Erasure

Erasure

What happens when they rewrite what you are

I was at Lincoln Center not long ago. I walked into the public restroom, used the stall, came out to wash my hands. Normal. Routine. Something I have done a thousand times.

Except this time, standing at the sink next to me, was a man.

Not because he had walked in by mistake. Because the sign on the door now says all genders. Because the space that was once just for women is no longer just for women.

And as I stood there, he watched me. They do. And I finished washing my hands and I did not fix my hair or touch up my makeup the way I normally would because I did not feel comfortable.

Because the ladies room has always been something of a sacred space. Not in a grand way. Just in a real way. It is where women retreat from dinner dates for five minutes to catch their breath. Where girlfriends crowd around the mirror together and talk and laugh. Where you check yourself before walking back out into the world. It is not a place where you expect to be watched. It is the one room where you are just among your own.

And honestly, I think some men feel uncomfortable with these policies too. This was not designed for anyone's comfort. It was designed to make a point. And the people paying the price for that point are women who just wanted to fix their lipstick in peace.

That moment has stayed with me. Not because it was dramatic. But because it was so ordinary. So accepted. So completely unremarkable to everyone around me. As if nothing had changed.

But something had changed. Something keeps changing. And I think it is time to say what it actually is.

It is erasure.

What it means to be a woman

I want to talk about what a biological woman actually is. Not as a political statement. As a lived reality.

When I was 49 I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. I had a hysterectomy. But the decision didn't happen overnight. It took years. Years of monthly pain that got progressively worse. Years of trying everything — different treatments, different approaches — hoping something would work. Nothing did. And slowly, five or six days a month, I started to feel helpless. Unable to function. Unable to be the mother my daughter needed me to be.

But there was something else making the decision so hard. I wasn't sure I was done trying for a second child. I am 61 now, so I know how that sounds. But at the time it was real. Choosing a hysterectomy meant closing a door that could never be reopened. That kind of finality is its own grief. There is no going back. There is no maybe someday. There is only the weight of a choice you have to make while your body is failing you and your heart hasn't fully let go yet.

I waited. And waited. Because I wasn't ready. And the pain kept getting worse. And eventually I had no choice left.

That is not abstract. That is not a concept or a feeling or an identity. That is something that happened inside my body because I am a biological woman. The suffering and the strength of it are not separate things. They are the same thing.

I know what it is to count days on a calendar and hold your breath. To stand in a bathroom staring at a pregnancy test and feel your whole life balance on two minutes. To be so bloated that nothing fits and you have somewhere to be. To plan your entire day around what kind of day it is going to be. To feel pain so consuming that you wonder how you are going to get through the next hour.

A biological male will never feel any of that. Not one moment of it. Not the cramps, not the counting, not the grief of a door closing on something you weren't ready to let go of. Never.

And yet Tampax, a company that exists because of the biological female body, gave an advertising campaign to a trans influencer. A man who identifies as a woman. Who will never need a tampon. Not once.

I am not saying this with hatred toward that person. I am saying it with grief. Because what Tampax said, without using these words, is that the actual experience of being a biological woman is no longer necessary to represent biological women. That we can be replaced. That our experience is interchangeable.

That is erasure.

And then there are the athletes. The girls who trained for years. Who woke up at five in the morning. Who pushed their bodies to their absolute limit. Who stood on the starting block next to someone who was born male, went through male puberty, developed a male body, and then was allowed to compete against them. And lost. And were told to be quiet about it. Were told that saying anything made them intolerant.

Those girls were erased too. Their years of work. Their shot at a scholarship. Their moment. Gone. And we were supposed to celebrate.

Then they came for the words

The state of New York, where I live, passed a law. In official government language, a woman who gives birth is no longer referred to as a female. She is referred to as the gestated.

I want you to sit with that for a moment.

The gestated.

The most profound thing a human body can do — carry and bring a life into this world — has been reduced to a bureaucratic term so neutral it could apply to anything. Because calling her a woman, a mother, a female, might make someone else uncomfortable.

So she gets erased instead.

This is not progress. This is not inclusion. This is the dismantling of something that took generations of real women to build and protect. And it is happening in real time, in the state I live in, signed into law by people who were elected to represent me.

I have seen this before

Here is what I cannot stop thinking about.

What is happening to women right now is the same thing that is happening to America.

The same playbook. The same pattern.

I grew up putting my hand on my heart without anyone having to explain why. The pledge of allegiance. The flag. I was 12 years old during the bicentennial and I remember what it felt like — the pride, the celebration, the sense that being American was something extraordinary and worth honoring. Nobody called it political. It was just true.

Now I run a small business. My logo is a cross, an American flag, and a lion. And I have been told it is political. As if loving your country is now a position that requires a disclaimer.

That is not an accident. Pride in this country has been deliberately made to feel like something you need to defend or apologize for. Our history is being rewritten in classrooms. The monuments that reminded us where we came from are coming down. Our Christian heritage — the foundation that shaped the laws, the culture and the character of this nation — is being treated as something embarrassing. Something to move past.

And the American ideal I grew up believing in — the person who gets up, goes to work, raises a family, takes care of their own, and does not ask the government to do it for them — that person is being replaced in our culture with dependency, victimhood, and the idea that someone else owes you something simply for existing.

When I imagine my grandchildren growing up, the thing that breaks my heart most is not any single policy or law. It is the thought that they might never feel what I felt at 12 years old. That uncomplicated love of country. That natural, unashamed pride in the flag. That belief in God and family and the idea that if you work hard and live right, this country will meet you halfway.

Those things are being erased the same way the word woman is being erased. Take something with a specific identity, a specific history, a specific set of values that took generations to build. Rename it. Redefine it. Teach the next generation to be ashamed of it. And call anyone who objects a bigot.

A woman is not a birthing person.

And America is not just a geographical location where anyone who arrives gets to rewrite what it means.

Both are being told to shrink. To accept a new name. To pretend that nothing of value was lost.

They told women they needed the government to define them. They told America the same thing.

I refuse both.

What faith asks of us here

You cannot fight erasure with silence. Silence is how erasure wins.

The only answer to being told you do not exist, or that what you are can be redefined by people who have never lived it, is to say clearly and without apology: I am here. I know what I am. And I will not pretend otherwise to make you comfortable.

That is not hate. That is not intolerance. That is the most basic act of self-respect. And I believe it is also a matter of faith. I believe I was created as a woman intentionally. I believe this country was founded with a purpose. I believe both of those things matter and that both are worth defending, not with weapons, not with hatred, but with the courage to keep saying what is true even when the world keeps insisting otherwise.

They can change the laws. They can change the language. They can put all gender signs on every bathroom in New York City.

They cannot change what I know to be true. And neither can they change what you know.

So say it. Say it clearly. Say it without apology.

Because the only thing more dangerous than erasure is the silence that allows it.

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With faith and conviction,
— Christine
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Have you felt this erasure in your own life? I want to hear from you in the comments. And if this resonated, please share it. Someone in your life needs to read this today.

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