+Although I lack relevant lived experience, I suspect this is _wildly_ overestimating the _ideological_ component of women's discomfort around men. I agree that certain very overt kinds of harrassment (the kind that involves yelling slurs or obcenities) can be attributed to sexist subcultures of _machismo_ and toxic masculinity. Unfortunately, I fear the [threat model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threat_model) is a little bit subtler and more expansive than that.
+
+[TODO: expand on the expanded threat model, marginalism]
+
+Maybe you want to bite that bullet. But you should at least _acknowledge_ the existence of the bullet, once someone points it out. And if you want to call yourself a rationalist, maybe try to proactively look for the bullet
+
+-----
+
+I think there's a more general lesson underlying these kinds of discussions. If you want to get through life without _verbally_ acknowledging the concept of biological sex, then you _can_ get away with it.
+
+If the object of discussion is a large, undeniable, binary sex difference, you can always say, "Oh, that's a mere policy question that can be handled on the basis of more specific details of that particular use-case." So, for example, we can agree with people with prostates should get prostate cancer screenings as they get older, without necessarily reifying that category of people as 'men' or 'males'.
+
+And if the object of discussion is a small, statistical sex difference, you can always point out (correctly! importantly!), "Some cis people of that gender are like that, too!"
+
+Does the fact that it's possible to scrupulously rephrase any individual sentence to elide sex imply that the corresponding mental _representation_ of the concept of 'sex' is of little practical use? I don't think so, and I've tried, within the limits of my time and my writing ability, to explain why. But if some readers still aren't convinced—well, maybe I can live with that.
+
+[...]