. I want to know what motivated you to do this.
Because I’m not trans, am I, Emiliya? I’m a cisgender woman.
No where, in any of my writing, have I ever said or ever implied anything else. I don’t even cover transgender issues, so why you would honestly think I was born a man is redundant: you were trying to be cruel. Trying to be unpleasant. Trying to bring me down and remove my womanhood, my self esteem, my worth. Trying to make me frightened about my appearance, trying to encourage other people to come after me with transphobia and disgust. That’s what you wanted. You wanted me to feel ugly, to feel vulnerable, to feel scared. “Men do this to women, not the other way around! Once a man, always a man!” you crowed, in the comments, to imply I didn’t understand or ‘pass’ for being a woman.
You were so angry you left other comments, too. I didn’t read those: probably the same diatribe, accusing me of something unpleasant, wasn’t it Emiliya? My article really made you mad. Did you think because I was being slightly, slightly critical of women who play games when dating, I was a man? Did you think I didn’t write about men who abuse, assault, and harm women, did your rage and indignation overwhelm you?
I don’t know you: I don’t know what motivated you today.
Shall I tell you about me, Emiliya, and why you hurt me so much?
Hi Emiliya, I’m Madelaine, or Mads to my closest friends, and I’m 28. I’m a (born, cis) woman born in the UK, and I have three sisters and a brother. I went to a tiny Quaker boarding school, then UCL. I love painting, poetry, and history. My parents were stockbrokers, they’ve retired. I’m from a mixed background of immigrants and East Enders. I’m 5ft 7, I have very dark brown hair, and I’m bisexual. This feels like we’re pen pals, doesn’t it Emiliya? If only under happier circumstances.
What you don’t know, Emiliya, is you’re not the first person to accuse me of being a man. As a gay woman, I’ve faced shame, abuse, and violence my whole life for liking women: fancying a girl made me a man. As an abuse survivor as a child, I used to hide my body in loose clothes and refuse to wear make up or a bra to avoid attention from boys and male adults, earning me accusations of being a man, just like you did today.
The bullying and harassment was so bad that I didn’t eat lunch for five years because I was terrified of being around my abusers. I developed an eating disorder as a result; I’d refuse to eat in public and then binge because I hadn’t eaten and was starving. To avoid the taunts of “Manly Maddie”, I learnt to wear a full face of make up at all times. Even today, I can’t leave the house without make up, and thanks to your comment today, you’ve made that worse. I can’t wear jeans or trousers because I’m so traumatised by the idea of being misgendered like I was as a little girl.
Comments like “get in the oven, Jew!” and “would they have send you to the men’s camps or the women’s gas chambers, Maddie?” and pulling my thick dark hair, leading to a compulsion to straightening it that I only finally got over at 26. My dark body hair made me another target as a ‘man’, making gym impossible: I still can’t go outside without wearing tights. They’d mock my nose shape, saying I had a ‘Jew man’s face’ resulting in me having six separate liquid nose jobs in my early twenties.
Again, Emiliya, I was born a woman. I am a woman. I have periods, I can get pregnant, I need cervical exams to check for cancer, and I have ovaries. I just didn’t feel the need to tell the whole world that, until your behaviour today.
I felt, finally, that I looked good. Pretty. Like a woman.
You triggered all that abuse, all that pain, all that fear, all over again today. I blocked you, first. Trembling, I went to make myself a cup of coffee to calm down. But the trauma was overwhelming. I had wanted to get dressed, do my hair and make up, and go on a date tonight: now I felt everyone would be staring at me. Thinking I was a man. I felt like a freak today, now, thanks to what you decided to spend your Saturday doing to random women online.
Hot tears ran down my face, as I remembered how it felt as a child trying to wear anything to hide my chest from men so men would stop touching me. Tweezing out my eyebrows until they bled so boys in my class would stop insulting me for being ‘hairy like a man’. Having my skirts pulled up in public so the boys could ‘check’ whether I had a penis.
I wasn’t able to go outside, today, Em. You’d stirred up too much.
Will you apologise? Are you even sorry?
Will you keep accusing women you disagree with of being secretly transgender or men, even though you now know it is extremely triggering and upsetting for so many of us?
I doubt it. You’ll call me a crazy over-emotional woman looking for self pity and who took things too personally, and it wasn’t that offensive. Maybe you’ll get a little army of trolls together to post how ugly I am under every single article.
But maybe one person reading this will behave better on Medium today.
