We too often dismiss misogyny as "child's play."

When we fail to name everyday policing of gender roles and expressions, we normalize inequality and violence.

We can disrupt this cycle by calling out even seemingly small sexist behaviors.

This post is Part 2 of a series. Read Part 1 here.

Too many of us are afraid of sounding “woke,” boring, provocative, irritating, or radical if we point out everyday acts of gender policing. We avoid getting the response, “Ugh, this again?”

I, for one, have noticed this fear and cynicism brewing in myself over the past decade.

Sparked by the devastating losses of queer youth to suicide in the early 2010s, I consistently wrote and spoke publicly, for years, about the connections between patriarchy, misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. For clinical journals and popular media, I wrote dozens of articles with titles like “Bully Gets ‘Girl'” and “Don’t Act, Don’t Tell,” a phrase I developed to illuminate the social regulation that demands gender conformity in appearance and mannerisms—mainly in males—to avoid prejudice and discrimination (O'Connell, 2012).

(Along these lines, in her new book, Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism, Cynthia Miller-Idriss cites studies showing that while American youth are increasingly more accepting of same-sex sex, being a “fag”—displaying nonconforming gender expressions—continues to be met with harassment. (Miller-Idriss, 2025; Mittleman, 2023).

But gradually, I got quieter.

The backlash to my observations seemed less and less worth the effort. I grew tired of increasingly circular debates with family and friends about whether or not misogyny and homophobia were even real. Straight men in my life would insist that "everyone gets called 'faggot,'" and that I should "get over" myself. Some male clients would begin couples therapy combatively (“I guess you’re gonna see me as the ‘bad guy’”) and then proceed to........

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